I swallow, hating that answer.
“I know I need to move on,” she continues. “I know I joke around a lot, but I’m really messed up, Ryan. As if that wasn’t clear from the night I moved in.” Her light laugh rumbles against my back. “How can I go from being with someone for six years to jumping into something with someone else? It feels wrong.”
“He did,” I remind her.
“I know.” Her forehead falls to my shoulder. “It feels disloyal, as ridiculous as that sounds, but that’s how long I loved him for. I never imagined loving someone else. But at the same time, if I’m being honest, when I think about the time we had, the overall feeling I come away with is that he made me feel like I wasn’t enough yet too much all at the same time.”
I shake my head, inhaling through my nose because well…I hate this guy. Indy would never question how magnetic, how distracting she is if she saw herself the way everyone in her orbit sees her. The way I see her.
“You can’t stop being who you are because someone else thinks it’s too much, Ind. He can go find less.”
From the sounds of it, that’s exactly what he did. You don’t get much better than Indigo Ivers.
“Do you think I’m a trainwreck, Ryan?”
I huff a laugh. “You’re more like a cute little fender bender.”
Feeling her smile against my skin, I pull her other leg into my lap as Indy wraps her arms around my neck from behind.
“Do you think he loved you the right way, Blue?”
“I don’t know. He loved me loudly. I think the romantic in me thought that was the right way. The grand gestures. The big love confessions. He wasn’t afraid to touch me in public but being away from him for the first time in my life, I’m realizing there are a lot of ways in which I thought he was showing me love, but really he was just showing me off.”
Leaning back, I push her into the sofa, which only makes her body close around mine even more.
“I thought he loved me loudly, but when I found him with someone else, you were right when you said he practically screamed that he didn’t want me. That was the loudest he’s ever been.”
My breathing turns shallow and rushed with the knowledge of her proximity.
Turning, my lips almost graze hers with how close we are. I can feel the erratic beat of her heart thumping against my back, her breasts pressing against my bare skin.
I want to kiss her, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.
She whispers, low enough that if I weren’t inches from her lips, I wouldn’t hear. “Sometimes, I think I just need to move on in a different way. In the only way I can.”
In a physical way.
She’s your sister’s best friend, and you couldn’t handle just one night even if she weren’t.
“Indy, it’s late.”
“Ryan—”
“I should go to bed.”
Her voice is a low rasp, the whisper sending goosebumps over my skin. “Please don’t.”
Oh, fuck me with that gentle plea, those begging eyes. Indy sweeps her tongue across her bottom lip and my attention is glued to it. Glistening pink, pouty and what I can only imagine as pillow soft.
“Ry.”
Clearing my throat, I stand from the couch and untangle our bodies in the process. “Good night, Blue.”
Like the coward I am, I rush to my room, closing the door behind me.
Indy is not the type of woman you can simply flush from your system after a single night. She’s the kind to seep into your veins and rewire your brain, making you do and say things you swore you never would. Whether she believes it or not, Indigo Ivers is the type of woman you keep forever, and even though I can pretend to be her boyfriend, there’s no way in hell I could pretend that one night with her wouldn’t completely fuck me up.
13
RYAN
“Camping? Who the hell goes camping in Chicago in the middle of winter?” Indy asks while adding two more sweatshirts into her overnight bag.
“I don’t think it’s real camping. Annie called it glamping, whatever the hell that means, and Ethan said the whole place is heated. We’re just going to do dinner on the grill and eat outside.”
“I can’t believe you, of all people, are down for this. Do you know how dirty it is to camp? Are you sure you want to get in with these people? What if you have to start doing this kind of stuff all the time?”
“I take it you’re not big into camping.”
“Ryan,” she deadpans. “Look at me. Do I look like I’m big into camping? I was hoping for a nice dinner where I could dress up and wear some cute shoes. I like having central heat and a place to plug in my hair tools. Are you positive you want to go?”
I place my duffel by the front door. “Yeah, I do. This might sound pathetic, but I miss being outdoors. I’m looking forward to being outside of this apartment without people watching everything I do.”
Indy’s expression morphs with understanding. “No, that’s not pathetic. You’re right. I’m sorry. That will be nice for you.”
She takes a seat on the bench in the entryway, slipping her feet into her white converse that are covered in stitched doodles.
“What’s with all the stitching on those shoes?”
She holds up one to examine it. “I like sewing and one day, I thought it’d be cool to sew a pattern onto the canvas. They’re little doodles of things from my life. My friends, places I’ve been. That kind of stuff.”
As Indy ties them up, I take a closer look.
An airplane is sewn by the outside ankle of the left shoe. There’s a hockey stick and a Stanley Cup on the right. An ocean and sunset which I assume is Florida. A head of chestnut curls and I could recognize that as representing my sister even from a mile away. A number thirty-eight is nestled into Boston’s skyline for her friend Rio, I guess. I don’t let myself think too far into that because I’m just grateful there’s nothing regarding her shitty ex that she would quite literally be walking around with.
I’m not sure how you’d sew a jackass who made the biggest mistake of his life, but I’m confident Indy could figure it out if she really wanted to.
I’ve always found Indy’s Converse random and a bit strange, but now I find myself wondering what I have to do to get myself added to them.
“Ready?” she asks, wearing a much brighter smile than she was twenty minutes ago when I reminded her she’s going to be sleeping in a tent tonight.
I grab both our bags, sling them over, my shoulder and follow her out of the apartment.
“How many cars do you have?” Indy asks as I drive at a snail’s pace through the campgrounds, looking for our camping site’s number.
“Two. This one and the Audi.”
“Don’t get me wrong, both a Range Rover and an Audi are way out of my price range, but you’ve got money money. I thought you’d go more extravagant.”
“Indy, what part of my lifestyle seems extravagant to you?”