Page 42 of The Chance

Me:You should have been there.

With a downturn to my lips, I swipe it away and find us a meeting for my shirtless best friend.

“I’m proud of you,” I say to Toby in front of what I think is a church and he breaks away from my hold.

His nod is jerky, his focus on the doors in front of him.

“You don’t have to come in,” he finally says with a tightness to his features. It’s private. Guarded. So, I nod and squeeze his shoulder.

“I’ll be right here.”

A tilt to his chin leads him into the building and leaves me standing here with nowhere to put my hands.

Another cigarette is between my lips a moment later, my back resting against the brick, a foot cocked up beneath me.

Movement across the street catches my attention, a flash of orange hair shining in the bleak darkness, and I shake my head. How that man manages to seem invisible when he looks more like a rock star than me, I still can’t comprehend.

He doesn’t approach and I don’t call him over.

Things with Peach got weird when we left home and they haven’t gotten any better with each night that I end up in the hallway, asleep but moving, and I can’t blame him for keeping his distance.

He looks as tired as I feel.

Tension in my muscles has me switching to my other foot and flexing my hands, my phone digging into my thigh when I bend it so, I fish it out of my pocket.

The screen lights up some ungodly hour with an a.m. behind it and I silently curse—

It’s ringing.

Well, vibrating because the sound of a ringer drives me fucking insane, but it’s alerting me of the incoming call that’s got my stomach dropping.

Jordan.

I accept before I can think it through.

My gut twists up.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Why did I do that?

“Vida, hey.”

My eyes slide closed at the relief I hear in his tone. “Hey,” I mutter tightly and pinch the bridge of my nose.

I was doing so good leaving him on read the last few weeks. Not responding, mostly. Keeping this distance between us that wounds me as much as it relieves me because if he’s not in my face then at least I can pretend that everything is normal. Thathe’s just off doing other bodyguard shit and not avoiding being with me.

That there isn’t this awkwardness hanging heavy over the line every time he’s called.

“Clips from your show are already all over the web.”

That clenching in my stomach only gets worse.

Did he see my videos—

I have to stop this.

This unhealthy obsession with someone I’ll never have feels like a pin popping through my chest all hours of the night and day.

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