Second Chance on St. Patrick's Day

by Mia Ford

  There was a lot to be said between the two of us, but first, I needed him to come to the realization that he was no longer in charge of Tiffany. He had to start understanding that he couldn’t destroy every single good thing we had every time he felt left out, lonely, or jealous. He had ended his life with Tiffany, and I had begun one, no matter how unusual or taboo it seemed. There was something special between Tiffany and I, and I had never felt the way I did about her toward anyone else. I had a beautiful girlfriend, a baby on the way, and so many things to be happy about, but instead, I was sitting here chasing down my brother so I could tell him exactly how it was. I should be at home with Tiffany, planning a nursery, talking about the baby, and basking in that feeling of excitement that I had been forced to hide away for my brother’s sake. Well, it was going to stop, and it was going to stop right then. I did not want to go through another day where I had to worry about my relationship and how my brother was guilt tripping my girlfriend because he had made a choice to divorce her over something she couldn’t control. Enough was enough.

  “Hey,” I yelled out jogging toward my brother’s car. He sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “What?” He was irritated, and I could tell I was the last person he wanted to be talking to.

  “I want you to leave Tiffany alone,” I said sternly. “You have put her through enough, and I’m tired of you taking every special happy moment she has and turning it into a battle. You aren't the victim that you are trying to play. All you’re doing is making life really hard for her, and it is starting to piss me off.”

  “Look,” he said sternly. “I’m not in the mood to have a conversation with you. In fact, I’m not in the mood to look at your face at all. You stole Tiffany from me, and I’m tired of bowing down to your perfect little life.”

  I gritted my teeth and stared at him angrily. How dare he turn this around on me. First, he makes Tiffany into the villain, and now that he has run out of steam on that one, he’s trying to make me out to be the villain. It pissed me off so bad that he could never take responsibility for his own actions. It pissed me off that he used these twisting tactics so that he didn’t have to feel guilty for his actions. He was becoming a severe scab on my life, and it was about time it ended.

  “You seem to have forgotten how all this played out,” I said, stepping forward. “You divorced Tiffany, not the other way around. I know you like to play the victim here, but you are the one who started this whole mess to begin with. I never stole your girl. I met a woman who you tossed out in the trash as if she was nothing to you and helped her build herself up to become a strong, independent person again. It took me twenty minutes to find the clinic that she went to, twenty freaking minutes. Something you could have easily done, but instead, you walked around like you were all high and mighty. Now you have the nerve to act like you didn’t do anything wrong, and I stole her from you? Fuck, dude, you have some serious issues going on upstairs. It is very obvious that you never loved that girl in the first place.”

  “You need to seriously start to curb the way you talk to me,” Jordan said angrily.

  I looked at him with rage, taken back by how he thought he could tell me what to do. He truly felt like I was supposed to respect him when he hadn’t even started to earn that trust in the slightest. He was such a jerkoff and somebody really needed to give him a taste of his own medicine and bring him down a peg or two. In fact, someone needed to take his smart ass and give him the ass beating he deserved from the beginning.

  “What are you going to do about it? You can’t even keep a marriage together,” I said, taunting him.

  “Yeah? Well I may not be any good at marriage but I can sure as hell beat your ass,” he responded with a furrowed brow.

  He stepped forward and swung hard as I leaned back. I could feel the air from his fist blow my hair up in the air. I lunged forward and punched him in the stomach, pushing him back against his car. I breathed heavily, stepping back and waiting for him to come at me again. He smiled, rubbing his gut before clocking me right in the face. I went down on one knee and held my cheek, feeling blood trickling down from my lip. I smiled and stood back on my feet, running forward and tackling Jordan to the ground. We rolled around on the ground, taking turns punching each other in the face. I could hear running footsteps behind me, but I didn’t care. Jordan’s cocky ass smirk kept me locked in on this fight. I rolled over on top of him and reared back, punching him across the face. We were both bleeding at that point, but my adrenaline was running so high, I didn’t feel an ounce of pain.

  “That’s all you got,” he chuckled, wiping the blood from his lip. “Come on, little brother, I taught you better than that.”

  His voice made me so angry, I could see red, but before I could get another shot off I felt someone grab me under the arms and pull me off the top of Jordan. It was my father and the look on his face was a mix of anger and concern. He stood between us with his arms out as Jordan pulled himself to his feet. Jordan looked over at me as he spit blood onto the concrete. My father shook his head and put down his arms while I bent over to catch my breath, the pain starting to make an appearance.

  “What the hell is wrong with you two?” There was a crowd gathering behind us. “This has gotten completely out of hand.”

  He was right. It had gotten completely out of hand, but I didn’t feel bad in the slightest for throwing down with him. He deserved every punch he got, and I was so sick of Jordan playing the poor little victim, making Tiffany and everything she did look like the worst thing in the world. He was the one to blame for all of her heartache and stress, and I wasn’t about to let that go. My father shook his head and stepped back, gathering his thoughts.

  “You two need to get your shit together,” he said, straightening his tie and wiping at the blood on his sleeve. “You need to work this out, or I’m going to be forced to fire one of you. I can’t continue to have this kind of disruption in my office. This is a business, not a school yard.”

  “You know what? Fuck this shit, I quit,” Jordan said throwing his hands up in the air. “You and Tiffany can go live your happy existence without me in it. I’m tired of all the bullshit.”

  “There wouldn’t be bullshit if you hadn’t brought it to the table,” I shouted.

  “You think you are so perfect,” he laughed. “You think Tiffany is so perfect, too. Well, both of you can kiss my ass. I’m tired of trying to get out of your perfect little shadows, watching you walk around gloating that you have the life that I was trying to make. Yeah, I divorced her, but that didn’t mean she was there for you to go scoop up and save the day. I don’t have to play the victim. You make me look like it all on your own. If you don’t want to be the villain, then stop thinking with your dick and act like a real man.”

  “Yes,” I said laughing. “Because you know so well how to act like a real man. Give me a break. There you go telling your bullshit sob story like we planned any of this. Like we worked so hard to deceive you. Open your eyes, Jordan. You did all of this on your own, and now you're angry because Tiffany is finally happy in life, and you're stuck looking for your next dumb broad at the bar down the street. You could have had the happy ending, but you picked the hard road.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” he said, getting in his car.

  We backed up and watched as he drove his car out of the parking garage, only stopping for a moment at the exit before speeding off into the city. He never could take an argument, and he was so damn stubborn that he was willing to give up his entire career just to prove a point. This time, though, I wasn’t going to go running after him, begging him not to go. This was his choice, and the repercussions were completely on him. I looked over at my father who was still breathing heavily.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said, watching everyone disperse back to the building. “I didn’t mean for him to quit like that. I didn’t come down here for a fight, either. It just kind of happened.”

  “Don’t apologize,” he said patting me on the shoulde
r. “Your brother has always been a little asshole, ever since he was a little boy. He will either come around and come back, or he won’t. That choice is completely up to him. I just hope that you guys don’t stay mad at each other forever. The family is important.”

  He was right, family was important, and while I was here beating up my brother, Tiffany was at home, contemplating her new family. A family that I was part of. Well, at least I had been an hour ago. I knew how she felt about Jordan and me, and I also knew she was going to lose it when she found out we got into a fight.

  Chapter 30

  Tiffany

  Jason’s door was open, so I walked around the corner and stopped in his doorway, looking over at him sitting at his desk. He looked angry, and he had several cuts and bruises on his face. I knew I should ask what the hell happened to him, but I already had a feeling that I knew. Everyone had been talking about a fight the night before in the parking garage, but I didn’t listen long enough to find out who it was between. Now, looking at Jason’s battered face and not being able to find Jordan made me think I missed out on more than after-work drinks when I had gone home after work. I cleared my throat, grabbing Jason’s attention.

  “Where is Jordan?”

  “He quit,” Jason said, looking back down at his file. “Why?”

  I took two steps into the office and closed the door, lingering there for a second before turning back around. I walked over, squinting my eyes at Jason, wondering when he was going to look up at me. Whatever happened when I wasn’t here had put him in a foul mood, and to be frank, I was just completely fed up with everything going on. Right or wrong, I needed to work through these issues with Jordan if I ever wanted to have a chance at a happy relationship with Jason.

  “Things will never be okay between Jordan and me if he and I can’t figure out our own shit,” I said sitting down on the edge of the chair.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I want to be on okay terms with Jordan. Not for me, not for the baby, but for you. If you and your brother continue like this, you’re going to end up hating each other. And then one day, you are going to end up resenting me for driving a wedge between the two of you,” I explained. “I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

  “That’s just not true,” he said angrily.

  “It is,” I replied. “Whether you can see it or not.”

  I stood up and walked out of the office, shutting the door behind me. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the lounge and went to my desk, leaning back in my chair and closing my eyes. The last thing I wanted was for Jordan to quit. He loved this job with every fiber of his being, and I did not want to be the reason he walked away from it. I knew that Jason was worried that I wanted to get back together with Jordan, but that just wasn’t the case. I still wanted Jason just as much as I did at the beginning of all of this, I only wanted him and Jordan to be okay in their relationship. I would never be fully comfortable moving forward if I knew that I had been the root cause of them never talking again. It would change the entire dynamic of the family and cause tension in our relationship.

  I went through the rest of the day trying to focus on my work. Jason didn’t come back out of the office after our talk, and I was almost sure that was a good thing. Everyone needed to cool off and take a breather. Even John had stayed locked in his office all day, and after what I heard went down in the parking garage the day before, I was surprised I wasn’t hearing it from him. I knew that it was me driving a wedge in their family, but I didn’t know what to do about it. When work was over, I grabbed my things and headed outside, hopping in a cab and heading over to Jordan’s penthouse. As I stepped out onto the curb, I looked up at the tall building, remembering just three months ago spending my first few days as a married woman tucked away in the rooms on the top floor. It was a strange feeling walking back in and having to ask the front desk guy to let me up the guest elevator. When I got to his floor, I walked over and knocked loudly on his door, assuming he would be there since he didn’t have a job anymore. When Jordan opened the door, he looked down at me with a stern face, a face I had only seen one other time, and that was when he had left me.

  “Can I come in?”

  He nodded his head and stepped to the side.

  I looked around the penthouse, realizing that he hadn’t even moved one thing. Pictures from our wedding still peppered the fireplace, and I wondered if he had ever had Rosalie over to his place. It was a strange feeling standing in the living room of the apartment I used to feel at home in.

  “Sit down,” he said gently, pointing to the chair across from the couch he was sitting on.

  “I just want to talk,” I said sitting down. “When you left me, and I was all alone, I had zero plans to ever start dating anyone again. I saw your brother in a club that Mona dragged me out to, trying to pull me out of my depression. I had literally built a straw for my wine glass so I could lay down and drink.”

  He smiled and chuckled, making me feel more comfortable.

  “The next day I asked Jason out to lunch,” I continued. “We had a great time, and it was very unexpected. One thing led to another, and I found myself seeing him almost every day. He found this specialist for me to see. I gave them all my samples, but when the results came back, they told me yes, I had PCOS, but I was also pregnant. It caught me so off guard you could barely talk to me for days. Then it all settled in, and Jason was so wonderful about everything.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Yes,” I said after thinking for a few moments. “I do love him, very much.”

  “Look,” he said leaning forward and taking my hand. “I know you didn’t do any of this on purpose. You don’t have that kind of anger or revenge in your body. I knew from the first moment I found out that it was literally one of those fluke things that happen that catch you off guard. But I couldn’t help but feel completely enraged by it. It felt like a betrayal on both of your parts, and it was hard to come to terms with the fact that you loved each other. I felt like I had been cheated, but I knew it was because I had walked away. After sitting here today, just staring off into the distance, I realized that you and I were never meant to be. We had a hell of a time together, but we weren’t meant to grow old with each other.”

  “I completely agree,” I said, smiling and squeezing his hand. “It was really hard for me to realize that in the beginning, but when I moved past you that day at the lobby of the office, I knew the pain had all gone away. I still cared for you very much. I want what is best for you, and I don’t like to see you hurting. I want you in my life and the baby’s life.”

  “And I want to be in the baby’s life.” He smiled. “It just might take me a little bit of time to get used to everything.”

  “Well, you have eight months until it’s here, so I think that is plenty of time.” I laughed. “You know, if I had known that I could get pregnant, and it would only take a couple of months, I would have pushed you to try harder. Despite whether we were right for each other, I loved you very much, and I considered you my best friend. I had planned our family out in my head for so many years that I can still see the child I imagined we would have. I know it’s weird, but I’m a girl, so what can I say?”

  “You aren’t the only one.” He chuckled. “I thought about what our family would be like and what our children would be like. I imagined a little girl who had your blond hair and pretty green eyes and a little boy with dark hair and dimples like me. I think, though, in the end, it was harder letting go of those dreams than it was letting go of each other. We were living our lives based on dreams of the future not based on our love for each other. It was bound to end at some point.”

  “Well, I can admit that I didn’t try to convince you to stay,” I said. “I let you go without a fight and just slunk down in my depression, not even sure what I was depressed over. I didn’t fight for you to stay, and though it wasn’t on purpose, I know it was something in the back of my mind. I think I knew it
wouldn’t work no matter how hard I fought, so I didn’t.”

  “I know,” he said sitting back. “I noticed that right away. I realized that on about day three that you weren’t going to try to fight for me. I wasn’t playing games, but I guess when you’re in a relationship and you suddenly break it off, you wonder how much they will really fight to keep you. It made me bitter that you had given up just as easily as I had, but I was made out to be the terrible person. People on the outside, especially the ones who have never been married or in a serious relationship don’t understand how marriage is a two-way street. Why would you fight for someone who didn’t even show a tiny amount of sadness when they no longer had you in their life? I knew then, our relationship had never been as strong as we liked to try to make it out to be.”

  “I agree with you,” I said. “For me, I just didn’t have anything else in me at that moment. My heart was completely broken, and I didn’t know where to go next, so I just gave up.”

  “Well,” Jordan said, standing up and reaching down for my hand. “We had some really good times together, and I want to keep our friendship alive. I want to be an uncle for that baby, too, but you just have to give me some time to adjust.”

  “I can do that,” I said, leaning in as he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed, kissing me on the top of my head.

  Jordan walked me to the door and smiled as I walked out feeling so much better about everything. I was finally able to sit down and have a conversation with him that didn’t include yelling, screaming, or name calling. In the end, I realized that neither one of us thought we were meant to be, but in the end, we both did things that really hurt the other person. I felt bad about that fact and realized that I truly did give up on Jordan as soon as the waters got rough. I took the elevator downstairs and hopped in a cab, giving them Jason’s address. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number, listening to it ring and ring until the answering service picked up the call. I hung up feeling frustrated at the fact that he wasn’t answering my calls. Where was he? I could feel my emotions start to simmer up in my chest, and immediately, I was worried that after all of that, he was going to be the one to give up on me. There was no way I was going to let that happen.