“No, you don’t,” I speak for her, like a deranged caveman. She can speak for herself, but she shouldn’t have to when it comes to him. There’s nothing that needs to be said.
“Ryan, it’s okay,” she soothes, her hand rubbing at my side. “Alex, I don’t think we need to talk. Now or ever.”
“We’ve never spoken about that night. I need to explain myself.”
She laughs, but I can hear how much it hurts her as it comes out. “Explain what? Why you slept with someone else?”
Alex looks down towards the ground, hands in his pockets. “Well, yeah, exactly. But I’d like to speak to you alone.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I interject.
“Indy. Twenty-two years. You owe it to yourself to hear me out.”
Manipulative piece of trash, using history as a chess piece with the most loyal woman I know.
Indy inhales a deep breath and I know he’s got her. I hate it.
“Fine. Five minutes.”
“Blue,” I protest over my shoulder.
“It’s okay, Ryan.” Her focus is back on Alex. “It means nothing.”
I refuse to move, to allow any open space between them, but it doesn’t matter because Indy rounds my body, facing me.
“It’s okay. I’ll call you when I can. Have a safe flight.”
The daggers shooting from my eyes fall to the prick behind her. Touch her and I’ll kill you. Say something that makes her upset and I’ll ruin your life. Look at her inappropriately and I will beat the living shit out of you.
I don’t know that he was able to gather that all from my stare, but here’s hoping he understood.
My hands cup Indy’s face as I silently beg her to just go home instead, but she holds her ground, determined to have this conversation.
I’m a possessive man when it comes to her, there’s no denying that, and even though I’m controlling in my own life, I’d never control her or her decisions.
Relenting, I press my lips to her temple and linger there as long as I can.
“Ryan!” Ethan calls out from the team bus behind me. “We’ve gotta go!”
There are so many things I want to say to her right now, but mostly I want to know if what she feels towards me is enough for me not to worry. I also want to know if she’s really okay to do this. It wasn’t all that long ago she was crying in our living room before throwing a shoe at my door after being stranded without a place to live because of him.
But I don’t have time to ask a single question with a bus waiting for me and a plane sitting on a tarmac, ready for our road trip.
“Call me when you can?” I ask, walking backwards towards the bus.
She nods, and I keep my eyes on her until I have to climb the steps on the bus, where I practically sprint to my seat and look out the window, finding the two of them taking a seat on the curb outside the arena.
Why are they sitting? They don’t need that much time. In fact, they don’t need any time at all.
No part of me is calm, cool, or collected. I’m entirely out of control. In a sense, I’ve been out of control ever since that girl waltzed into my apartment, but this time, the powerlessness doesn’t feel freeing. I’m spiraling as we drive away.
Whatever is going on between us is so new. We haven’t had the opportunity to fully discuss it, and at the time it felt weird to throw a label on something so organic.
But now I wish we had. That way she could tell him, but more importantly, she could tell me where we stand.
Every single insecurity of mine floods my body, overtaking any reasonable senses I have left.
Do I mean enough to her?
Will she go back to him?
Was it always him?
Does she want me at all?
Those four questions consume me, blind me as they repeat over and over while I watch the girl I’m completely gone for with another man. And I have to get on a plane, leave Chicago, and pray that I’m enough.
It’s a twenty-minute drive to the airport and I give her that much time before I call her.
“Hi,” she says, swallowing.
And I know her well enough that she’s swallowing down emotions.
“Are you okay?”
Exiting the bus, I linger on the tarmac as the rest of the guys board the airplane.
A sob breaks free from her chest. “Yes.”
“Indy.” I close my eyes, sighing. “Fuck.”
Not only do I hate hearing her upset, but not knowing exactly why is eating me alive.
Scrubbing a hand over my head, I pace the quickly cleared tarmac and listen to her broken breaths and sniffling nose.
Finally, she says, “I’m fine, Ryan.”
There’s a bite to her words and I’m not sure if she wants me to leave her alone or if she’s simply trying to sound unaffected.
Tension lingers on the line.
“He wants you back, doesn’t he?”
She doesn’t answer, and my heart plummets from her blaring silence.
“What exactly did he say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“How could you say it doesn’t matter, Ind? It clearly matters to you. You’re upset.”
“I’m processing. That’s a lot of years to say goodbye to.”
Fuck. None of this is what I wanted to hear, but I’m not sure what I expected. Did I really think she was going to answer the phone and tell me she told him to fuck off or that he didn’t affect her at all?
Indy is sensitive. Initially, it turned me off, but it’s what eventually made me fall so hard for her, her openness to feel. Of course, that conversation would affect her. She wouldn’t be her if it didn’t.
But what I need her to tell me is that nothing changes between us and clearly, she can’t.
“Shay, let’s go!” one of the team staff members shouts from the top of the aircraft stairs.
“Blue…” I begin but can’t seem to find the words.
I need to tell her how much I want her. I need to tell her I can give her the life she’s always wanted if she would let me. I need to tell her anything that will make her forget about that fucking conversation with the guy who’s done nothing but make her feel like she’s not enough, yet too much all at the same time.
“You have to go, Ryan.”
“Shay!” I hear again.
“Goddammit.” I inhale a deep breath, beginning up the stairs to the plane. “Take all the time you need, Indy. I understand, or at least I’m going to try to. Have a safe flight tomorrow.”
I hang up the line because I care about her enough to understand this moment isn’t about me. Yes, the lack of control and the unknown might just kill me, but how fucking selfish would I be if I didn’t give her a moment to process?
But even though I’m trying to be a good guy, the overwhelming realization that I may have misread everything, like a love-sick fool, just as I’ve done before with another woman, eats at me as I slip into my seat for takeoff.
31
INDY
Indy
I need a daily update from you. Is Ryan okay? He’s barely talked to me.
Stevie
I think he’s scared, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.
He’s got nothing to be scared of and he would know that if he would talk to me.