Not A Chance (Heartstrings #2)

33. Indie

When the rideshare dropped me off in front of the familiar two-story home in Almaden Valley, for the first time in all my visits over the years, its warm stone exterior didn’t spark excitement in me.

My rational brain recognized that Emery was literally the coolest, most giving person I knew.

Indie

Hey, Em. Check your porch.

Emery

I told you that you didn’t need to worry about presents this year! Mailing stuff is such a pain. You shouldn’t have!

Indie

Just check, okay?

Emery

Fine. Hold on.

Em’s front down swung open and revealed my adorably disheveled best friend. She had blue paint on one cheek. It was watercolor, maybe, or some sort of acrylic mixture. Her hands were covered in graphite, so she added to her look when she brought her hands up to her cheeks in surprise.

“Did I break you?” My smile was timid, which was a direct contrast to the cheeky grin at surprising her any other day of our lives.

Em’s giggle sounded somewhat unhinged once she got over the shock of seeing me at her door.

“I haven’t slept properly in a week. Are you really here? Or am I manifesting your spirit as a distraction from my current artistic failure?” She reached out to hug me, but when her hands made it to her eye level, she discovered how dirty they were and hesitated.

“Come here.” I wasn’t afraid of getting dirty. Neither of us were really huggers. Emery, in particular, was very specific about that, but both our natural instincts seemed to be overridden because we’d never been separated for so long since we’d met.

This hug felt good.

“What are you doing here? Where’s Gizmo?” She pulled back and held me by the shoulders. Em’s brows furrowed, her eyes examining my face for clues as to why I was making this surprise appearance.

She definitely wasn’t expecting me. After the third Christmas I turned her down, she’d stopped asking me to rejoin her family for the holidays. Respecting my needs, she’d never asked me why and instead just let it go.

“What’s wrong?” She gave my shoulders a mild squeeze. “Did something happen? Oh my god. Are you okay? What did your parents do?” Her questions piled on top of each other so quickly that I hadn’t had the chance to even answer her first one.

“Em. I’m okay. Everyone is. I have a hotel room, so Giz is chillin’ out in four-star luxury right now. I just came to talk to you.” I didn’t mention that it was Theo who’d taken Giz in her carrier back to our hotel room with him when we’d parted at the airport.

“Yeah, sure. Come in, then.” She turned to move through the threshold and then looked back when I didn’t immediately follow. “You coming?”

“Yep. Can we talk somewhere private, though?” I didn’t need her brothers to overhear this particular conversation.

“Tree house talk?” Em’s eyebrows rose in question.

We hadn’t been in her backyard tree house since we were about sixteen and Emery made us all go up there so she could tell us about having sex for the first time with her high school boyfriend.

Tree house talks were called for only the most secret and sacred reasons.

She led me around the side of the house and into the yard, where the tree house sat among the branches of the biggest tree in the yard.

“Ready?” she asked, looking back at me before she began to climb. At the top, she kind of tumbled inside, and I heard a muffled “ouch!”

“Coming? Shit, ow.” Emery rubbed her forehead. “Watch your body parts when you get up here. I must have grown since the last time we used this thing. I don’t remember having to bend my knees so much when I sat down.”

If Emery struggled to sit at five foot four, I was going to have to crunch into a ball to fit since I was six inches taller than her.

I groaned internally, cursing the draw of the nostalgia I’d imagined was waiting for us up there. This might be one of those things that seemed like a great idea until it wasn’t.

When I made it to the top, Emery had moved to the far side. There was a little bit of dirt in the corners, and the little stools and table Emery used to have were gone, but otherwise, it hadn’t changed much since the three of us last squished in here at sixteen after our sophomore formal.

“So what’s so important that we needed this level of secrecy?” Emery’s gaze flitted all over me as if she’d find a clue somewhere on my person.

“Em. I don’t know how to say this, really. But before I say it, I need to tell you how much your friendship has meant to me all these years.” My eyes stung with the force of the emotions I held at bay.

Crying was not something I indulged in, but I couldn’t stop my tear ducts from going rogue, threatening to blur my vision.

“Em. It’s about Theo.” Her eyes widened. I took a deep breath and forced the rest of the words out of my mouth. “You know how we’re both in Toronto…”

Emery nodded, waiting for me to finish my thought.

“Well, we’re kind of dating.” I bit my lip nervously.

Her eyes remained too wide for a moment before she covered her face with her hands and pulled her knees in toward her body. She started shaking but not making any noise.

I didn’t know what to do. Abbie was the cuddly one in our group. I was used to taking action. If she was upset with me, did I even have the right to comfort her?

“Em. I didn’t mean to upset you,” I rushed out.

Her head popped up, and she let out a peal of laughter so loud it made me afraid for the structural integrity of this twenty-year-old treehouse.

“Oh my god!” she gasped. Her shoulders shook with her laughter. “I thought… God, I thought that Theo had gotten you fired somehow and I was going to have to blacklist my most sane brother.”

Stunned, I remained silent. Even if I’d been nervous, I’d known it was likely she would support me and Theo. But I hadn’t expected the giggling .

Emery giggle-choked, trying to suck in more oxygen. “But you’re just dating?” She managed to sound closer to her normal self. Her shoulders no longer shook.

“Just dating?” My mouth formed a shocked O. “You’re not mad?” I watched her carefully, looking for any sign that she might not be telling the truth to save my feelings.

“Babe, you’ve always been my family.” She reached out and patted my knee, giving a quick squeeze before returning it to her lap. “Also, you’re an adult and can date whoever you want. So is Theo. And I love you both. Obviously, I want you both to be happy. Even if you are finding happiness with one of my idiot brothers. I’m unbelievably happy for you both! But are you happy? That’s the most important thing here.”

Filled with relief, I gave her a genuine smile.

“Yeah,” I whispered, afraid that the universe might swipe it away from me if I spoke the words too loudly. “I am.”

What I’d been feeling for Theo went beyond what I’d ever let myself feel before, and it was scary as fuck. It was so much easier to trust Emery and Abbie because not only did I have years of evidence that they were kind and loyal, but I’d still kept a part of myself separate all this time.

With Theo, my heart was wide open in a way that was out of my control. The same high that came with the happiness of being able to enjoy each other also came with the potential to be shoved off a cliff into a sea of heartbreak, and nobody had taught me to swim.

Emery extracted her phone from between her thigh and the wall of the tree house. She scrolled quickly and pressed a button.

“What are you doing? You’re not calling Theo, are you? What are you going to say?” My questions had Emery giggling softly again.

“Calm down, Ind. I’m not calling Theo. I’m calling Abs. It’s only fair she gets to find out about how Miss Love-Is-For-Idiots is just like the rest of us poor mortals. Though, I’m not gonna lie. I don’t hate seeing you flustered. I almost want to video this moment for posterity.” She grinned as the phone rang on speaker.

“Hello?” an out-of-breath Abbie answered after the fourth ring. “Emery? Is everything okay?” A few more gasps of breath accompanied her words.

“I’m fine, Abs. Everything okay on your side? I’m going to switch to video. Indie has some news.” Emery pressed the video icon on her screen.

“Wait! Just give me two seconds.” Emery and I stared at each other while we heard rustling and murmurs over the line.

“Oh my god. Do you think they were…” Emery’s whispered, eyebrows raised.

“Were Abbie and Daddy Aiden fucking?” I winked. “Probably.” Now, I was the one who was laughing. The uncertainty of the day had got to me, and I couldn’t contain it anymore, especially because I could picture Aiden’s grumpy face at being interrupted.

“I’m back.” Abbie’s face appeared on the screen. She definitely had just-fucked or just-about-to-get-to-the-fucking-part hair. Her normal long, lavender waves were frizzing out on one side more than the other, not to mention the scruff burns on her chin and neck.

“So you’re having a good night.” I batted my eyelashes at the screen, a Cheshire grin on my face. I couldn’t help but enjoy teasing Abbie and, by extension, Aiden because they were so easy to rile up.

“Ind! You’re so mean!” Emery swatted me on the shoulder closest to her. “Um, Abs. I didn’t mean to, you know, interrupt your evening. You didn’t need to answer if you were… busy.”

“You never call, so it must be important.” Abbie blushed, making it more obvious what she’d been up to just now .

In the far corner of Abbie’s screen, Aiden walked by with his white dress shirt open and his own hair a mess. “Hey, Daddy!” I called out.

“Call me motherfucking ‘Daddy’ while you disturb my first night without overtime in weeks. I get home early, and then…” Aiden’s mumbling drifted off in the background.

I cackled. “Oooo. Someone’s mad. Is that going to be a good or a bad thing when we hang up, girl?”

“Shut up.” Abbie stuck her tongue at me, not answering the question. But her cheeks got redder. “So what’s up? And… are you two in the tree house?”

“Indie has a boyfriend!” Emery gushed. “She made me come up in the tree house because it was super-secret news, and she didn’t want me screeching inside the house.”

“What!” Abbie practically shouted, filling the tiny wooden box Emery and I sat in with her exclamation. “You haven’t dated anyone since Wells in college! I can see why you asked for the tree house. Em, your brothers would have had a field day with this if they’d overheard you.”

Oh crap. It was time to fess up.

“Er, yeah. About Wells. We didn’t actually date.” Twin expressions of surprise, one in person and the other on Emery’s phone screen, were directed at me. “Our families kind of shoved us together. My parents were hounding me all the time to date someone of their choice, and he was the best option. We went out once, and there was nothing there. Wells came out as bisexual at the end of senior year, remember? He actually had a boyfriend since freshman year but didn’t know what his stuck-up family would say.” I shrugged.

“Why didn’t you tell us? What about all those dates you went on?” Emery’s superpower was the youngest-child pout. She was damn good at it too. It even worked on me. Looking into those big, sad eyes made me feel guilty.

“Well, um, I went to the library?” My statement ended with a questioning lilt. “I mean, earning double degrees was no joke. I got to study, and it got me out of tons of stupid fundraisers with my parents. There were so many events my parents assumed I was with Wells at a different one. Plus, it wasn't my news to share.”

“That makes sense. I can’t believe you kept that secret for all those years. You can trust us, you know.” Abbie was quick to forgive.

“Sorry. But we got sidetracked there.” Emery pointed at me with her free hand. “You are granted a temporary reprieve from the Wells thing. Abs, her fake ex isn’t the real news!” She smiled wider. “It’s who her boyfriend is that’s the news. Try to guess.”

“Aren’t there like eight billion people in the world? How am I supposed to guess?” Abbie asked.

“It’s Theo!” It was Emery’s turn to shout. She was so loud that half the neighborhood knew who my boyfriend was now.

Abbie’s eyes widened, and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You’re right! That is way bigger news. Whew. Em, I’d never say this because it would have been weird before.” Abbie dropped her voice to a whisper and glanced quickly at her surroundings. “Your brother is pretty damn hot.”

“Sweetheart, what was that?” Aiden’s voice called from another part of the house.

“Ohh, Daddy heard you, sweetheart,” I teased, knowing Aiden had come a long way in being able to take a joke. With me as Abbie’s friend, he’d had no choice, of course.

“Speaking of daddies, actually. Em, remind me how old Theo is?” Abbie grinned.

“He’s thirty-one.” She narrowed her eyes and looked between me next to her and Abbie on her screen .

“Well, that seems old enough to be a daddy, don’t you think, Ind?” Abbie winked.

Emery made a fake vomiting noise, but I pretended not to hear.

“Well played, friend. You can ask him yourself next time you see him,” I suggested.

“Maybe I will ask him. You’ll see,” Abbie insisted. She would not ask Theo. She’d burst into flames before those words would leave her lips. “We’re leaving in the morning to spend Christmas with Aiden’s family. Does that mean I’ll miss you this trip?” Her lips turned down with her question.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, babe. Theo and I fly out on the twenty-seventh. Well, he’s off to Denver for an away game, and I’m taking Giz back to Toronto.”

Just then, Aiden said something in the background, but this time, we couldn’t make out his words. Whatever it was, it had Abbie blushing again.

“Uh, okay. Text me. I gotta go. Love you!” With those words, she ended the call.

“I wonder if she’s going to get spanked for thinking Theo is hot?” I wondered out loud.

“God, girl, your mind is filled with debauchery. Make sure you keep all those thoughts about my brother to yourself, okay? We’re not that close.” Emery scrunched her nose.

“Fair,” I agreed.

Dropping her phone in her lap, Emery employed her superpower again, her eyes widening to the point she looked like an animated character. There wasn’t a Disney Princess in existence that could top her sweet expression.

“Does that mean you and Theo are staying here for Christmas?”