Desperate Chances (8 page)

That’s all that mattered.

Just as we were paying the bill, my phone dinged and I pulled it out, forgetting by that point, about my momentary weakness only a few hours before.

When I saw
his
name, I almost dropped my phone.

“Who is it?” Maysie asked, seeing my face.

I schooled my features into total neutrality. I didn’t care. I didn’t care.

“Just my mom. She’s being her normal, suffocating self,” I lied.

I had just lied.

Why?

“Ugh, sorry, babe. Ignore her until tomorrow.”

I swallowed thickly and nodded. “Yeah, it’s probably for the best. I don’t want to open a can of worms tonight.”

Maysie looped her arm through mine as we left Barton’s and headed out to the parking lot.

“Should we brave the apartment or perhaps should we give them a few more hours?” Maysie asked, digging her keys out of her purse.

I still had a death grip on my phone, unwilling to put it away.

“Uh. I think they might need a while,” I said distractedly.

I don’t care.

I don’t care.

“Should we go see a movie then?” Maysie’s voice seemed to be coming through a fog.

I nodded absently. “Yeah. I’ll meet you at the Cineplex.”

Maysie regarded me levelly. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.

I gave her a shaky smile. “Of course. Just annoyed that Mom had to ruin my good mood. But it’s nothing a good chick flick can’t fix.”

Maysie gave me a quick hug. “Put it behind you, G,” she murmured.

“Yeah. I will,” I agreed.

Maysie walked to her car and I headed to mine.

I glanced down at the text again.

Do I need to ride to your rescue?

“Yes,” I whispered into the air, not daring to type out the reply.

Mitch had responded.

What did that mean?

His words felt so…normal.

And for the briefest of seconds we were just Mitch and Gracie again.

My chest felt uncomfortably tight and my eyes started to burn.

Do I need to ride to your rescue?

He had rescued me so many times before.

Mitch had always been my white knight.

But I had learned in the last few years that I couldn’t spend my life relying on someone else. That at some point I had to learn to rescue myself. And I was.

When I lost Mitch I had also gained a strength I hadn’t known I possessed. Because I had to be strong if I was going to survive losing the best thing in my life.

And I couldn’t walk down that road again. We had crossed a line we couldn’t come back from. Not ever. No matter how much I wanted to.

Because now there was
Sophie.

So I deleted the text.

It was for the best.

All the while my heart tattooed a word against my chest.

Liar.

I
could really use some Chunky Monkey right about now.

Her text surprised the fuck out of me.

It’s like she had ESP or something.

I had only just been thinking about her. Not like it was that unusual, but it was worse than normal. Because I tried my damndest not to think about Gracie Cook at all.

There was no sense in focusing on a part of my life that had been way too painful and way too embarrassing.

There was nothing like handing your heart over to someone only to have them throw it on the ground and do a tap dance number on it.

Sure, I still wondered how she was doing. If she was healthy and happy. I wasn’t an asshole. I was a nice guy. Everyone knew that. That was my role in Generation Rejects.

Jordan was the tortured artist, Garrett was the laid back fun guy, and Cole was the asshole sex machine. And me, well I was the nice guy. The one that would comfort the girls after Cole kicked them out of his bed.

I was the
friend.

A word that had never sounded so ugly until Gracie had thrown it in my face.

“You’re my friend, Mitch. I just don’t feel that way about you.”

So yeah, I made a point to block
she who shall not be named
from my mind.

Considering how much I had always loved her, I was bound to fail.

Plus there was Sophie now.

My girlfriend.

A woman who was the complete opposite of Gracie in every single way. She wasn’t complicated or emotional. Sophie didn’t fall apart and need me to rescue her. Sophie was calm and collected. She didn’t get worked up about anything.

Gracie was intense. Sophie was…placid. Which is what I needed after surviving Hurricane Gracie Cook.

And I cared about Sophie.

I really did.

Maybe I didn’t
love
her. Not yet anyway. But I’m sure I could in time.

It’s already been a year. How much time did I need?

Sometimes my inner voice needed a throat punch.

Because what wasn’t there to love about Sophie?

She was cute and sweet and patient. She had always been the kind of girl you could take home to your parents and not worry that she was going to drink all of the booze in your mom’s liquor cabinet. Sophie wasn’t a partier and I appreciated that about her.

There was no desperation with Sophie.

When I kissed her, it didn’t feel like I was falling off a cliff and had to brace for the impact. I never felt as though if I didn’t have her, I’d die. Nope. That kind of crazy wasn’t good for anyone.

Sophie wasn’t like Gracie and I had convinced myself that was a good thing.

My feelings for Gracie had never been rational. I would have walked barefooted over broken glass if she had asked me to. She wanted me to donate a kidney? Sure. No problem. Anything for Gracie-run-over-my-heart-Cook.

And that wasn’t healthy.

No, with Sophie things were quiet and easy. Like drinking a glass of warm milk.

Shit. Had I just compared my girlfriend to a glass of warm milk?

What I meant was she was comforting and low key. Like a blanket or—

Never mind.

I had known Sophie since we were teenagers.

Sophie made sense.

Gracie…

Well, she was a non-issue.

So why did just the mention of her knock the breath from my lungs and make me feel like dry heaving?

Because I was fucking pussy.

“I spoke to G the other day, she’s coming up with Viv and Maysie for the show on Saturday,” Garrett remarked off-handedly just as we were finishing sound check for this evening’s show.

We were currently touring with Tidal Wave, a lesser known band that was just starting out. It was a far cry from how things were just eight months before. Then we had been at the height of an almost sold out tour with indie rock darlings Cuban Cadillac. Our album was selling and things were going really well.

Then they weren’t anymore.

I didn’t know what had happened. None of us did. All we did know was that after the huge success of our debut album, the sales for our follow up were lukewarm at best.

Just when we thought we had made it, we realized pretty damn quickly that we were just another flash in the proverbial pan. Soon after our second album disappeared from the charts, Cuban Cadillac told us that we were being replaced with Total Distance, a clichéd pop rock group that had just hit big with a single called Highway Heartache.

We were dumped for a group of dudes with girl hair and sparkly jeans adored by thirteen year olds everywhere. Our pride took a serious hit.

Yeah, we still had our hardcore fans. The ones who followed us from show to show and bought everything we put out there, no matter how crappy it was. But the fly by night fans, the ones that had gone crazy for
Perfect Regret
and had bought thousands of copies of
Current Static
hadn’t exactly hung around for our next album.

And Cuban Cadillac, another struggling band trying to hold onto their fickle audience, hadn’t been interested in sticking around to help us ride the wave.

Tate at Pirate Records had been a little pissed when we had been kicked off the tour. We got the barrage of threats about our future. We were told that unless our sales increased they couldn’t justify keeping us on their roster of talent.

In other words, Generation Rejects’ days appeared to be numbered.

And we were all trying not to get depressed and pissed about it. We told ourselves over and over again that it was just the business. And in some ways I had been prepared for the down swing. My cousin Josh had warned me before we had gone on the road all those years ago. Josh had been working as a club promoter for years and had seen his fair share of bands rise and fall.

“Mitch, man, you need to grow some thick skin on your sack. There’s gonna be some crazy high times. You’re gonna have bitches throwing themselves at you. You’re gonna have people wanting your autograph. You’re gonna feel
wanted.”
My cousin had taken a drag off his cigarette and looked at me like I was about to go off to war and might not come back. He was so
damn serious.

“But then one day you might find it’s all gone. And those same bitches will be clamoring for someone else’s dick. And they don’t want your autograph anymore. And that label that seemed so supportive and willing to help you get your name out? Yeah, they’ll kick your sorry ass to the curb without thinking twice.”

I had laughed and dismissed his words as unnecessary scare tactics. “Dude, we’ve got this. Stop stressing.”

Josh looked at me like I was an idiot. Which, I had admittedly been. “I hope you’ve got this. Because the ride is fun until it runs off the rails.”

Those were some majorly prophetic words.

Because it seemed that now we were just another band who had
almost made it.

That sucked donkey balls.

But I had my band. My friends.

My music—even if no one cared about it but us.

And I had Sophie Lanier.

That’s all I needed.

Until Garrett had to mention
her
name.

“Wow, Gracie hasn’t been around in months. It’ll be good to see her,” Cole said, rolling up the mic cable and packing it away in the trunk.

I made sure to keep my eyes on my bass. I took my time putting it back in the case. I didn’t want to look at Garrett who I
knew
was looking at me as he spoke about the girl who had broken my fucking heart.

And I sure as shit didn’t want to look at my girlfriend sitting on the edge of the stage, watching the entire exchange way too closely.

Because she knew about Gracie and me. She knew everything.

I had hooked up with Sophie only two weeks after Gracie had run from my bed. One day I had been drinking whiskey since noon. I was a sloppy drunk. And that night I had been crying to whoever would listen about this woman who had crushed my heart. It wasn’t my finest hour.

I noticed a familiar woman sitting in the corner with a few people from my high school. She was sort of cute and best of all she looked nothing like Gracie.

So I had all but fallen off my barstool and stumbled to her table. I don’t remember a whole lot about our conversation, but I was pretty sure it involved garbled sounds that were meant to pass for words.

I did remember it taking a while for me to recognize Sophie and to recall how I knew her. In fact, she had to remind me that we had dated briefly in high school. I honestly couldn’t believe she wanted anything to do with me after that. I had been a bit of a dick.

Sophie drove me to Garrett’s where I lived when not on the road. No one had been home. Garrett was in Massachusetts visiting Riley, and Cole was with Vivian. Which had led me to think about Gracie.

And then the crying started. I was a blubbering wreck. And Sophie had sat on the couch with me and let me warble on and on about this other chick I had a hard-on for.