Chapter 5
five
SEBASTIAN
Indie is a ghost. Nothing we’ve considered or tried has produced any clues.
As predicted, the team wouldn’t give us any information from her ticket purchase.
The guys have combed social media to find a profile for her, but all that’s uncovered is a whole lot of information about her parents’ divorce and the release of a sex tape they apparently made fifteen years ago.
Poor Indie. No wonder she isn’t in LA right now. This is her definition of hell.
I always keep an eye out for her online and on the gossip pages, just in case. Normally, I go months, maybe even years, without anything setting off a Google alert. But lately there have been quite a few.
Paparazzi following her around when she meets a friend for coffee.
Speculation about whose side she’s on in the divorce.
Commentary on her pink hair, the gray and black floral tattoos that now cover her arms, her style, her relationship status, and, as always, her weight.
Every time I see someone criticize her body, I want to rage.
Indie’s been dealing with this shit ever since she was a teenager. She hit fifteen, and people decided it was acceptable to have an opinion about her appearance. By the time she was seventeen, the commentary was brutal, but at least it wasn’t overtly sexual.
When she hit eighteen? Polls went up on gossip sites asking people if they’d fuck the chubby daughter of two of the most beautiful movie stars of our time. They speculated she wasn’t actually Robert’s daughter. Because Indie’s looks would make more sense if Vivian had an affair with an ugly guy.
Once upon a time, she’d answer my calls sniffling after hurtful stuff like that popped up. I was the one she always turned to, and I loved being the person she could depend on. Then, when we were eighteen, she blocked me.
So now, to have all of that public attention swing back in her direction for something she didn’t participate in or ask for? All I want is to find her and make sure she’s okay. I’m practically crawling out of my skin with the need to protect her.
“I get why she’s so private,” Griffin says as we wander through the grocery store, getting everything we need for a family dinner with the guys and their women. “Some of the shit these people write about her, dude… It’s gross.”
“It’s always been like that for her.” I rub at the hollow sensation in my chest that hasn’t gone away since I watched her walk away from me at the game.
“I read that she recently broke up with some douche she was dating. So she’s probably single.”
Every time I’d get a Google alert about Indie, my heart would thunder in my chest and my stomach would tangle into knots because what if that was the time I had to read that she’d fallen in love and gotten engaged?
She’s been linked with a few people over the years, but this last relationship was the longest, and we’re not getting any younger.
I don’t expect Indie to stay single forever, so the relief I felt when I saw they’d broken up was intense.
Then I felt like a complete and total asshole because I was thrilled the woman I only want happiness for was probably hurting.
“She could be.”
“And she’s here,” Griffin says, glancing at me over his shoulder as he lifts a case of beer into our cart. “She came to our game. Some part of her must want to see you.”
“She was here,” I clarify. “It’s been two weeks, Griff.”
“Keep the faith, Bashy. I have a good feeling about this.”
I’m glad one of us does. I’ve been trying to resign myself to the fact that Indigo Bloom has, once again, slipped through my fingers. And for someone whose life revolves around not letting things past him, that’s tough to accept.
“This isn’t a romance novel, man. I’m not going to bump into her in the middle of the grocery store. There’s no happy endi—”
Pain ricochets up my shins and I let out a grunt as something shoves our cart, hard, into my body.
“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” a panicked feminine voice cries. “I should know better than to text and drive a shopping cart at the same time.”
“No big deal,” I assure her, wincing as I bend down to rub my shins. That’s going to bruise.
“But I ran into you pretty hard. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I nod, straightening up. “I’m sure. And I’ve taken harder hits than that—”
The woman lets out a startled little eep when I give her my attention. Her piercing blue eyes grow comically wide as her lips open into an exaggerated O shape.
“Oh, shit.” She looks between me and Griffin, her dark ponytail bouncing wildly, before her gaze settles on me.
There’s something familiar about her.
“Sorry. Again. I should…” She glances down at my left hand before meeting my eyes again. “Yeah. I should go.”
“Do I know you?” I ask before she can maneuver her cart around mine and run.
“What?” She shakes her head violently. “Nope. Never met you before. I have no idea who you are.”
Griffin watches our interaction with growing fascination, and when she says that last part, his lips quirk up in a grin. “That’s a weird thing to say. Are you sure you don’t know who he is?”
“Nope. Not a clue. Should I? I’m not from around here.”
And that’s what makes it click. Because I don’t know this woman, but I have seen her before. Briefly. And from a distance. “You were with Indie at the game.”
The woman’s face loses all its color and she audibly gulps. “Huh?”
“Indie Bloom. I saw you with her. Is she here?” I scan the store, hoping to see a flash of pink hair and familiar hazel eyes.
“I have no idea who you’re…” The dark-haired woman sighs when I level her with a look that calls bullshit, shoulders slumping. “She’s not here, no.”
“Well, shit,” Griffin mutters, placing a palm on my shoulder and squeezing.
I barely feel it. I’m too busy trying not to freak out. Because I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to track Indie down, only to have her friend literally collide with me in the alcohol aisle.
“But she’s still here? In the Twin Cities, I mean?” Please still be here.
“I…” The woman rubs the back of her neck as she looks between me and Griffin. Her face displays every thought and emotion with startling clarity. “Shit. Yes. She’s still here.”
“Told you.” Griffin claps, his hazel eyes twinkling under the harsh fluorescent lights of the grocery store. This is the kind of thing he lives for.
I’m simply trying not to hyperventilate.
Indie is still in town. I’m talking to her friend. This is the break I’ve been hoping for.
“I need to talk to her. Please, if you could give me her number, the one I have for her is ten years old, and it belongs to some old guy with a smoker’s cough now.”
“I wish I could, I really do, but I can’t.” The woman frowns, her lips twisting to the side as she stares at me. “When I saw you trying to get her attention at the game, I tried to get her to stay, but she’s…”
“Going through some shit,” I supply, finishing her sentence.
She nods. “Yeah. She is.”
Blowing out a breath, I rake a hand through my hair. “Look…” I stare at her, waiting for her to tell me her name.
“Lola.” She sighs. “Indie’s best friend.”
I used to be her best friend.
“Lola, I’ve been trying to find her for ten years. I know you don’t know me, and you have no reason to trust me, but I—”
“I don’t know you, but I know all about you.”
Griffin’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. He shoots me a look that says exactly what I’m thinking.
She knows all about me?
Inhaling through my nose, I try to sound calm and unaffected when I say, “And what, exactly, has Indie said about me?”
“Oh.” Her deer-in-the-headlights look would be hilarious if I didn’t suspect she was making it because the things she’d been told were less than flattering.
Because, of course, Indie didn’t have good things to say about me.
How could she, when she ended a years-long friendship without so much as a conversation?
Obviously, I did something wrong. Or she finally realized I wasn’t on her level.
She was a movie star’s daughter, and I was solidly middle class with the odds stacked against me ever achieving my dreams. I’ve worked hard to be someone worthy of her over the last ten years, but that doesn’t change the fact that she apparently found me wanting that summer. Or her parents did.
“Look, Lola, I’ve been trying to get ahold of Indie since we were eighteen. Please, I just want to talk to her.”
Maybe it’s the desperation dripping from each word, or the fact that I have my hands clasped in front of me in supplication, but Lola wavers.
“Bash is one of the best men I know,” Griffin says, clapping me on the back. “I promise he won’t be a creep or anything.”
Lola deflates as she levels me with a pitying expression. “I’m sure he wouldn’t be, but I still can’t do it. I’m a girl’s girl. If Indie wanted you to have her number, you would. Even if I think she’s being dumb.”
Panic claws at my throat. This is the closest I’ve come to talking to Indie in a decade, and I can’t let this chance pass me by.
“Please, Lola. Can you… Can you at least ask her to call me? My number is the same as it was ten years ago. I can write it down for you.” I frantically search my pockets for a pen, even though I know I don’t have one. “Fuck. Griff, do you have a pen?”
“Sorry, man, no.”
“I have one,” Lola says, sighing. She fishes around in her purse and pulls out a pink pen and a receipt. “Here.”
“Thank you.” I write my name and number in the most legible handwriting I can manage, despite the pen tip poking through the receipt multiple times. “Please tell her she can call me anytime, day or night, and I’ll answer. Tell her I miss her. I’ve missed her every day for the last decade.”
Lola’s smile is rueful, and I hate how it flays me open. All the confusion and hurt, all the vulnerability I’ve struggled to overcome since she disappeared out of my life, comes rushing back as Indie’s best friend looks at me with sadness because she doesn’t believe Indie will use my number.
“I’ll tell her. And I’ll try my best to get her to call you, okay? No promises, but I’ll try.”