21. Indie
TWENTY-ONE
Indie
T he truck ride back to the hotel feels like a slow, suffocating crawl through the worst kind of hell. One of my own making . Thank God I’m not driving because I’d never have been able to focus on the road with the stifling awkward energy rolling between us. Every bump in the pavement comes with a new wave of guilt and frustration that tonight went downhill so quickly.
It takes everything I have to keep the tears from slipping down my cheeks. I dig my fingernails into my palms, biting the corner of my lip so hard the coppery tang of blood trickles free. I will myself to keep it together, just a little while longer, until we can part ways.
The truck rolls to a stop at the bottom of the porch. Brooks reaches over mechanically to turn the volume dial down, even though the radio hasn’t been on this entire time.
“Indie, please. Don’t leave it like this,” he pleads, his tone thick with emotion.
“I’m sorry.” I gasp, pushing the words through my own emotionally clogged throat as I hop from the cab. Before I slam the door behind me, shutting out the closest thing to a real relationship I’ve had in my adult life, I break. “I don’t regret a single second of knowing you, Brooks Holt.” I don’t let him respond, turning on my heels, booking it up the steps, and disappearing into the inn lobby.
The moment my hotel door clicks closed behind me, the fragile grip I’ve been holding onto snaps. The dam bursts, and everything I held back pours out in a messy, uncontrollable flood. My vision blurs the sad, lonely room around me.
Kicking off my heels, the sound of them hitting the wood floor barely reaches my ears as I stumble toward the bed on the other side of the room. I need to escape, to fall into the comfort of being busy and pretend none of it was real. Like if I close my eyes tight enough, I can erase the last few hours, and we can go back to when everything was still going as planned.
Tonight was supposed to be a celebration, a chance to finally breathe after a whirlwind of a week. Instead, it was a mess. A perfect storm of secrets unveiled, betrayal of those we love, and a plethora of regret. It didn’t turn out as I’d imagined for my last night here. And maybe that was on me.
I pushed Brooks to talk to Nick and convinced him to finally have the conversation with his brother that he’d been putting off for far too long. But if I hadn’t, maybe Taylor wouldn’t have overheard those damning words. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like I’d been sucker-punched in the chest by a man I never intended on falling for in the first place.
Shaking my head, trying to clear the brain fog rolling in, I drag my suitcase from under the bed. I need a distraction from playing the scene we happened upon in the bathroom on repeat in my head. I throw it on the couch with more force than I mean to. The zipper catches on the fabric as I try to pry it open so I can start packing up.
I’m done with this room, this city, this feeling that I’m leaving a huge part of myself behind. My flight leaves first thing tomorrow morning and if I can avoid everyone long enough to get on the plane, maybe—just maybe—I can salvage whatever dignity I have left.
My phone buzzes against my chest for what feels like the tenth time. I don’t have to look to know it’s Brooks or Taylor. It's probably a mixture of both, trying to get through to me for different reasons. I don’t have the energy to face either of them.
Plucking my phone from the tight cup of my bridesmaid dress, I let it vibrate itself into oblivion on the end table. Ignoring the relentless buzzing, I continue collecting my belongings from around the room, packing them away like a physical representation of my own feelings.
I’d never been good at facing the aftermath of my own mistakes. Maybe once I was back home, away from Georgia, I could finally get a grip on all this and have the conversation with Taylor I’d been avoiding.
I power on my laptop, back in the office for the first time in a week, bracing myself for the flood of work emails. What I’m not prepared for is the absolute avalanche of 127 unread messages from email addresses I don’t recognize. My stomach drops.
What the actual fuck.
I scroll through, deleting the endless marketing emails—delete, delete, delete. But even after clearing out the clogging junk, there’s still just under a hundred left. I roll my eyes and draw in a deep breath for the usual barrage of invoices from vendors that we’re struggling to pay every month, requests for free stuff from influencers, and possible complaints from the couple of scheduled events we had while I was away. But then I click on the first email and freeze.
It's from a client praising us for the garden party my team put on last week. They absolutely loved it. The subject line on her email: Can we book in for our upcoming business dinner?
“Wait, what?” I ask my quiet office in disbelief.
I blink and keep going. Another email, same theme. Another glowing review, another inquiry for a new event. One after the other, it’s the same pattern. They saw a post on social media. A friend recommended us. They attended an event we planned and are now ready to book with us.
I’ve been gone for a week, and it’s like the business exploded in my absence. I’ve been busting my ass for over a year to build this company, and not once has anything like this ever happened.
I close my email, feeling overwhelmed by the potential scheduling crisis that’s bound to unfold. Then, as if on autopilot, I pull up our social media accounts. Our marketing manager, Madi, is the one I pay the big bucks to handle all of this. She’s in charge of our platforms and email lists and I trust her to manage everything. Leaving me free to focus on the design and outsourcing part of events.
I check our analytics—followers, views, engagement—everything is up. Not only up but skyrocketing to the moon up. People know what Indie’s Event Co. is now; even better, they want to work with us. These numbers aren’t just good. They’re life-changing.
I think I’m in shock as I sit and stare at the screen, trying to figure out how this even happened. I posted nothing special, and I don’t remember any plans to change up our marketing strategies.
I scroll through our tagged photos, half-expecting to see some high-profile influencer or celebrity endorsement I somehow missed. But then I see it and it all clicks into place.
Taylor.
I immediately reach for my phone, not even bothering to check the time to do the math for the time zone difference. Hitting Tay’s contact, I let the call ring. “Tay,” I say as soon as the beep sounds to leave a message, “I know you’re probably enjoying some delicious Grecian dinner right now, but I think we need to talk about some things. I love you. Call me back!” I hang up quickly, my mind racing, anxious to hear from her.
This changes everything.
I know what I need to do now, at least with my business side of things. That part of my life finally seems clear for the first time in months. But with the thought of Taylor comes memories of the wedding and an onslaught of suppressed feelings about Brooks. I haven’t let myself reflect on the mess we made during her wedding week.
We were like a black hole, pulling everything to focus on us with our one-track minds of each other. Dragging others into the vortex without realizing the destruction we would leave in our wake. And then everything we found together in that week vanished in the blink of an eye.
Now, it’s time to focus on what comes next, what I can control. Well, at least for Indie’s Event Co. But I also need to set things right—for them. They deserve it. It’s time to put my money where my mouth is.
My phone doesn’t make it through the entire first ring before I answer.
“Hey, girl. Spence just stepped away for a second. What’s going on?” Taylor’s voice is warm and relaxed. The clink of glasses in the background accompanies her question. She’s undoubtedly living her best life at some expensive restaurant in Santorini while I’m drowning in work chaos.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice coming out a little more frantic than I intended.
“Uhm, do you want to be a little more specific and help a girl out? What are you talking about?” Tay sounds completely unphased, but I can tell she’s trying to hide something.
“The photos. The captions. Tay, I’ve got emails coming out of my ass with potential clients from all over the country.”
Her silence on the other end is almost too perfect. A beat passes before she finally responds, and I can practically see her smug grin through the phone. “Well, you wouldn’t let me help any other way and after you and Brooks blew up the wager nonsense, what…”
“Hold on, are you trying to tell me you orchestrated the whole bachelorette party bet to sway in my favor?” I cut her off, my brain trying to process that possibility.
“I’m not, not saying that,” she says casually.
“Taylor Paige Bell.”
“Caldwell now,” she corrects me in a singsong voice.
“Tomato, tomato . You went through all that trouble just to help me?” My tone drops slightly in disbelief.
“And then you derailed my perfectly laid-out plan by dragging Brooks into the mix,” she adds, sounding exasperated by my choices. “I know the business has been struggling, and you’ve been overworked and unhappy. I just wanted to help where I could. So, I got creative when you wouldn’t take the money.”
My jaw practically hits the floor. “You… you did this? You started this whole thing because you thought I was struggling that much?” My voice wavers between shock and gratitude. I wish we were on a video call so she could see how much that means to me.
“Either way, at least my backup plan sounds like it worked!” she squeals, the joy in her voice radiating through the phone. She’s basking in her triumph, and I can’t even be mad about it.
“You’re absolutely diabolical, you know that?”
“I just wish things hadn’t ended so badly between you and Brooks.” Tay’s tone softens, the playful edge gone. “I really think there was something there between you two.”
A loud sigh bursts past my lips before I can stop it. “Yeah, me too. But if it were meant to be, it wouldn’t be this hard, Tay. My life’s already hard enough. I don’t need to stack anything else on it.”
“I understand. If it makes you feel any better. He’s miserable too from what Spence has told me.”
“It doesn’t, but I love you for trying to make me feel better anyway.”
There’s a brief pause before she says, “I just wish you’d take care of yourself more. The business, Brooks, all of it. It’s a lot for one person. But you’re strong. You’ll get everything back on track.” My day one, supportive best friend, reminds me.
I try to smile, even though she can’t see it. “Thanks, Tay. But listen, there’s one thing I still need your help with.”
“Of course, anything, you know that,” she says without hesitation. “Oh wait, Spencer’s on his way back. Can we talk about this later?”
“No,” I cut in before she can hang up. “Actually, put me on speaker. Spence can help with this, too!”