What are the Chances

by Brittany Taylor

  I bite my tongue, fighting the urge to scream at him to slow the fuck down. Mason shifts beneath me, his fingers gripping onto my hips. A second later, his hand grips my rib cage, holding me against his chest, attempting to keep me from watching the road. I go along with his urgency, slowly feeling my fear of not making it out of this truck alive begin to dwindle. I reward my nose, letting it go exactly where it wanted to earlier and shove it into Mason’s neck. I grip his shirt and start murmuring a prayer as the truck sways and shudders from the road.

  His grip tightens around me, and I welcome it. If I could straddle the man, I would—only because I’m scared out of my mind and straddling him sounds like the safest idea.

  Finally, the truck slows to a stop, saving me from actually straddling Mason’s lap. Carefully sitting up, I look at him with wide eyes. He’s watching me with rapt concern, and I want to run my finger along his jaw. His hand is still spread along my rib cage, and as I stare at his lips, his thumb presses into the flesh right below my breast.

  “Everyone out. I have deliveries to make,” the driver declares, breaking our moment. Reaching for the door handle, I welcome the fresh air on my overheated face.

  ***

  Mason is staring at his phone for the millionth time tonight. I try to ignore it, but every time there’s a break in conversation, even for a fraction of a second, I catch him looking down at his phone, a worried expression on his face. We decided to end our day with dinner and drinks at a local pub in the center of Ennis. With my thoughts being consumed by Mason’s sudden change in behavior toward me, I wasn’t feeling very hungry. Despite my lack of appetite, Mason ordered something called a spice bag and was encouraging me to dig into it while he sipped his Guinness.

  “Is everything okay?” I finally ask, worried he’ll suddenly shift gears and tell me to mind my own business, returning to the Mason I first met.

  He breaks away from his phone, and his brows crease in confusion.

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

  “You keep checking your phone.” I gesture to the device still resting in his lap. “You weren’t doing that all day until we walked in here.”

  “Sorry, no.” Mason seems surprised by my accusation. “It’s fine, I’ll put it away.” He shakes his head and slips the phone into his pocket, absently taking a sip of his beer.

  “So, what did you think?” he asks, leaning closer to me across the small table, crossing his arms, resting them on the tabletop. We’re sitting at one of those bartop tables, buried deep in a dark corner of the room.

  “What did I think about what?” I ask, taking a sip of my whiskey. I decided it was safe as long as I was with Mason. I argued for a while about him buying me food and drinks, but he just kept pushing me to order.

  “The house we went to,” Mason clarifies, digging through the bag of spice grease.

  I watch his movements, not sure why he thought that bag would entice me. It’s a greasy bag, filled with an assortment of meats and vegetables. I’ve never seen anything like it in the States.

  “I didn’t care for the ride there, but speaking with Harold was pretty cool,” I shrug.

  “Yeah that was a pretty ugly hill,” Mason smiles and digs his fingers deeper into the bag. “It’s why we couldn’t call a cabbie or an Uber. No one will go to that part of Killoo.”

  I sip my drink, wishing I had taken Mason up on ordering food, the drink already hitting me. I blink and try to continue the conversation about the older man who sweetly told us he was not a Kelley but knew where the original Kelley’s had moved to. We’ve already routed out the trip for tomorrow to head where Harold had suggested.

  I want to change the subject, feeling emboldened by the whiskey in my system.

  “Do you have a girlfriend in L.A?” I ask, attempting to play off my question as if it hadn’t been one of the thoughts running through my mind all damn day.

  Mason coughs, sputtering on his beer. “What?” He sits up in his seat, wiping the beer from his chin with a napkin.

  My face flushes as I suddenly regret asking. Maybe I don’t want to know the answer after all.

  “Sorry. Uh, never mind.” I grip my whiskey and throw back the rest. “None of my business,” I choke out, the whiskey warming my throat on its way down.

  Why did I ask that?

  “For the record, I don’t,” Mason says with a smirk. He reaches forward to pull my glass away from me, and I give him a smile. Silence falls between us, just staring at one another. Finally, he clears his throat.

  “What’s the story with you and Kyle? How come he didn’t come with you on this trip?”

  Right. My boyfriend. Shit.

  I release a heavy sigh and lean forward to snag something breaded from the spice bag.

  “Work. He couldn’t get the time off to come. He said something urgent came up.” I lick my fingers while Mason looks down at the table. The muscle in his jaw jumps a bit, and I want to reach out and touch it. “That’s what he says, anyway,” I add, shrugging.

  “What do you mean?”

  Replaying the complications of my relationship in my head, I try to sip from my empty glass and frown.

  Mason laughs and scoots his beer along the table, offering it to me. I take a tentative sip and continue.

  “It’s just, ever since last year, things between us have been awkward and strained.” I’m slightly aware I’m oversharing, but the whiskey has this magical ability to make it to where I don’t care.

  “What happened last year?” Mason carefully asks, still digging through the greasy bag of food.

  Suddenly, worried he’d eat the whole bag, I reach for it to snag a few pieces of fried fish. He laughs under his breath at my thieving ways, then allows me to continue, his face filled with curiosity.

  “I came home early from a work conference and found him video chatting with a girl, trying to break up with her from the sounds of it, saying he couldn’t keep doing this to his girlfriend. I caught the tail end but saw the woman on the screen crying. When he saw me, he freaked out and slammed his laptop shut, trying to reason with me, telling me it was nothing but an emotional affair.” I shrug, trying to let loose the emotions still attached to finding out the man I loved started loving someone else.

  I eyed the beer in front of me, but as soon as I look up, Mason’s face is filled with red hot anger. His eyes have an entire hurricane brewing in them. His teeth are tightly clenched, the muscles under his jaw continue to tick, and his fists are clenched tight on the tabletop. I swallow, feeling like his anger is almost a living thing.

  “Did he ever tell you where she was from? Was she from the States?” he finally asks, after a few tense seconds.

  I narrow my eyes in confusion at his very specific question but answer just the same. “Spain. She was from Madrid.”

  Something lights in Mason’s eyes, more anger than worry. They’re red and fierce, a stark contrast to the way they were a few moments ago before the conversation about Kyle and his infidelities. I can’t tell, but I feel like he was done with the conversation and with our evening. He slaps a bill on the table, paying for our drinks and food, then walks around to my side. He places his hands on either side of me, gripping the top of my barstool, caging me in.

  Leaning in until he’s next to my ear, he whispers, “And you forgave him?”

  I swallow back the lump of unrelenting attraction I have to this man and nod.

  “I’ve been trying. We separated for three months, but he begged me to come back to him. He promised it was only me. I don’t like giving up on people.”

  Mason sighs and turns his face a fraction, and I can feel his lips graze my ear.

  “You deserve better.”

  He steps back, creating distance between us, not allowing me the chance to conjure up the right words. It’s like my mind had all the answers but couldn’t deliver them to my mouth. He keeps his gaze on me.

  I still don’t know what to say, but I accept his outstretched hand and let him tug me
to him. We stand close, my forehead level with his lips. I could be wrong, but it almost feels like he barely lets his lips press against my skin. The whiskey is clouding my ability to discern how close he really is. Mason could be twelve inches from my face but still feel like he’s only centimeters away. I have to remind myself I was likely drunk if not at least more than buzzed, and regardless, I’m not a cheater.

  Suddenly, pulling me away from my thoughts, he tilts my head back a fraction and runs his thumb along my bottom lip. The motion takes my breath away, my chest feeling like it’s about to cave in. I close my eyes, willing my heart to stop hammering, willing my body to stop pressing further into his. Then without warning, he steps back and grabs my hand.

  “Come on, let’s go home.” His mouth turns down in a slight frown, then in a flash, his frown disappears and is replaced with a reluctant smile.

  I let him lead me out of the building and call us a cab, letting him continue to hold my hand. His words have sunk into some very broken place inside my heart. I did deserve better, I had for a long time. If I was here to find a piece of my history, maybe it was time to let go of my past.

  Mason

  WHAT’S THAT SAYING? YOU always want what you can’t have?

  Yeah, I think that’s the one.

  I didn’t care Charlotte wasn’t mine when I agreed to help her find her family. I didn’t care she wasn’t mine when I snagged us a ride in Harold’s flower truck, forcing her to sit on my lap. I’d thrown out all effort at keeping her away the moment I woke up this morning, knowing she had slept next to me all night. There’s one thing I’m certain of and that was how much I felt her absence when I woke up to find her side of the bed empty. I want Charlotte more than I realized and have only known her for two days. Knowing she is Kyle’s did nothing to stop me from keeping her close. So, no, I don’t care she isn’t mine.

  Despite all the other circumstances, I sure as fuck didn’t care Charlotte wasn’t mine right before dinner when Sam texted me a screenshot of a picture Kyle posted on his Instagram. My blood is still boiling on the cab ride back home to my parents’ house in Roslevan.

  Charlotte’s sitting beside me in the backseat, her head resting against my shoulder. She let go of my hand, keeping her fingers laced in her lap. Her breaths are short and quiet, leading me to believe the whiskey made her a bit drowsy.

  Her head slowly bobs against my shoulder, causing me to lean back in the seat a bit farther, attempting to steady her sleeping body. Her head gently tilts back against the black leather seat, but she stays resting against me. I smile when I look down to find her eyes closed and her lips parted a fraction, allowing a small passage of air.

  My chest swells and my head pounds, thinking of all the ways Kyle is wrong for her. She’s beautiful and intelligent. She’s strong and determined. Everything Kyle doesn’t deserve.

  Reassured she’s still asleep, I slide my phone out of my pocket and open my thread of texts with Sam. Just before we had entered the pub for dinner, I had opened something I wish I could have immediately unseen.

  Staring at me in full color was a picture of Kyle taking a selfie, his arm wrapped around a woman who wasn’t Charlotte. Her black hair was tied up in a ponytail, red rimmed sunglasses perched on top of her head. Behind them were rows and rows of what looked like grape fields. The part of the picture that had my stomach twisting into knots was the kiss Kyle was planting on this woman’s cheek in a more than friendly way.

  The fucker. The asshole.

  I couldn’t understand what Sam was texting me or even why he had sent it to me when his screenshot was followed by one simple message.

  Sam: I’ll call you as soon as I can. Please don’t tell Charlotte.

  I couldn’t stop looking at the damn picture. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. It was like watching a train wreck—you can’t seem to break your eyes away from it. Not only couldn’t I break my eyes away from Sam’s message, I couldn’t respond. How do you respond to something like that?

  I hadn’t noticed how long I had been looking at my phone at the pub until Charlotte asked what was wrong. When I looked up and her eyes met mine, my throat seized up. I was now the keeper of a secret I didn’t wish to keep. Dammit, Sam.

  Forcing myself to break away from his text, I shut my phone off and slide it back into my pocket. I don’t know if I can keep this a secret from Charlotte as Sam asked me to, but when my head throbs once again, I decide not to worry about it for now. I push it into some dark, deep recess of my brain, willing it to disappear—hoping and praying it will.

  After Charlotte told me a bit of her history with Kyle, she confirmed my suspicions that Kyle hasn’t changed since University. He plays women and doesn’t care who he hurts, only caring about himself.

  As the cab driver turns onto my parents’ street, I turn my head just enough to rest my cheek against the top of Charlotte’s head. Her hair is soft against my skin as I breathe in the scent of flowers. She smells like my mother’s garden.

  With every house that passes, I think of Charlotte’s eyes. I think of her mouth and how it would feel to press mine to hers. I think of her skin and how it feels brushing against mine.

  A few minutes later, we pull alongside the curb, finally making it home. I quietly and carefully hand the driver his money before turning to Charlotte.

  “Char, wake up,” I whisper. “We’re home, álainn.”

  She turns her face farther into my shoulder, her eyes still closed. “Mason?” she whispers in the still dark cab.

  Reaching over, I swipe my fingers along her cheek, tucking stray hair behind her ear. I crack open the passenger door, preparing to step out.

  “We’re home,” I repeat.

  Slowly, she lifts her head. She narrows her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the small amount of light overhead. Finally, her eyes open wide, and I hesitate, unwilling to move. Her eyes are hypnotic under the small golden light, the flecks buried deep in her eyes, shining. I can sense her hesitation. I can’t tell exactly what it is, but I can see a small battle hidden within her.

  Silence fills the car with us simply staring at one another. Then my stomach twists when she smiles. The corners of her eyes curve, lifting with the corners of her mouth.

  “I had a great day.”

  I swallow, my chest growing warm with her words.

  “Me too.” It’s all I can manage to say. Unrelenting, my mind wanders once again to the picture of Kyle. “We should get inside.”

  Her smile falters, the corners of her mouth quickly fading. She nods once before I turn around to step out of the car. I hold my hand out for her, but she doesn’t take it. Instead, she steps out of the car and walks past me. By the time I’ve shut the car door, she’s already halfway up the walkway.

  The house is quiet and dark. Thankfully, one of the guests left the small table lamp on, the golden yellow light subtle, illuminating the bottom half of our bodies. Shadows dance across Charlotte’s face as she bends over, removing her shoes. Once her shoes are off, she holds them in her hand and silently carries them up the stairs without another word.

  I follow her, unsure of where we stand. Today was amazing and probably one of the best days I’ve ever had, especially here, back home. But I can’t shake the feeling four simple words, ‘We should get inside’ has somehow tainted the day. I can’t tell whether she’s annoyed with me or if she’s simply tired from our long day.

  When I reach our small room, Charlotte’s shut herself in the bathroom. I can hear her rustling around in her suitcase, and the steady stream of water from the sink fills my ears. I take the opportunity to grab my suitcase and change into a plain t-shirt and pajama pants. I’m already sitting on the bed, climbing under the covers when she emerges from the bathroom.

  Tonight she has her hair wrapped into a high messy bun, strands loosely framing her face. Instead of a tank top and shorts, she’s wearing an old, faded black, Ramones t-shirt and white and red striped cotton shorts. The hem of her shorts stops above the middle
of her thighs, longer than the ones she wore last night. Even though her outfit isn’t revealing as last night, she’s still irresistibly sexy. This woman could wear a moo-moo and still be the most gorgeous woman in the room.

  She slides into the bed beside me, and my nerves calm the moment she flashes a small grin. Good, she isn’t mad at me.

  Some of the pillows from last night are piled at the foot of the bed. We’re both sitting up, staring at the pile when Charlotte finally breaks her silence.

  “What about Noodge?”

  “What?” Her sudden questioning about Noodge leaves me intrigued. It’s not that I’d forgotten why I had come home in the first place or the ceremony I planned to spread his ashes, but with Charlotte and her quest to find her long lost family, I had pushed it aside, figuring I would find some other time to do it.

  She bends her legs under the covers and rests her hands in the space between them.

  “Didn’t you come to spread his ashes? I realized it earlier today. I didn’t even ask you when you were doing it. I’m completely ruining your trip.” She turns to face me. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I smile.

  She turns her head back to face the pile of pillows at our feet.

  “I feel like such an eegit.” The corner of her mouth lifts into a smirk, and my body heats.

  Irish sounds even better pouring from her mouth. She’s said the word before, in Sam’s car, but something about the way she says it now makes me want to kick all the pillows off the bed and make Charlotte mine. Instead, I clutch the blanket at my side.

  “You’re not an eegit, Char.” I ignore the way I keep repeating her voice speaking Irish in my head and distract myself with conversation.

  “No, I am,” she insists. “I’ve turned your entire trip around and made it about me. It was selfish of me.”

  “Alright, I give.” Shrugging, I toss my head side to side, my stomach fluttering with excitement. “I guess it was kind of a dick move.”