Indy
TWENTY-SIX
Dia arrives back from LA with stars in her eyes, stories, and two suitcases full of dirty laundry.
She squeals when she sees me waiting for her in arrivals and throws herself at me. I laugh as I catch her and hug her back.
She smacks a kiss to my cheek and grins at me. “Did you miss me?”
“Why?” I put on my best confused expression. “Were you away or something?”
“Dork.” She grabs the handle of one suitcase, handing the other to me. We start to walk toward the exit.
“So?” she asks. “What’s new? What’s been happening? Tell me everything.”
I’m sleeping with Nick.
The urge to just blurt it out is suddenly almost too much to resist. I want to tell somebody. I want at least one person to know about us. Then maybe it would feel more… real, I guess?
It’s a scary realization that I want this at all.
I want to be Nick and Indy. Nicholas and Blue. In one breath. This is NickandIndy. Have you met NicholasandBlue?
Fucking fuck.
“You know.” I wave my hand dismissively. “The usual. Who cares? Tell me all about LA.”
She jumps into detailed descriptions of the acting course, and the people she met, and the places she saw in the three weeks she was gone. Has it really only been three weeks? Is that even possible? Because I don’t feel like the Indy I was when she left.
I push all thoughts of Nick out of my head and listen to Dia’s stories instead. We laugh the whole way home. If there’s anybody who can be trusted to get herself in as much trouble as possible in a short period of time, it’s my sister. It’s a legitimate talent.
She’s still talking by the time I park in front of our house. I grab her suitcases from the trunk and follow her inside.
“I’m home!” Dia shouts as soon as she’s through the door. She turns around and raises her brows at me. “Where is everybody?”
“Mom should be back soon. She had a meeting with potential investors or something. Dad’s in his studio. We’re ordering dinner and having a welcome home party later, though.”
She inhales. “What smells so good here?”
Now that she says it, I can smell it too.
“I don’t know,” I say, even though I have my suspicions.
“Well, I really need to pee and wash the plane off me.”
She runs up the stairs, and I make my way to the kitchen. I lean my shoulder against the doorframe and watch.
The corner of Nick’s lips quirks up, but he doesn’t say anything. I push myself off the doorframe and go to him.
I stand behind him and resist the urge to wrap myself around him. Instead, I lean my chin on his shoulder and peer over it.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I heard your parents mention ordering something for dinner. I was home anyway, so I figured I might as well do something useful.”
“That’s sweet of you.”
He scowls. “Who are you calling sweet?”
“Do you have an apron?”
“Should I?”
“Mm. One of those that says kiss the cook on the front.”
“Did you say kiss the cock?” he asks.
“In the scenario where you’re the cook, it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll also end up kissing the cock.”
His head drops forward, and he squeezes the spatula until his knuckles turn white. He groans.
And I feel invincible.
“Go stand far, far away from me and… set the table or something. Make yourself useful.”
My grin widens. I kiss the back of his neck before I go to grab the plates.
Dad wanders in fifteen minutes later. He raises his brows when he sees Nick, but that’s the only sign of surprise he shows.
“Boys,” he says, like us cooking dinner together is something that happens every day. He looks around. “Where’s our long-lost heroine?”
“Taking a shower,” I say as I lay out the forks and knives.
“And your mother?”
Just as he asks that we hear the front door opening. I point toward the hallway, and Dad walks out. Murmurs carry over, muted enough that I can’t hear what’s being said exactly, but I can make out the surprise.
I glance at Nick.
“You know they’re talking about you, right?”
“Yup,” he says tonelessly.
I snort out a laugh, and when he looks up and our gazes meet, his eyes shine with his own special brand of dry humor.
I finish setting the table.
“This was really nice of you,” I say.
“Well,” he says in a measured voice, “somebody did yell at me to put some fucking effort in every now and then. I’m paraphrasing.”
I love my family a lot with full acknowledgment that none of us are perfect. But I truly believe that we all do our best. So him doing this? For me? It feels important. I feel like I’m important.
“Thank you,” I say softly. I want to kiss him, but there are too many people around for that. Later, though, I’ll get him alone.
“Hi, darling,” Mom tells me when she walks in. “Oh, Nick. This looks perfect.”
She’s not making it into a big deal, which also means Nick starts to look marginally less stiff.
“It’s not a big deal,” he mumbles just in case, though.
“Claire was always raving about your skills in the kitchen,” Mom says.
That does it. Tension snaps right back into Nick’s shoulders.
A part of me is preparing for him to react like he always does, with harsh words and a well-placed disappearing act.
But then he closes his eyes for a moment, opens them again, and looks up.
The small smile is tight and never actually reaches his eyes, but it’s there.
“It was probably a survival mechanism. You know, compliment the one who doesn’t burn down the house while making grilled cheese,” Nick says.
My parents laugh. We’re all light again.
“Now where’s that daughter of mine?” Mom asks.
Dad says something. I don’t listen. I’m too busy looking at Nick. The way he still does his best to relax and not squirm. The way his fingers roll into loose fists and then extend like he’s not sure what to do with them. The way he locks and unlocks his jaw.
The way he tries.
So hard.
For me.
Because I’m about ninety-nine percent sure this is for me. He’s doing this for me.
And something inside me shifts. Some final building block clicks into place.
Oh.
Oh shit.
It’s soft and heavy at the same time, this feeling. It settles somewhere behind my ribs and spreads outward.
My chest jolts and tightens.
Nick’s gaze meets mine and heat creeps up the back of my neck.
He smiles, and this one reaches his eyes. It’s soft. For me.
I’m suddenly undeniably aware that I care. About just how much I care. About how absolutely inadequate the word “care” even is to describe how I feel.
It’s less scary than the truth, though.
My heart kicks faster and faster.
It feels a lot like—
I exhale slowly and try to push the feelings back down. Hide them away for at least a little bit longer.
It doesn’t work.
I’m in love with him.
There it is. The word that fits.
It’s like it has its own gravity, rearranging everything else around it.
And the part that hits me like a rock?
It doesn’t feel like it’s something I want to change.
“Go?” I look at Mom and blink, forced back into reality too fast.
“Yeah?”
She sends me an amused look. “Can you go see where Dia is? We’re about ready to start eating.”
I nod and walk out of the kitchen. In the hallway, I stop for a moment, lean against the wall, and take a deep breath. I can do this. I can be normal. I can pretend I didn’t realize what I just realized. I have to.
I jog up the stairs. The bathroom door is open, so I go and knock on Dia’s door. No reply.
“Dia?” I call out. When there’s still nothing, I open the door. She’s sprawled across the bed, dressed in a pair of shorts, a tank top, and only one sock, clearly dead to the world.
Of course.
I roll my eyes and walk over, then pinch her nostrils shut.
It takes about three seconds. She jerks awake with a violent inhale, swatting at my hand.
She looks around blearily for a bit before her eyes settle on me.
“Rise and shine.” I take a step back before she can kick me.
She drops her head back to the bed and drags a pillow over her face. “You’re a psychopath.”
“You’ve been summoned. Mom’s home, and Dad put his muse on hold in your honor. Nick made dinner.”
That gets her. She drags the pillow lower and frowns at me. “To poison us?”
I pick up the pillow and throw it at her head. “He’s being sweet. Nice. I mean he’s being… Nick. You don’t get it. He’s really… Nick.”
I love him.
Whoa. No way am I going to just come out and say that.
I have to sort of ease her into it. Right after easing Nick into it.
Dia’s eyebrows have risen higher and higher throughout that whole awkward, fumbling speech. She narrows her eyes once I’m done.
“Why are you smiling like that?”
“Excuse me for being happy you’re home.”
She squints even harder. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s all for me. No, this is something else.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t.”
“Come one. Everybody’s waiting for you. Last one there is a loser.”
“We’re not five,” she says, but she’s already sliding herself toward the edge of the bed.
I take a step toward the door. Her feet hit the floor.
In a matter of milliseconds, she’s tripped me and is running down the stairs.
I race after her and make it to the kitchen a few steps behind her.
Just in time to see her raise her arms in the air and let out a whoop.
“Suck it, loser.” She points at my face.
Mom lets out an exasperated sigh before she smiles. “Sweetheart. We missed you so much.”
Dia hugs her and Dad. Five minutes later we’re all seated around the table with plates of food in front of us. Dia launches into stories about LA. Traffic—terrible. Weather—perfect. Auditions—amazing.
She met someone who definitely knows someone famous. Like, actually this time.
Mom and Dad fill her in on what’s been happening at home. Most of it is the usual.
I pay as much attention as I can, which is a feat because Nick is sitting right next to me, close enough that every small movement registers. My knee brushes against his underneath the table. It’s just a moment, but I go still anyway. A few tense seconds tick by, and then his knee presses back.
My breath catches for half a second before I force myself to breathe again. I reach for my glass, mostly so I have something to do with my hands. When I set the glass back down, the back of my hand touches his where it rests on the table.
I pull it away quickly, face burning hot. I squeeze my thigh with my fingers and tell myself to be normal.
Underneath the tablecloth, his fingers brush mine again.
And then he links his pinky with mine.
And we sit and have dinner with my family.
Holding fingers.