A Fighting Chance (26 page)

I can’t deny my con
nection and attraction to Drew. I can’t say it ever went away, and I have opened the door for her to draw that conclusion. “I’m really sorry, Lydia—”

“
I hope she gives you herpes or whatever else sluts have.”

“I’m really sorry for hurting you
,” I say, trying again.

“
Fuck your sorry,” she says in a tearful voice. “And fuck you, Jesse.” After Lydia hangs up, guilt and loss swamp me. I’m tempted to call her back to apologize again, because I hate that she’s in pain right now. I love Lydia, even though she wouldn’t have believed me if I had said so out loud. I know it’s the end of something great, but if I’m being honest with myself, how available was my heart
really
in the first place if deep down I’ve still been holding on to Drew?

Sighing, I
walk back to the hotel and go to Drew’s room. Inside, Miguel is sitting on her bed, and he looks away from the television to give me a quick nod. She’s on the other side of the room, shoving her clothes into her bag, and the seams are begging for mercy. Her cell phone is wedged between her shoulder and ear, an anxious look darkening her face when she notices me. She walks into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her.

“Yeah…tomorrow afternoon. I don’t have the itinerary in front of me.” Her
muffled voice emits out. I suspect she’s talking to Buck and my chest simmers with jealousy. “I’ll let you know for sure when I’m at the airport, before my flight. I don’t know.
I just don’t.
I don’t want to talk about it right now. Because I just don’t. Yeah. Okay. Bye.” She’s still wearing a nervous expression when she opens the door and walks back to her bag, but it withers into a smile as we lock eyes.

“You should let us take you to the airport
, Drew,” I say as I hold the zipper teeth on her bag together so that she can zip it closed. It’s stuffed with souvenirs and random sidewalk sale wares. You can always count on a woman to buy too much shit whenever she travels. “I’d feel much better driving you.”

“Me too,” Miguel adds.

“It’s fifteen minutes away!” Drew moans and rolls her eyes. “The desk clerk called a reputable cab service, and we’re scheduled for a nine a.m. pickup. I’ll be fine! I’m ready to stay in and read tonight, and make up my own dialogue to melodramatic Spanish soaps.
Girl
night in! Jesse, you need to recuperate and relax. It’s been a tough few days. Go out, you two. Don’t worry about me, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Not the
way we’re going out,” I say, trying to fix a believable smile on my face, even though I’m not really in the partying mood. “Get those shots going, Mig, we’re cabbing it tonight.”

“Fuck yeah!” Miguel yells, because
he came here with
several
bottles of vodka.

Drew looks at her watch. “What time were you guys thinking about heading out?”

“Another hour or so,” I say.

“Can I steal you for some of it?” she asks with a hopeful smile as she takes my han
d. She leads me out of the room, and eventually out of the hotel. We join the people crossing the streets in droves and head to the Zócalo, the massive public square a short walk away. Though the plaza itself is dark, the ornate colonial buildings and imposing cathedral that surround it are bathed in warm golden light. The echo of a drumbeat pops in the air as an Aztec dance troupe, wearing feathered headdresses and colorful loincloths, performs for a large group of tourists. Smaller clusters of people pepper the stone tiles, sitting under street lamps and taking in the city scene.

We walk straight across the court, past the giant flagpole in the middle, and sit on a low concrete wall facing the square, just outside
of the
Catedral Metropolitana
. Most of the plaza clears out once the performance is over, and a comfortable hush descends over the place.

“I wish we’d had more time to do stuff like this,”
I say as Drew leans on me, and I curl my arm over her shoulders.

“What? Sit and stare at people?”

I laugh. “Kinda. I mean, more time to appreciate the country—see the ruins and all the history here…” I point my chin at the
Palacio Nacional
on our left
,
which stretches the entire length of one side of the square, its red stone façade glowing bright.
“This place is nothing but architecture porn.”

“
It’s
breathtaking,
and how cool is it that someday you’re going to be designing places like this that people will absolutely fall in love with?”

“Well, the places I want to design will be unique for each person who falls in love with it. I
only want to design homes. Mom always made ours so great…I want to do that for someone.”

Sitting up,
Drew drops her hand on mine, and there’s a pensive look on her face when she turns to me. “I used to dream about coming to beautiful places with you.”

“Oh yeah? Like where?”

“All over…Rome. Paris. Munich. Beautiful, faraway cities that were lit like this at night.” She turns her eyes back to the Zócalo. “I guess all the places you’re going with Lydia…”

“I wouldn’t bank on that trip happening anymore. I told her
what happened between us. It’s over.”

Her head whips in my direction again,
a glint of shock in her eyes. “Oh. I’m sorry, Jess…”

“You didn’t do anything
.”

A skeptical
look slashes through her surprise. “I wanted everything that happened just as much as you did. I’m no innocent party.”

“But I’m the one in the relationship
with Lydia.
Was
in.”

“
You’ve just had your life upended so much already. Are you sure ending the relationship is what you want? Sandrine’s right; we don’t belong here. You don’t want to make a long-term decision in a short-term situation. You have to go back, you know. ”

I shrug. “Yeah, but who knows when that’ll be, anyway…”

“I hate that you’ll be here even longer now, but what you did for Christiana was really kind. Have you heard from her since?”

“Yeah. She’s called a few times. She wants to wire money to start paying me back for
contributing to the funeral fund. I told her I’m not going to keep answering her calls if she keeps promising to pay me back. She’s having a goddamn baby, on her own. I’m tempted to send her more money.” I can’t be certain but part of me believes that if I had died during the fight, they would’ve helped Drew the best they could. And another part of me feels complicit in Nico’s death for even being in that cage with him, for creating the opportunity for him to endanger himself. It’s an irrational thought, I know, because Nico would’ve been there regardless, but I can’t escape the mental replay of what happened. I can’t shed the feeling that I should have done more to help him.

“I love that about you.
But you have to think about yourself now. You can’t help everybody. Get this done as quickly as you can from now on. And please be safe.” Drew throws her arms around my neck and hugs me. “I’m gonna miss you, Chance.”

She’s leaving and you have to let her go,
I tell myself
,
but
a tremble of sorrow shakes my chest as I press my nose to her shoulder. “Thank you for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” Her cheek flattens on mine and her lips touch my ear. “I don’t know if we can go through something like this together and go back to the silence. Four years was enough. Whatever pushed us there, I don’t want it to happen again…”

“We never got around to talking about that…” I say.

“Yeah, and I’ve enjoyed reconnecting with you, but the past…it’s
not
water under the bridge for me,” she confesses as she sits back, her face imprinted with hurt.

“I didn’t expect it to be, so
once this is
really
over, we should talk.”

Drew breaks into a grin. “A long talk. A long overdue talk. And then we should keep on talking. No matter what happens.”
Can I really get to a place where I’ll be comfortable that she’s Mrs. Bucky Webber?
I don’t have a choice, because she’s right. I don’t want to lose contact again, either, no matter how much it’ll kill me. I just have to try really hard to make it work.

“Deal. It’s a deal.
” My cell phone buzzes and I pull it from my pocket. “It’s Miguel. He’s asking if I’m ready to head out.”

“It
is
getting late, and I’m not done packing. Don’t you dare make a comment about my gender and overly stuffed luggage,” Drew says, playfully wagging her finger in my face.

I smile but I’m trying not to choke on the dread in my throat that burns like bile
, as I help her up. She’ll be home tomorrow. Gone. And under the muted moonlight, she’s already ghostly, already fading. I take her hand and we walk back across the plaza, its borders still draped in soothing yellow light. I feel serenity here, even while surrounded by a bustling city filled to the brim with people. I see why Drew wants to come to places like this.
And Bucky will be the one to take her.
This is it for us. It’s done.

I stop us near the flagpole.
“What is it?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

“I want to kiss you. I’m
going
to kiss you,” I say.

I know it’s inappropriate.

I really don’t give a shit.

The need is a buzz of electricity in my bloodstream, a pinch in my chest. Her face smolders into a look of desire when I grip her waist and pull her closer to me. Our lips touch and Drew’s hand closes around a fistful of my shirt.
She parts her lips with a soft breath, and I groan when my tongue snakes in, tangling with hers. The taste of her mouth awakens a feverish urge that has me pressing myself harder against her, moving us until her back hits the flagpole. Her teeth close around my bottom lip and her legs quake as my fingers trail up the inseam of her shorts and then up her stomach. I can’t stop thinking about her. I can’t stop thinking about her coming. I can’t stop thinking about how much I want her.

Ripping her fingers down my back, Drew releases a moan that
echoes inside me. My blood runs hot, my body demanding more of what I can’t have. 

High-pitched
giggles press out from the far end of the plaza, and I end the kiss as weak, reluctant restraint forces me to take my hands off her. In the instant, my brain clears and I remember we’re still outside. But it’s my conscience that tries to eat away my lust. This is just plain wrong. Buck was my good friend once, especially when there were so few.

Dammit, I want his girl.

She was mine first.

Sliding my hand up to the base of her throat,
I flatten her against the flagpole as her arms come around my waist, and we kiss again with the same amount of unrelenting need—rough, raw, swollen lips and desperate probing tongues. I’m clutching her hair and she keeps me so tight against her body, neither of us is really able to catch our breaths.

Drew
’s hands slide up my chest for a fraction of a minute before she shoves me backward. “Shit…” she whispers. I guess she can’t stave off the guilt anymore. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” She rakes her fingers through her hair then strides to the edge of the street alone.

“I love you, Hallisay,” I yell after her, and I don’t know why I say it—even though I mean it—because it
’s a really goddamn selfish thing to say now that
my
relationship is over. She freezes in the crosswalk for just a heartbeat but she doesn’t turn back. I watch her jog into the hotel, and my heart is simultaneously full
and
blown to fucking bits. Kissing her, telling her I love her, they are both short-term decisions in a long-term situation. Drew isn’t mine. This is good-bye to whatever it is we’ve shared here in Mexico.

And my good-byes aren’t getting any easier.

****

An hour later, the cab I’m in squeals to a stop in front of the Salon Tigre in Colonia Doctores. It’s an older neighborhood with faded brick buildings marred by graffiti, pastel-colored apartment buildings in disrepair, and it touts a notorious reputation for crime. But also really great bars. If Drew were with us, we probably wouldn’t be here
, but I wanted to go somewhere with more locals than tourists, and to a place where I could forget my problems on the cheap.

“How much are we drinking tonight?” Miguel asks as he hands pesos to the
driver.

“Well, let’s see…the one guy I actually liked in all of this—besides you
, of course—died after I met him,
while
I was fighting him, I’m pretty sure I just let the love of my life walk out of it
again
to marry someone else, I told my
now
ex that I cheated on her with said love of my life, and I
still
have to stop my little brother from getting killed…and try not to get myself killed in the process,” I say. The fight with Carlos is coming up, now that Sandrine is currently making final preparations, so at least it’ll give me something else to focus on.