Desperate Chances

by A. Meredith Walters

  “Oh you’ve been clear ,all right. We’ll be like old friends who’ve drifted apart. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Then you call me in the middle of the night and tell me you miss me! What am I supposed to do with that, Mitch? Up and down. That’s how you always are! You say you want us to act like old friends. Well, buddy, we were never just friends. Isn’t that what you told me once?”

  Mitch’s lips thinned and his jaw tightened. “Don’t throw my words back in my face. I said that shit under very different circumstances!”

  “Right. You said it right before we had sex!” Mitch flinched but I didn’t stop. “We had sex, Mitch and I freaked out. I pushed you away. I acted like a selfish, immature asshole and I’m sorry! I wish like hell I could take it back but I can’t. I knew you loved me and I treated you like dirt. I get why you’re angry. Why you’ve put this wall up between us. But don’t you dare tell me that we have to behave like friends who’ve drifted apart but then look at me like you do and hold my hand and tell me you miss me!” Tears sprang to my eyes and I didn’t wipe them away as they started to slide down my cheeks.

  “I don’t know what to think, Mitch! I’m just really confused. Because sometimes it feels like it used to be between us. I feel it in here,” I laid my hand over my heart. “But then in the next breath you tell me that you have to go and meet Sophie and I feel like you’re using her as a weapon to punish me!” Mitch closed his eyes and looked like he was about to either cry or scream.

  “She’s your girlfriend. You’ve told me that enough times. So why do I feel like that’s not what you want?” I whispered, all the fight draining out of me.

  I said what I needed to say. The rest was on him.

  Mitch wouldn’t look at me. His chest was heaving as though he were struggling to control himself.

  “What do you want, Mitch?” I watched him. Waiting. Unsure. Uneasy.

  “What do you want?” I repeated.

  Mitch finally opened his eyes and I could see that they were wet. “You. God help me, I just want you,” he breathed and then we were reaching for each other.

  His mouth crashed into mine and I was lost.

  We existed in between.

  In stolen moments and desperate chances. In forgotten looks and missed opportunities.

  But right now we were an absolute. There was no questioning how we felt. We would consume each other or die trying.

  I had forgotten how intoxicating he was. How it felt to kiss him and know that I was loved more than anything.

  He wrapped his arms around me and I dug my fingers into his back. We were close but not close enough. Not for me. Not for him.

  His lips slanted over mine, his tongue sweeping inside. Our teeth clanked together in our haste.

  For a little while nothing else mattered.

  Just Mitch and Gracie.

  Gracie and Mitch.

  The way it was always supposed to be.

  But…

  I pulled away, covering my mouth with my hand, horrified at the both of us.

  “You have to go meet your girlfriend,” I reminded him, feeling sick.

  Mitch’s eyes, hazed with passion and wanting, cleared and he curled his hands—hands that had only moments before been holding me—into fists. “I should go.”

  “This just made everything worse, didn’t it?” I asked, choking on my words.

  “I don’t know. I’ve got to think, Gracie. I just can’t—” He shook his head. “I’ve got to go.”

  “All right,” I murmured, grabbing my things and climbing out of his car.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes sad as he looked at me.

  “Me too,” I replied, closing the door.

  Mitch didn’t pull away immediately. He waited until I walked into the apartment building before he took off down the road.

  And all I could do was go upstairs, lock myself away in my room, and cry for everything that almost was.

  I slammed my palm against the steering wheel as hard as I could.

  Fucking moron!

  What in the hell had I been thinking?

  Gracie was right, I was a mess! I was saying one thing and doing another! It was like I had multiple personalities.

  My phone buzzed with an incoming text. I glanced at where it lay in the center console and thought about running far, far away.

  Are you coming over? You were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago.

  Sophie.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  God damn it!

  I had kissed Gracie.

  Jesus, had I kissed her.

  And it had been the most incredible, mind-melting kiss.

  Not only that but we had spent time together and it was fun. It was just like how we used to be. Without the watching her get drunk and go home with other guys part.

  The Gracie she had been lately was the Gracie I had fallen in love with. Sarcastic. Funny. Easy to be around. I remembered how I had dismissed her in the beginning as a flaky college girl only to find out later that she was so much more.

  She was smart. She didn’t advertise the fact that she had almost perfect GPA the entire time she was in school. She wrote amazing stories that she sometimes would let me read. But she was guarded about them, almost as though she were afraid for people to see that side of her.

  But she let me see it.

  Just me.

  I loved seeing her in her element today. Interviewing Mrs. Wagner and later taking pictures of the garden. She enjoyed her job. She felt like she was doing something worthwhile. She was happy.

  And again, she shared that with me.

  So I had let my guard down. The guard that I had only erected after she had pushed me away. One that was meant to keep her out.

  And I touched her. I held her hand. I told her I fucking missed her.

  And then to complicate an already overly complicated situation, I kissed her. And she had kissed me back.

  I could still feel the imprint of her fingers on my back.

  Then she had gotten pissed. She had accused me of being wishy-washy. And she had gotten out of my car and walked away.

  Again.

  But this time, I really freaking deserved it.

  Because I was a royal dickweed.

  I turned down a tree-lined road and stopped in front of a small cape cod house with a white picket fence. When I parked I quickly typed out a response to Sophie and hit send and then got out of the car.

  “Hey, man,” a voice called out. I found Jordan on the porch, scraping off paint from around the windows on the door. His T-shirt was splattered with paint and a bucket and brush sat at his feet.

  “Look at you getting all domestic,” I joked, kicking the empty bucket with my boot.

  “Who woulda thunk it, right?” Jordan shrugged, dropped the scrapper into the bucket and picking it up.

  “So Maysie finally got her picket fence, huh?” I asked with a smile, following him into the house.

  “As you know, what Maysie wants, Maysie gets,” Jordan replied, closing the door behind me and turning on the foyer light.

  “This is a great place,” I said, looking around.

  “Thanks. I know it’s not some mansion in Beverly Hills with a pool or anything, but we love it. It’s got a big yard, plenty of room and Maysie has her whirlpool bathtub. We’re happy.” He flipped on the kitchen light and opened the refrigerator and offered me a beer.

  I took it and popped the cap, tossing it into the red and white checked trashcan that Maysie obviously picked out. “So what brings you to our neck of the woods? Didn’t I just see your sorry ass this morning?” he asked, tipping back his beer and drinking most of it in one gulp.

  He was right. I had just seen him this morning when he came by with more donuts from Maysie. We had tried to jam a bit but with the looming weight of our impending call with Pirate, neither of us was in much of a mood to play.

  “Just doing some thinking. Thought I’d come by and check out the new digs,” I remar
ked offhandedly, sitting down on one of the stools at the island.

  “You’ve got that line between your eyebrows. You must be thinking pretty hard then,” Jordan observed with amusement.

  “Wrinkles are a dead giveaway, huh?”

  “Yep. ’Fraid so. They give you a way every time. Your brow gets all furrowed and you look like your channeling your inner Luke Perry. It’s very angsty,” Jordan stated blandly and I tossed his beer cap at his face. It bounced off his cheek and rolled onto the floor, where he promptly picked it up and threw it away.

  “Maysie would have ripped you a new one if she had found it, huh?” I deduced and Jordan made a cutting motion across his throat with his finger.

  “I would have been a dead man.”

  “Oh how times have changed, Piper,” I chuckled, purposefully using his old nickname. A nickname that didn’t carry any weight anymore. He wasn’t the Pied Piper of Pussy anymore. He was a one pussy dude.

  Jordan cupped the back of his neck and looked around the brightly decorated kitchen, a look of disbelief on his face. “If you had told me four years ago that I’d be living in a Cape Cod with a white fence out front about to become a dad, I would have laughed in your face.”

  I sputtered and almost choked on my mouthful of beer. I quickly swallowed and wiped my lips with the back of my hand. “Hold up right there! What did you just say?”

  Jordan grabbed another couple of beers from the refrigerator and laid them on the counter. “Maysie’s pregnant.”

  My eyes almost bugged out of my head. “Fucking hell! Are you serious? How long have you known?”

  This changed absolutely everything. And from the look on Jordan’s face he knew that too.

  “Two weeks. Maysie took a test right after she got back from the concert in Norfolk.” Jordan took a sip of his beer. “That’s why we wanted to move in here. We needed the room. We wanted a place to raise a family. We wanted a home.”

  I slowly peeled the paper off my bottle. “So what does that mean for the Rejects then?”

  I knew the answer. He didn’t have to tell me. I saw it written all over his face. Jordan Levitt may look like a tatted up badass but when it came to Maysie, he was nothing but heart. He loved that woman. And now he was going to be a dad. That turned his world—and by association ours—on its head.

  “Maysie’s been awesome about the band. She’s been completely supportive—” Jordan began.

  “She’s been great. We couldn’t have done it without her. Especially in the beginning.” And it was true. She had been integral in marketing the Rejects and getting our names out there. Before we had a manager she set up interviews, worked with my cousin Josh to get gigs. She was our one-woman publicity powerhouse.

  And after we had started to get big, she stayed on the tour, providing all of us the moral support we needed to keep going. She wasn’t just Jordan’s girlfriend, then fiancé. She was our friend.

  Jordan put down the beer bottle and crossed his arms over his chest, looking almost defensive. Like he knew what he was going to say wouldn’t go over well and he was preparing himself for my reaction.

  “We’re having a baby, man. I can’t go on the road and leave Maysie here to deal with all that on her own. You know she has a shit relationship with her parents and I can’t expect Gracie and Vivian to fill in while I’m out there trying to be a rock star,” he said almost angrily. “And I won’t be the kind of dad that misses out on first steps and night feedings to chase a buck.”

  He sighed and looked at me, his face set, his decision made. “Before I met Maysie, my dream was making music. When I met you and the other guys, we all wanted the same thing. To make a living doing what we loved. We were all on the same page. But now…”

  “Now you have a new dream,” I filled in for him.

  Jordan nodded.

  “Maysie is my dream. The family we’re making together, that’s what I want from my life. I can’t stand the thought of leaving her here and going on the road. I won’t do it.” He took a deep breath and delivered the final blow. “So, no matter what is said during that phone call with Pirate, this is it for me. I’m sorry, man.”

  I didn’t say anything for a long time. I really didn’t know what to say. I had suspected Jordan was looking for an out for a while. If I was truthful, we all were. Generation Rejects had been created by four kids. Now we were men who had seen both the good and ugly side of the music business. We had experienced the highs and the lows. And while the ride had been great, Garrett had been right when he had said maybe it was time for us to grow up.

  It felt like the ending of a chapter. And I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or fucking depressed.

  “Have you told Cole and Garrett?” I asked him.

  “Garrett knows about Maysie because Riley knows. We haven’t talked about the other stuff but I have a feeling he’s expects it. As for Cole—”

  “He’s too busy with his head up Viv’s—”

  “Yeah. Exactly. But I think he’ll understand. He and Vivian are looking to settle down. I think he’s going to pop the question,” Jordan said and I almost choked again.

  “Cole’s going to propose to Vivian? Where the fuck have I been during these conversations?” I asked in disbelief.

  Jordan laughed. “He hasn’t come out and said he’s going to, but he was asking me all sorts of questions about how I asked Maysie to marry me. Then he asked if I thought it would be fucked up if a guy asked a chick when he was going down on her.”

  “Was he serious? Jesus,” I muttered.

  “His reasoning was that it was when a woman was most agreeable,” Jordan shrugged. “So I think he’ll be okay with my decision.” He looked at me hard. “So that just leaves you really. Are you pissed at me?”

  I balled up the paper from my beer bottle and rolled it across the counter, making sure to put it in the trash can so Jordan didn’t get bitched out.

  “I’ll be honest, the thought of not being in the band anymore freaks me out. It’s all I’ve known for almost ten years, man,” I explained.

  “I get that, Mitch, I really do. But maybe that’s more of a reason to go out there and do something else,” Jordan suggested.

  “You, Garrett, and hell even Cole, have their lives sort of planned out. You’re going to be a dad. Garrett’s got Riley and their future together. Cole and Vivian are, surprisingly enough, a sure thing. Then there’s me. I just feel like I’m going to be left dangling in the wind, you know?”

  Jordan dropped the empty beer bottles into the trash. “What about Sophie? I thought you guys were solid,” he said.

  I snorted. “We’re anything but solid.”

  Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess, this has to do with Gracie.”

  “Why would you think that?” I muttered.

  “Because you’re Mitch. And she’s Gracie. And the two of you will never be able to leave each other alone,” Jordan stated as though it made perfect sense.

  “She told me she didn’t want me over a year ago,” I protested.

  “It was over a year ago. A lot can change in three hundred and sixty five days, dude.” Jordan looked at me like I was the world’s biggest idiot. And maybe I was.

  “I’m with Sophie,” I argued weakly. That particular excuse didn’t seem like much of an excuse anymore.

  “And she’s not who you want to be with,” Jordan added.

  I rubbed my temples, trying to lessen the throbbing in my head. “And she’s not who I want to be with,” I agreed.

  “Well, it sounds like you have a plan,” Jordan said with a grin.

  “A plan? It sounds like a fucking mess to me,” I grunted.

  Jordan clasped my shoulder. “Well I guess you’d better get out the mop then.”

  “You. God help me, I just want you.”

  I rolled over in bed, keeping my eyes resolutely closed, hugging my pillow tightly to my chest, replaying the scene with Mitch over and over in my head.

  The look on his face.
/>   The taste of his mouth.

  His heart in his eyes.

  “You. God help me, I just want you.”

  He made me feel things. Dangerous things.

  Perfect, out of control things.

  I should have told him how I felt. That was the moment to lay it all out on the table.

  But there was Sophie…

  He had chosen to be with someone else.

  After you told him there would never be a chance between you.

  A chance.

  Chances.

  That’s all we were.

  Possibilities and almosts.

  It was frustrating and heartbreaking. I felt as though I were losing him all over again. Because after that amazing kiss he had driven away.

  “I’m sorry.”

  We were always apologizing to one another. We were always making mistakes. I was tired of regrets. They were exhausting. They didn’t change anything that had happened.

  But I couldn’t help it.

  Because I regretted so damn much.

  “Gracie, are you up?” Vivian knocked on my bedroom door and before waiting for an answer, she poked her head in. She frowned when she saw me still in bed. “What’s up with you? Don’t you have a meeting at ten? It takes you at least an hour to properly shave and moisturize!”

  I snorted. Vivian knew my grooming routine better than I did.

  I finally opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Yeah, I’m up,” I sighed.

  “I won’t be home until late tonight. Cole and I are heading over to the apartment to start moving things in. You’re welcome to come over if you want. We’ll probably order some pizza and stuff.”

  I swung my legs out of the bed and grabbed my robe, putting it on. I picked up my phone and checked my messages.

  Nothing.

  Don’t be disappointed. What did you think would happen? He’d go to his girlfriend and break up with her for you? Just because you shared a stupid kiss?

  I put the phone back on the table and pulled clothes out of my closet.

  “That’s okay. I’m supposed to have dinner with my parents after work,” I told her. Ugh. Dinner with my parents. I wasn’t in the mood for their lectures and criticisms but there were certain things I needed to set straight with them. I couldn’t go through life not addressing things because they were difficult or uncomfortable.