No Chance by Lisa Suzanne
CHAPTER 14: HANNAH
I take a quick shower since Chance will be up soon. I’m thankful he only woke up once last night. We’ve been blessed with a good sleeper who only wakes up on occasion. He’s never slept anywhere but his crib at home, so I’m not surprised he woke up last night. But I don’t know what Brett’s sleeping pattern is like and I’d hate for us to be the reason he was up all night.
Except...it’s his responsibility now, too. I realize he’s paying me to be the one to take care of those cries, but he’s the father.
He still hasn’t actually held his son, and I’m not sure if he even realizes that.
But how surreal is it to be in this luxury hotel room that’s bigger than my apartment? Add that to the fact that I slept in the same bedroom as a bona fide rock star last night, and I’m having a hard time believing this is really my life now.
It’ll all become too real in a few hours when I’m forced to say goodbye to my sister.
I use the luxurious hotel shampoo and soap, but I like the coconutty smell of my three-dollar bottle of shampoo I pick up at the grocery store. I might feel like someone else when I can’t sniff the coconuts all day, and I keep thinking maybe I should’ve used my own stuff. I already feel like an impostor. I already have the strong sense that a girl like me doesn’t belong here. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but the shampoo seems to intensify those feelings.
I take a little extra time to make myself presentable, popping in the contact lenses that make my eyes itch but that I wear when I bartend. I put on a light smattering of make-up and dry my hair. I put on the single black dress I own and pair it with my black slides.
When I step out of the bathroom dressed and ready to go, the baby is still asleep. I head back out to the main room and spot Brett still out on the patio.
I open the door and find a spread of food on the table out there with him. He holds a cup of steaming coffee in his hands. “Food’s here,” he says, and when he glances up at me, I see he’s wearing sunglasses.
And somehow, I still feel his gaze as it lingers on me. As it travels down the length of my body and brands each spot.
I shake that thought out.
I don’t even like this guy. He’s an asshole, and even if he wasn’t, once upon a time he knocked up my sister. That alone puts him in the totally off-limits category.
I feel like he’s going to comment on the way I look, and it makes me a little uncomfortable. It reminds me how he didn’t give me a second glance the day I went to his little performance at the BR Tech Industries anniversary party.
Brie’s accident had been three days earlier, and I was running on anxiety and fear. I had school in the morning, spent the entire day at the hospital, and work in the evenings—except the night of the event. Mina took Chance that night, I brought him with me the other nights, Dottie took him in the mornings, and he was with me at the hospital. I was suddenly a mother figure to a baby when I already had a crammed full schedule.
I was about to crash from all of it, but that night I knew I needed to get in touch with Brett. I didn’t exactly have time or the inclination to run home and do my make-up, so I showed up how I showed up.
And the next day, when he saw me ready to go work at the bar and hardly recognized me, I immediately recognized how superficial he is.
My sister was a beautiful woman. She could’ve been with any man she wanted, but in her mind, nobody compared to the untouchable rock star she was blessed to have one night with. She held out hope that someday things would change, and she threw herself into raising her little boy and working as hard as she could. She was a research assistant at BR Tech, and she was lucky enough to be able to work from home with the occasional in-office meeting—which meant she didn’t need to pay for daycare because she could manage it herself. She was slowly working her way up, and each promotion made our lives just a little easier.
And now it’s all gone.
I sigh and sit down in the chair beside Brett as I look over the breakfast spread. I can’t help when my eyes light up at the danishes, and then I wrinkle my nose at the carafe of coffee.
“Not a coffee drinker?” he surmises.
I shake my head. “To be honest, I’ve never tried it.”
“How have you never tried coffee? It’s the nectar of the gods.”
I raise a brow. “The nectar of the gods?”
He shrugs. “Let’s just say it has cured a lot of hangovers in my day.”
“Never had one of those, either,” I muse.
This time his jaw drops down. “You’ve never had a hangover?”
I shrug. “I’ve only been able to drink legally for a year, and it’s just not something I was ever interested in.” I leave out the fact that we didn’t have enough money to afford the luxury of liquor.
“Well you’re with me now. I’ll get you good and drunk and then I’ll take care of your hangover with some coffee and greasy bacon.”
“I don’t know about that,” I murmur.
“Help yourself,” he says, indicating the food.
I reach for a cheese danish.
“Good call. Those are the best,” he says.
I set it back down and opt for the strawberry one.
His brows crinkle. “Why’d you put it back?”
“I don’t want to take it if it’s your favorite.”
He looks confused, like he can’t quite understand why I’d sacrifice it if I want it. “Take it,” he says. “Please.”
“Thank you.” I take a bite, and it reminds me of my childhood. It’s actually the perfect breakfast for today, and he didn’t even know.
I don’t remember the danish from my childhood, but it was one of the memories of our parents Brie kept very much alive. Our dad would go to the store every Saturday morning and bring home the cream cheese danish. Sometimes he’d bring home other flavors, too, but always the cheese. So when budget allowed, Brie would surprise me with one. Just a few weeks ago when Brie turned twenty-eight, I used my tips from the night before to bring her one, too.
And since today is a day to celebrate her life, it feels right to have this for breakfast.
As the delicious pastry moves past my lips and onto my tongue, I can’t help but feel the emotions hitting me from every angle.
Brett pours a cup of coffee. He doctors it up with cream and sugar, and then he pushes it across the table toward me.
I wrinkle my nose again.
“Just try it,” he goads. “One little sip.”
I twist my lips, and then I pick up the cup. I give it the sniff test, and it smells disgusting. I shake my head, and then I think to myself that this is a whole new start to my life. May as well try new things while I’m on this new journey. I tip the cup to my mouth and take a sip.
I let the liquid sit on my tongue for a beat, and it tastes sort of exactly how it smells. It’s a little bitter, but the cream seems to mask that bitterness. I don’t hate it, but I’m not sure I get the obsession people have with it.
“Well?” he asks as I set the cup down.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“Okay?” he practically growls at me.
I shrug. “Bitter. Tastes sort of how I expected it to.”
He purses his lips. “I’ll convert you yet. Trust me. Coffee is a staple of life on the road. Late nights, early mornings, a different city every few days. It’s the one constant that I cling to.”
I can’t help the tiny smile. It’s the first one in a few days, and it feels odd on my face after days of sadness...but a little glimmer of hope lights in my chest that there will be more.
Once the baby is up, it’s nearly time to leave for the funeral home. I get him dressed and ready, and Brett calls a car for us. He’s going with me, and I can’t help but feel appreciative that I don’t have to do this alone.
“Can you hold him while I grab the carrier?” I ask before we head down to the car.
His eyes meet mine, and his are full of fear.
I guess we both have things we’re scared of...and we’re both trying things that are new for us. “It’ll be fine,” I assure him.
He nods once, his eyes wide, and I hand Chance over to his father for the very first time. Brett holds him at an odd angle, and it’s clear he has never held a child before.
I stare for a beat as I look at this guy who is so very clearly a rock star—ripped black jeans in the Phoenix heat, a black shirt with a small hole near the shoulder, a wristband and a few bracelets with a watch on his left wrist, tattoos crawling up his arm—as he attempts to hold his baby boy. They stare at each other, and I wonder what’s going through little Chance’s mind. I wonder if he feels some sort of connection. I wonder if Brett does, too.
Chance immediately starts to whimper. He’s being held by a stranger, and that stranger doesn’t know how to hold him or comfort him.
But I suspect in the upcoming days...he’ll learn.
I grab the carrier and take Chance from his dad before he starts crying. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?” I ask gently.
Brett shrugs.
I glance up with another tiny smile. “I was actually talking to Chance,” I tease.
He laughs, and the sound brightens the room.
When we arrive at the funeral home, I’m shocked to find Danielle there along with Karl, the manager I met yesterday, three men I don’t yet know, and a woman I haven’t met. Introductions are made, and the entire Capital Kingsmen family turned out for my sister’s funeral.
The devastating irony is that this is an event she would’ve died to attend. Her favorite band gathered here to celebrate her.
I burst into tears when I spot these people, and it doesn’t get any easier as I say my goodbyes. She’ll forever be a part of my heart, and she’ll forever be Chance’s mother regardless of what happens over the course of the next few months. But a physical goodbye is still a tragedy.
We move to the cemetery next, where the casket is lowered into the ground as a preacher says some words as I cling to Chance. He cries, and I cry, and Brett attempts to comfort me with an arm slung loosely around my shoulder. Danielle squeezes my hand.
They’re all I have now.
And just like that, it’s over.
A whole life, twenty-eight years, gone too soon.
And now my only choice is to pick up the pieces she left behind.
