Chapter 44
forty-four
INDIGO
“Are you sure you need to work today?” Sebastian wraps his arms around my middle and pulls me tight against his body.
The scent of coffee and bacon still fills the kitchen, even though we finished eating half an hour ago.
It’s an overwhelming feast for my senses when the savory scents of breakfast combine with the spicy scent of his cologne and the heat of his chest against my back.
“Sorry. I’m on a deadline. I’m in good shape, but I want to make sure I don’t get behind. And with you guys being in the finals, there’s a lot going on that I want to be able to enjoy.”
“Fine.” He kisses my shoulder over my T-shirt. “So responsible, my girlfriend. It’s sexy.”
A bright laugh bubbles out of me. I’m all lightness and contentment this morning.
It goes against every instinct to leave Bash, but I really do need to be a responsible adult.
Especially since the publishers and I finally have a plan in place to officially reveal my identity.
I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.
And with game two tonight, it’s not like I can write later.
“Come on, then, Violet Quinn. Let’s get you to your laptop.” With a wink, Bash takes my hand and leads me out to the garage and his car. “You know you can bring your computer and write here if you want.”
“Thanks. I know. But somehow, I don’t think I’ll get much work done with you in the house.”
“Are you saying I’m distracting?” He arches one dark eyebrow at me as he opens the car door.
Of course, he’s distracting. Every golden inch of him is perfection.
Each time he touches me, it drives me to distraction.
I want to spend every single moment with him.
I want to hear every story I missed over the last ten years.
As much as I love writing—and I do, more than almost anything else—there are a few things I will always love more. And he’s one of them.
“Obviously,” I say, rolling my eyes as I climb into his SUV. “But I mean that as a compliment.”
His laughter rolls through me, and even though I’m a bit sore from everything we did last night, my body still heats for him. It always has, and with every day we spend together, I respond to him more and more. “Thanks, Rosebud.”
I can’t stop staring at him as he drives me to my little rental. The morning sun shines golden and adoring on his skin, making it glow. His raven eyelashes fan over high cheekbones, casting fleeting shadows that, when they part, reveal faceted, amber-flecked earthen irises.
Every so often, I’ll blink and get flashes of the boy he was at fourteen, then fifteen.
He chuckles, and I hear the sixteen-year-old that laughed himself hoarse after he threw me into an oncoming wave, and I came up gasping for air and looking like a drowned rat.
When he draws his lower lip between his teeth, trying to hold back a smile, I see the seventeen-year-old who snuck glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Then the light breaks through the tree-cover, and I’m back in the present with a man I thought could only exist in my past but has quickly become the center of all my dreams for the future.
“What are you thinking about over there?” he asks, voice soft with affection.
“You,” I answer honestly. There’s no reason to hide from him anymore.
“What about me?”
I smirk. “Just thinking how lucky it is that you grew into your ears.”
The car lurches for half a second as he barks out a loud laugh. “Is that so? Wow, Indie. Mean.”
“What? I never said your big ears weren’t cute.” When I can’t quite stifle my laughter, I look out the window so he doesn’t see my expression. For the record, his ears were cute. But yeah, a little big.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t grow out of your freckles.” He reaches over the center console and skims his knuckles over my cheek. “I can’t wait to watch them get darker this summer.”
My chest warms as he takes my hand in his. “Oh yeah?”
“Yep. I used to track time with your freckles. At the start of June, they’d be light little flecks, like they are now.
Every week, they’d get darker because we spent so much time outside.
” His voice has this far-off quality that tells me he’s picturing it.
“I’d dread when they were their most defined and your cheekbones were covered.
It meant our time together was coming to an end. ”
Oh, my heart.
“Is it too much to say that I hope I get to watch them darken, then fade? That I don’t want you to leave?” He lingers at a stop sign a few blocks from my rental, turning to face me. “I want you to stay, Indie.”
The air in the car thickens, expanding in my chest until it feels like I may burst.
Is he asking me to stay the summer or to stay stay?
“I want to stay, too,” I whisper.
His hand tightens around mine, and the smile that overtakes his face is more radiant than the sun. “Good. That’s good.”
Someone honks behind us, jolting us out of our warm bubble and back to reality.
Sebastian chuckles, and after offering an apologetic wave to the driver behind us, finishes the drive to my rental.
Parked at the curb, he reaches over to wrap his palm around the nape of my neck and pulls me toward him for a kiss.
His lips taste like salt and sun. Like memories and possibilities. I never want to stop, but eventually the need for air overwhelms even my need to stay connected to him like this forever.
With our foreheads pressed together, his brown eyes study me. “I know things are crazy right now with the finals and all the media attention, but when this is over, I’m taking you away from here for a week. Somewhere private and warm.”
“That sounds perfect,” I whisper. He could take me to Antarctica and I wouldn’t care. As long as we’re together, the setting doesn’t matter.
“Do you want me to walk you to the house?”
I shake my head, which makes our noses brush together. “That’s okay. If you do that, Lola will make you come inside for more coffee, and I won’t get anything done. Besides, I’ll see you tonight. Game two. You need to get ready.”
“Okay, Rosebud. Have fun writing today. I’ll see you tonight.”
We share another soft, lingering kiss before I pull myself away and out of his car. I wave and watch him drive down the street while my mind whirs with plans and possibilities.
I’m so happy, I practically float up the sidewalk and onto the porch.
“So you’re really dating that guy.”
The baritone drags me back down to earth, making my chest heavy. It’s not a voice I expected to hear again. At least not here.
Following the voice, my eyes search the shadowed corners of the front porch until I find him. Brown hair with a hint of red, blue eyes, and full lips that curve downward, Ryland Howell stands with his feet spread shoulder-width apart and his arms crossed over his lean chest.
He doesn’t look happy.
Guess that makes two of us.
“Ryland? What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Is that really how you’re going to greet me after months apart?” He takes a step forward, and I hold my ground despite my instincts demanding I take a step back. This is my rental. He doesn’t get to show up unannounced and uninvited and intimidate me.
“Considering that we’re broken up, and I didn’t invite you, yeah. It is. What are you doing here?”
I didn’t notice it at first, but there’s a large suitcase tucked away in the corner of the porch. Ryland motions to it now. “Your dad asked me to give you and Lola some souvenirs.”
“And he asked you to deliver them in person?” I ask, mirroring his pose by crossing my arms over my chest and raising my eyebrows.
Ryland shifts his weight. “Well, no, but you weren’t returning my calls, and I…” He runs a hand through his hair. “I missed you.”
The laugh that bursts out of me is inelegant and sharp, but I don’t give a shit. He must be out of his damn mind. He missed me? Yeah, right. “Cut the crap, Ryland. Why are you really here?”
Frustration crosses over his face like storm clouds before he can get them under control and plaster a placid look in place. “I’m here to see you, Indigo. And I really do have presents for you and Lola. Can we… Can I come in?” He motions to the front door.
Absolutely not. I don’t want to spend my morning cleaning blood off the hardwood floors of the rental. Because if Ryland Howell steps foot inside and Lola catches sight of him? It will end in bloodshed.
“No. Sorry, but you cannot. I’m about to start working, and I have no idea if Lola has her girlfriend over. This isn’t a good time, Ryland.”
He frowns, like he didn’t expect me to rebuff him. Like he was expecting me to be happy to see him, throw my arms around him, and beg for him to come back.
“Not a good time? I flew all the way from LA just to see you. I rented a car.”
Bristling at the sharpness of his tone, I rock back on my heels. “Your lack of planning is not my emergency, Ry. You can leave the gifts, but I need to go now.”
“Are you fucking serious, Indigo? We dated for a year, and this is how you treat me?”
I laugh caustically. “You broke up with me, Ryland. You’ve been dating other women. I’m not sure what you think I owe you, but the answer is nothing. I owe you nothing. Have a nice visit to the Twin Cities. Maybe you can hit the Mall of America and find a cute souvenir for your girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” he says, huffing out a deep breath. “You’re my only girlfriend. Those were just women I killed time with. None of them made me feel anything. Not like you.”
“Oh my god,” I mutter. “You must be joking.”
“I… Can we go somewhere and talk? I’m sorry for ending things.
It was a mistake, and I realize that now.
We were so good together, Indigo. I’m asking for another chance.
” With every word, his voice rises in volume, and frustration twists his classically handsome features into something harsh and ugly.
“I have a boyfriend,” I say with finality. Keys in hand, I unlock the rental door and step over the threshold, my hand firmly on the handle. “I’m sorry you made the trip for nothing, but I’m not sure why you thought this was a good idea. Tell my dad thanks for the gifts.”
“Indigo—”
I pull the door shut and lock it before he can finish spouting whatever bullshit was about to come out of his mouth and lean against it, sagging.
“Tell me that’s not who I think it is out there?”
When I look up, Lola’s standing five feet away with her arms crossed, Megan beside her, looking concerned. “Unfortunately, I can’t do that.”
“What the fuck?” Lola lunges for the doorknob, but I stop her. It would probably be easier to hose blood off the porch, but I’m not interested in spending the next few decades visiting my bestie in jail instead of hanging out at one of our houses while we watch movies and eat popcorn.
“A little help?” I ask Megan as the fierce little Tasmanian devil in my hands hisses and spits in her anger, twisting and fighting to break free from my hold and tear my ex-boyfriend to shreds.
Megan laughs, but she wraps her arms around Lola’s middle and picks her up off the floor like she’s nothing more than a naughty kitten. “Okay, killer, calm down.”
“Let me down, Meg, or I swear to god, I won’t eat your pussy for a week.”
I cover my mouth to stifle my laughter, but clearly don’t do a good enough job of it, because Lola glares and points a finger at me.
“And you. I will sell a story about how you drooled so much in your sleep after drinking one night that your cheek was prune-y, like you’d spent a few hours submerged in water.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I hiss as Megan takes a turn trying to stifle her laughter.
“You bet your ass I would.”
Glancing out of the window, I watch Ryland leave our gifts on the porch before climbing into his rental car and pulling away from the curb. “Fine. Megan, you can let her down.”
Megan obliges, but not before she presses a kiss to Lola’s lips and smacks her ass. “You’re not the only one capable of doling out punishment, baby girl. Don’t forget that.”
Damn. Okay. Hockey players can get it. It doesn’t matter if they’re men or women.
Lola shoots one last glare at her girlfriend before she yanks the door open and storms out onto the porch in nothing but an oversized shirt, some boy shorts, and socks. She’s spitting mad and ready for a fight, but Ryland is long gone.
“What did that motherfucker say?” she demands when she stomps back inside. “Tell me everything.”
“Fine.” I sigh deeply, my shoulders sagging as I drop my purse and overnight bag on the floor. “But let’s get these packages inside. And I’m going to need more coffee for this conversation.”
Lola frowns at me, but a moment later, she’s squeezing me so tightly in a hug that I silently beg Megan to save me. “I’ll make it.”
“Thanks, Lols.”
This morning started out so well. How did it take such a hard right so quickly?