Page 80 of The Chance

“Mac,” I rush out and he pauses halfway through the opening, though he still won’t look at me. “I …” My hands shake and my chest feels like it might explode. “I wouldn’t take any of it back.”

“Why?”

“Because … I …”

“Jordan.”

“BecauseI like you.”

Chapter Fifty

Mac

“Like me?” I scoffthough my eyes areburning, my heart pulverized in the blender that is my chest. “Jordan, Ilove you.” I let my gaze collide with his shock-wide eyes and it takes everything in me to hold myself back. To stop my lip from wobbling. To keep the tears at bay. To keep myself from going to him.

Because as much as he keeps protesting … thisisabout him.

It’s his life. His sexuality. His closet to find his way out of, or not.

Even if it’s killing me.

“Mac,” he rasps out and steps closer.

He leans down, kneeling in front of me for the second time today.

I have to stop this. Him. Before there’s nothing left of me.

His hands are on my face before I can escape him, his lips crashing into mine.

I let him kiss me and I lean in, giving it everything I have as his tongue sweeps along mine. Licking right back, I ignore the way my eyes leak and my chest rips wide open.

This is it. This is all it will ever be.

Stolen kisses and secret fucks. Forever behind closed doors. Hidden away in the closet that I swore I’d never step the fuck back into.

A gasp rushes past his lips when I pull back and cup his face.

“I’m fucking sick of giving you the chance to catch up. You won’t, and that’s okay.”

A pain-filled noise escapes his nose, and I shake my head. “Can’t y—”

“It’s okay, baby,” I murmur through the thickness in my throat to his red-rimmed and glassy eyes. “One day you’ll figure it out, or you won’t.” I lift a shoulder though it feels like the weight of the world has settled on them and force a shaky smile. “But I can’t let you use me to do it. Not anymore.”

“But Mac …”

He sniffs and I go numb.

“I’ll see you when we get back.”

Chapter Fifty-One

Jordan

Rain pelts the pavementjust outside the glass I’m perched in front of for what feels like the thousandth hour and does nothing to dispel the crease in my brow or the burn in my chest.

All I see is Mac. Standing there with the tears in his eyes mixing with the moisture from the sky. All I hear is his voice begging me over the sound of the storm.

This one is worse than that day, but it’s still there. Clinging to my subconscious as a reminder of what I fucked up.

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