Page 62 of The Chance

Chapter Forty-One

Mac

The hellfire temperature doesnothing to ease the tension radiating through my body. It’s like this living, festering thing that has grown wider, darker, with each day.

Give me three days…

The heel of my tender palm digs into my sternum, yet it does nothing to ease the ache behind it.

Tell me why, I beg the universe.Tell me why and I will.

Fuck, I would.

Even if he’d told me it was because he was curious. Needed to feel things out.

As his best friend … I could do that. Even after all this time, I would do that for him. It would break me, but I’m already fucking broken.

Could I really make this any worse?

It’s a weak excuse and I know it. I’d just be choosing him all over again with no regard to my own lost sanity.

So why not let him use me?

I dip my head into the water and let it seep through my hair, straighten the curls until they hang limp in my tear-tracked face.

I stay like that until I’m numb enough that the scent of my soap fades into something else.

Even longer when I hear a thud.

Goddammit, Rex.

Slapping the water off, I wrap a towel around my waist and push my hair back from my eyes.

Thud.

Growling, I pad through my room, the cold air biting at each droplet on my skin as I all but storm in the direction of the noise.

I love my brother. I swear I do. And yet, I want to murder him for his newfound obsession with creeping into my space when I didn’t ask him to be there and demanding my attention. His happy is too much to deal with when mine refuses to let me touch it. When it keeps its distance. Bares its teeth when I get too close.

“Rex, I fuckin’ swear—”

I freeze when I see a broad set of shoulders that donotbelong to my brother flex as the man reaches for another cabinet he lets slam closed with a thud.

“You hungry, Vida?” All I can do is blink at the backward cap. “When’s the last time you ate?”

My jaw clenches.

My heart pinches as I watch Jordan work his way around my kitchen as if I didn’t leave him dumbfounded on the tarmac only a few hours ago with tears in my eyes and an ache so damn deep. It pangs as he fills my dead apartment with life, with the scent of something that makes my mouth water as much as he does.

Gimme three days.

And it damn near stops when he turns around, his eyes landing on my bare chest and flaring.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl out before just the sight of him kills me and cross my arms.

“Uhm—” He swallows, his cheeks coloring with a slight pink that I swear will not become my new favorite as his eyes snap to mine.

It’s hard to replace navy blue.

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