57. Indy #2
“Oh,” he says slowly before he drags his palm over his face and puts on strained a smile of his own. “Bridget. Wow. You. Look. Great. So beautiful. Is that a new skirt? Because your legs in it are fire.”
I pretend-cough into my hand and say, “Making it worse.”
Callum sends me a panicked look. “Brain!” he says too loudly.
“You… have a beautiful brain. Full of the smartest thoughts. Your mind is… It’s a great mind.
A smart mind. But mostly, what gets me is how compassionate you are.
A real saint. An understanding saint.” His shoulders slump.
“Please don’t shout too loudly. I’m very hungover, and Coach already tore me a new one.
I puked on the field. Does it make you feel better? ”
The saccharine smile is back on Bridget’s face. She pats Callum’s cheek. “I’m going to make your life hell, baby boy. That is going to make me feel better.” She turns on her heel. “I’m setting up in the kitchen. Go take a shower,” she throws over her shoulder.
Callum stares after her with a thoughtful look. “Is it wrong that I found that whole thing just a bit arousing?”
I make a face. “Dude, she’s like my sister.”
He shrugs and looks marginally happier as he heads to the bathroom, leaving me and Dia standing in the living room.
She sends me a sly look and opens her mouth.
“No,” I say firmly.
Her shoulders slump. “Oh, come on. The one time you have something interesting going on, and you won’t tell me?”
I flip her off, and she laughs before she follows Bridge into the kitchen.
I close my eyes and inhale deeply a few times.
It’s going to be a long day.
I have every intention of escaping Callum’s long before Nick shows up. Because I’m a coward.
Instead, when he walks in, I’m still seated at the kitchen table with Bridget opposite me, going through Callum’s schedule while the man himself is in the living room with Dia, controller in hand, shouting at the TV.
Once again, I’m reduced to flinching at everything that sounds like it could be the door opening anywhere in a five-block radius. The more time passes, the twitchier I get. At a round of gunfire from the video game, I jerk so hard water splashes over the rim of the glass I’m holding.
“Oh my God,” Bridget says, moving her papers out of spill range and glaring at me. “What the hell is the matter with you, Go? Are you having a seizure?”
“I think I’m coming down with something,” I say. That something is cowardice, but we don’t have to go into the specifics.
She holds the papers up in front of her face like a shield. “Step away from the table,” she says in an alarmed voice. “Eww! I don’t need to be near a germ factory. I’m off to Miami the day after tomorrow.”
“Oh, well.” I push my chair away. “Then maybe I should go home? Just in case?”
She sighs loudly. “You moving in was a mistake.” She points at my face. “If I catch anything from you, I will smother you with a pillow in your sleep. I have a baseball player to sign. I can’t do it if I’m sneezing in his face!”
“Sometimes, when you feel like you’re about to sneeze, it helps if you imagine that you already sneezed,” Callum says as he closes the fridge after fishing out a sports drink from one of the drawers.
Bridget stares at him. “What?”
Callum shrugs, leaning his shoulder against the fridge. “I’m telling you, it works.”
Bridge considers it for a bit before she frowns. “That can’t be right.”
“Give it a go next time,” Callum suggests.
“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to remember to start daydreaming about sneezing just as I’m about to sneeze.” Bridget rolls her eyes.
They keep bickering, so I very slowly get on my feet and start to back away.
“I’m gonna go, then,” I say to no one in particular, but before I can, I back into Dia.
“What is it?” she asks as she puts the back of her hand against my forehead. “The flu? It’s been going around. You do feel a bit warm.”
I don’t think I am, but Dia’s been sensitive about any kind of illness ever since her diagnosis. It’s a fine line to tread between getting to go home and her calling me an ambulance.
“It’s just a headache,” I say. But that sounds like something an Advil will solve, and I need it to be something a bit more, I feel, to get away from here.
“I’ve been feeling cold all day,” I add.
It still doesn’t feel like quite enough.
“Umm. Sore throat?” Now it feels like overkill. “Just a tiny little bit, though.”
Callum comes and throws his arm over Dia’s shoulders. “Ready to head back into battle, Dee-bee?”
“Oh,” Dia says. “Sorry, dude. I have to take Go home.”
“I can manage by myself,” I say.
“But—” she starts. The rest of what she’s about to say gets lost in the loud buzzing that starts in my ears when I hear the unmistakable sound of the front door opening and closing. My shoulders and back tense immediately.
I know it’s him well before he makes his way into the kitchen.
He stops, and his eyes find mine like they’re programmed to do so.
I try not to look at him, but I fail almost immediately.
He looks… My heart jumps wildly. It thumps and skips and slams in my chest. Waves of heat and cold speed through me, leaving goosebumps in their wake.
He has no right to look this good. He should look tired and nervous, not calm and hot.
It takes physical effort not to throw myself at him.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this. To ache for someone right next to you.
Nick’s eyes move away from me.
It’s just more ache at this point. He looks from one person to the next with raised brows.
“What are you guys doing? Staging an intervention for the golfcart prodigy?”
Callum slams his hands in front of his crotch and staggers backward. “That was a low blow.”
“How do you drive a golf cart off a pier?” Nick muses.
“Guess I’m just that good. Don’t lecture me. Marcus literally just left, so I’m all lectured out.”
“I wasn’t going to lecture,” Nick says.
Callum’s shoulders slump with relief.
“I was going to laugh,” Nick adds.
“You’re fired,” Callum says.
“I’ll pack my stuff.”
“But then I’d have to cook for myself,” Callum mutters, brows knitting into a frown. “Okay, you’re rehired.”
“What a relief,” Nick says. “Unemployment was hell.”
Callum turns his attention back to Dia. “Come on, Dee. One more campaign?”
Dia chews on the side of her lower lip, her eyes darting between me and Callum.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Seriously.” Only to have Nick’s gaze snap to me.
“Why wouldn’t you be fine?”
“I have a slight headache,” I say, just as Dia says, “The flu,” with the kind of grimness that suggests I’m about to go into the light any moment now.
“It’s not the flu,” I say. “I promise I can get home perfectly fine by myself.”
“I’ll take you,” Nick says.
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m fi—”
“Problem solved.” Callum claps his hands loudly, then rubs them together. “Let’s go, Dee. Apocalypse waits for no man.”
Everybody suddenly scatters, leaving me alone with Nick. His eyes move up and down me slowly. The look burns. It rushes through me like wildfire and leaves everything a charred mess. Conviction? Never heard of it. Resolve? Not here.
“Let’s go.” He turns around and heads toward the door.
“You really don’t have to.” I rush after him. “I promise. I’m—”
“Stop arguing, Blue,” he says over his shoulder without even looking back.
“But—”
He ignores me.
“Anybody else want to go home?” I ask, looking around the room. “Bridge?”
She looks up from her phone and blinks. “Huh? No. I’m heading out to drinks with some people in a bit.”
And that’s how I end up sitting in the passenger seat of Nick’s car, on my way home.
We’re both silent while he maneuvers the car through the thinning traffic. It’s late enough that most people have finished their workday already, so we get to my place pretty fast. He parks in front of my building and turns off the engine.
“Well. Thanks.” They’re the first words I’ve spoken since we left Callum’s, so I sound very loud in the otherwise silent car.
He doesn’t say anything, just keeps eyeing me with a mildly amused look on his face.
I nod and get out of the car.
He does too.
“Um,” I say, “everything okay?”
“I’d say so,” he says, all casual while I’m made up of nothing but nerves. “Show me your place.”
I lick over my dry lips. “It’s Dia and Bridge’s apartment. You’ve been here before. You’ve seen everything there is to see.”
“Not your room.”
“You’ve seen my room.”
“It was dark.”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.” I give up. “I guess… come on, then.”
He follows me up the stairs and stands way too close while I unlock the door.
We both toe off our sneakers, and he casually strolls farther inside.
I mean, he’s clearly familiar with this place.
He confidently bypasses the doors to Dia’s and Bridget’s rooms and walks past the entrance to the living room before he pushes my bedroom door open and walks inside, disappearing from view.
I exhale loudly and follow him.
I find him standing in the middle of my bedroom, his eyes moving over the bare walls and sparsely furnished space around us.
He flicks a glance my way and quirks his brow. “It doesn’t look like you.”
“It’s a rental.” I lean against the wall. “They don’t really encourage you to change a whole lot.”
“You used to have all those plants in your room. And posters. And medals. And trophies.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not in high school anymore.”
“I’m aware. My point stands, though. This room doesn’t feel like you.”
I blow out a breath and give the empty walls a sour look. No, it doesn’t feel like me. But since when is it his business? And why the hell does he think he has any right to tell me what feels like me or not? How the hell does he have the nerve to be right about it?
“Things change. I’ve changed.” I push myself off the wall and gesture around. “Well, you’ve seen it all. Clearly, you’re not impressed, but that’s whatever. You probably have stuff to do now, right?”
He doesn’t reply. Instead, he starts walking around the room.
I sigh quietly.