Jenna: Indie. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Indie: Thrift-shop owner.
Indie: Why?
Jenna: No reason.
Hudson: Aww, Indie. That’s…random. LOL. Jenna, how’s the baby?
Jenna: Shut up, Hudson.
Indie: Have you talked to Blake yet?
Jenna: No. But he suspects something is up.
Hudson: Why?
Jenna: Because I can’t help but be nice to him. Because I cried the other day when we talked on the phone and he was online shopping for his niece’s birthday.
Indie: So what’s the problem? He’s obviously into you.
Jenna: He’s also obviously eleven years younger than me.
Indie: Tell him. I feel bad not telling Alex.
Hudson: As you should. He’s crazy about you.
Jenna: ???
Indie: ???????
Hudson: Yes. Every time he talks about you, he doesn’t even sneer. It’s weird. Last time he spoke that way about something, it was about Jack White’s Acoustic Recordings album.
Indie: Does he talk about me a lot?
Hudson: A gentleman never tells.
Jenna: What about you, Hudson? Are you dating someone?
Hudson: Only my left hand and a Neil Patrick Harris poster.
Jenna: Sad.
Hudson: Less complicated than your situation, girl.
Indie: What did you want to be when you grew up when you were a kid, Jenna?
Jenna: An astronaut.
The black cab stopped in front of the red door.
Hamish and Harry nodded us a somber goodbye from the front seats. Alex figured he didn’t need an entourage, seeing as he was just visiting his family. On our way to Watford, in the cab, we’d negotiated the time and length of the visit.
“Three hours, Stardust. A minute more and I’m dragging you by the hair.” He looked out of the window, tapping his foot on the floor, his black Wayfarers giving him an extra layer of asshole.
“I think you’d very much like dragging me by the hair,” I remarked, flipping a fashion magazine. It was amazing how small things brought so much color into my life. I would’ve never bought a Vogue magazine in Los Angeles. But now I had some pocket money. Also, Blake was very good at shoving his business credit card at the cashier every time I tried to pay for my stuff at airport kiosks.
“Of course, but I wasn’t planning on doing it until after dinner,” he said. I laughed. He was so wrong in thinking he wasn’t lovable. Alex was lovable to a fault.
The Winslows’ front yard was neglected, with bald patches and beer cans peppered throughout the thin grass. We sat in the cab for a few seconds before Alex pushed the door open. I followed him out, and we both made our way, burrowing into our coats. The house looked depressing. Everything was either peeling or torn. I spared him from that observation. I didn’t live in a mansion, either.
“I love the little church across the road.” I jerked my thumb behind my shoulder. Anything to make him feel slightly more at ease. He squinted at it, his gorgeous face twitching. This man was inside me, the thought, creepy as it sounded, made my heart warm, and I think a part of me is inside him, too.
“That’s where Father John touched me.” His lips flattened into a scowl. My eyes widened at his admission, before he rolled his eyes and pinched my ass.
“You should’ve seen your face.”
“I want to punch your face.”
“Let’s settle for you sitting on my face. Tonight. Now come on, let’s get it over with.”
Alex’s parents, Louisa and Jim, both looked like older, bloated versions of him. His father was pasty white with a pink nose of someone who always had a bottle of something strong in his hand, but also had the same sharp, cut lines. Strong jaw and square chin. His mother’s body was wrinkly, tan, and plump, but her tawny eyes were bright, mischievous, and compelling.
The house was clattered with stuff—useless stuff, stuff you order from the shopping channel. Carly, his sister, had highlights in her chestnut hair and wore bubblegum lipstick and matching sweatpants, and her kids, all between the ages of four and nine, looked so different from each other, I found it easy to remember their names.
We sat at the dining room table and ate industrial mashed potatoes and a roast. Louisa had microwaved the entire meal, coughing into it in the process of serving it to us. They cracked open a few cans of beers, which made me want to cry for Alex. Every time someone took a sip I balled my fists and tried breathing through the pain.
“So…Indigo.” His dad rolled my name like it was a bad joke.
I locked my spine, raising my chin high. I would not be ridiculed about my name. I didn’t choose it, and, frankly, would never change it. It was one of the most important pieces of memory I had from my parents. Bonus points: blue really was a fantastic color. Especially when it was dark and bottomless. Like my name. Like their son.
“Mixing business and pleasure, aye? Our lad here sure knows how to lure a girl into his clutches.” His dad chuckled, spraying bits of mashed potatoes from his mouth as he elbowed Alex, who sat next to him, right across from me. Alex’s eyes narrowed, his angry tick, and he pushed his dad away with his own elbow.
“Let it go,” he hissed, his tone so low and cold, chills rolled down my back.
“Oh, come on, he’s just having a laugh,” Louisa chimed in, piling another bulk of mashed potatoes onto Alex’s plate. “So, how are things going? How are the lads? Alfie’s doing well for himself. Funny, innit? He was the one who could never get shagged to save his life.”
“That’s a great observation to be making in front of the kids,” Alex said flatly.
“Sex is natural,” his mom retorted.
“Talking about it over family dinner—not so much.” Alex looked kind of pale.
Silence. I coughed, wishing someone would say something, anything.
“At least Alfie posts pictures on Instagram so we can keep up with him,” Carly huffed, breaking up a food fight between Bentley and Chayse as she spoke. Bentley sprung from his seat and ran for the living room, shouting obscenities. Alex’s dad burped loudly, and if I wasn’t mistaken, also deliberately. I was beginning to feel guilty for asking Alex to come here. It was pretty presumptuous of me to assume I knew something he didn’t. He didn’t feel comfortable here. And I could see why. I stretched my leg under the table, lacing it with his. It soothed him a little, I think, because his broad shoulders eased, but he still looked like he could spit fire at any moment and burn down the entire house.
“The lads are fine,” Alex bit out, dragging his fork along the plate and producing an unnerving sound, his eyes dead on the stale mashed potatoes.
“And Fallon? She called to wish me a happy birthday two weeks ago. And she talked to me for more than the obligatory five minutes.” His mother gave him a pointed look of her own, and that was my cue to dissolve into a cloud of humiliation and sail away from the table.
I shifted in my seat, my shoulder accidentally brushing hers.
“You talk to her more than I do. Ask her yourself,” Alex mumbled, running a finger smack in the middle of his plate, separating the mashed potatoes and gravy from the roast. “Scratch that—I don’t talk to Fallon anymore. At all.”
“You don’t?” Carly chipped in.
I was being ghosted, live from his kitchen. This plan had really backfired in my face.
“Yeah, we stopped communicating sometime after she fucked one of my best friends and sold the engagement ring I bought for her to fund a new pair of tits.”
“Alex, the kids!” Carly moaned.
“What?” He smirked, cocking his head sideways. “Thought you said sex is natural. And enough about Fallon.”
“But surely you’ll bump into her in Paris. I’d love to see you together again. You made a gorgeous couple,” his mother persisted, a sinister smirk decorating her face. It reminded me of Alex’s smile when he bullied people, only her jab was directed at…me. By the look on Alex’s face, he did not appreciate being on the receiving end of mistreatment.
“Hey, Mum, don’t you have a juicy piece of gossip to share with us that doesn’t have to do with my life? My life is, after all, boring. So boring, in fact, that save for the time you needed money two months ago, you haven’t rung me once since I got out of rehab. Now, come on. I’m sure you can do really well. Tell us something good. Have you been messing around with a new lowlife from Ladbrokes? Found Dad with a new bird in bed? The possibilities are endless. Oh, I know! Maybe Carly is pregnant again. That’d be fun, right?”
The whole table quieted down, all eyes on Alex. He stood up coolly, collected his plate, and dumped it into the kitchen sink on his way upstairs. I stood up and excused myself, ready to follow him up, when my phone buzzed in my purse. I took it out. If it was about Craig, I didn’t want to miss it. I didn’t want Alex to think I wasn’t there for him, but Craig’s situation was urgent.
“I’ll take this outside.” I waved the hand that held the phone and jogged to the front door. When I pressed the phone to my ear, my lungs released a strangled breath of worry.
“He’s here, and he’s okay.” Nat sniffed, sounding all teary.
I rubbed my face, walking back and forth in the narrow trail leading to the Winslows’ front door. “Who found him?”
“Hudson. He just brought him back. Your brother’s been drinking again, but, thankfully, he wasn’t harmful or violent in any way. His probation officer is on his way, but I’m sure we’ll be able to smooth things over. Hudson called the nice lawyer who helped us the other time, so I think—”
“Put Craig on the phone,” I cut her off. Maybe it was being bullied by Alex’s family, but I was in the mood for confrontation. For years, I’d felt sorry and apologetic for Craig. For his lost opportunities and shattered dreams. Well, I no longer did. I felt sorry for his doting wife, for his beautiful, healthy kid, and for his sister. Me.
“Indie…”
“Put. Him. On. The. Phone,” I enunciated every word, like Alex did when he wanted people to feel like idiots. Which he did. Often.
A few seconds later, the labored breaths of someone who had a lot of adrenaline—and alcohol—in his veins sounded from the other line, and I took a shaky breath to slow down my pulse.
“Craig Bellamy, you’re an asshole,” I said. When he didn’t answer, I continued. “You’ve been given so many opportunities throughout my short yet stressful trip across the world, and you blew every single one of them. It’s fine. You don’t owe me anything. You really don’t. But that wife of yours? You owe her the world. She didn’t sign up for this when she married you. Your son? He deserves so much more. He is worthy of a loving dad who is there for him, who takes care of him, who teaches him stuff, and takes him places and reads him books. He deserves what you had. And you’re not giving it to him. I’m so mad at you.” I realized two things as the last words fell out of my mouth. The first one was that I was full-blown crying, and that was new. I didn’t usually cry. I was more of a holding-it-in-until-I-burst type of girl. The second thing I noticed was that I wasn’t alone. There was a man, wearing a black coat and a ball cap, standing on the corner of the street, lurking. He was talking on his phone and holding something in his hand. I glared, making sure he knew that I knew I was being watched.
“Since when are you in charge, Indie? Hanging out with your famous friends has gone to your head. Don’t think I haven’t seen how he’s parading you around like some kind of consolation prize from his real fiancée. You’re delusional if you think that…”
I didn’t bother to listen to the rest of Craig’s rant. I dumped my phone into my purse and took a few steps forward, leaning against the broken gate of the Winslow household, watching as three more men dressed in the same attire snuck into the neighborhood. They were multiplying by the minute, more and more of them flocking near the park and the church across the street.
The paparazzi.
My stomach coiled into knots and the need to storm down the street and give them a piece of my mind slammed into me so hard, I nearly toppled over. And I would. I so freaking would. Because Alex didn’t need this right now. At the same time, I knew that confronting them was a PR nightmare waiting to explode. If I confronted them, they’d just record the whole thing and upload it to every media outlet out there. And that would result in more of a mess in the already chaotic world of Alex Winslow. I curled my fists beside my body, took a deep breath, turned around, and walked through the door. Alex’s family was still in the kitchen. His parents were fighting loudly while Carly barked at the kids. I climbed upstairs, into the narrow hallway with the stained carpet and yellow wallpaper, drawn to Alex’s room like a magnet. The door was ajar. I leaned against its frame, watching him sitting on the edge of his childhood bed.
His room was small, square, and clean. A single bed—too short and too narrow for his out-of-this-world frame, was pushed against one of the walls. There was a Morrissey poster above his pillow, a Cure poster right next to his old-school computer monitor and cheap desk, and the guitar stand I assumed belonged to his late Tania, naked and empty of his favorite thing in the world. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking up at me.
“Happy now?”
My heart shriveled in pain, especially as the next words left my mouth. “Don’t look out the window.”
He walked over to the small window, ignoring my plea and scanning the neighborhood through dead eyes. “Oh, fuck.”
I couldn’t summarize the situation better. “I don’t know how they found out.”
He turned to me. “I do. My parents are going to get a nice check from this little stunt.”
Everything that happened from that point forward was so quick, so fast, I could hardly catch my breath. Alex stormed down the stairs two at a time, while I followed, calling after him to stop and think and don’t react. Which was very rich, considering I’d never been so deeply betrayed by my own family members, even when Craig was being unbearable.
“You cunt,” Alex growled, invading the small, crowded kitchen and pinning his father to one of the walls, his hand grabbing his dad’s neck firmly. The kids shrieked and, without thinking about it clearly, I gathered their hands and ushered them out of the kitchen.
“Here. Play with this.” I dumped the entire contents of my purse on the coffee table. My money, cell phone, snacks, everything, splayed before them, and I watched them tearing out the five and ten quid notes from my wallet, shouting through the roof. I hurried back to the kitchen, where Alex stood over his dad, hissing at him like he was about to kill him.
“You piece of shit! You sold me out! Again!”
“That was all on your mother, son. She wants new tits for Christmas. Kind of like Fallon. Mummy issues, much?” His father cackled, as if the entire thing was a joke Alex should be taking more lightly.
Louisa tried to break them apart without really putting much effort into it, careful not to get her pink nails broken in the process. “Calm down now. Just give them what they want and they’ll go away, Alex. A few kisses to the camera with the missus. Just like in Notting Hill.”
“Where did you get the idea that my life is a fucking rom-com? Who the fuck let you take me home when you gave birth to my sorry arse? Bloody hell.” Alex released his dad from his grip, running his big palms through his hair.
“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” Jim said.
“You talk to her a lot worse,” Alex deadpanned.
“Well, I’m her husband. I’m allowed to.”
Alex paused, stared at him like he was the very cause for the Ebola phenomenon, and sneered. “You’re a pig.”
“And you’re no different. Only thing is, you’re a pig with money, so you get better pussy, really.”
Alex’s fist connected with Jim’s nose immediately, and I jumped in to pull him away. I grabbed onto his arm just as he was swinging for a second punch, and he must’ve had a hell of a lot of momentum, because his elbow collided with my eye. The sharp pain made me stumble back, and I fell flat on my butt once my back hit the wall. My hands immediately went to my left eye, and I winced. Damn, that hurt. I could feel my tears running freely now—not from emotion, but from the sting. Everything around me blurred, but I still caught Alex squatting by my side, his hand on my shoulder.
“Shit. Fuck. Are you all right?”
“Hmm.” I nodded, even though I really didn’t know that for sure. “I’m good.”
“Let me have a look.”
“Oh, it’s okay.”
“It’s not, Indie.” He peeled my fingers off my eye, his own eyes flaring when he caught a glimpse of me. Not magazine material, I gathered from the look on his face.
“Black eye,” he muttered.
“Really? Already?” I asked, feeling more deflated than angry. My eye felt numb now. But it still stung. Like my eyelashes had curled backward into my eyeball.
“I’ll get her some ice,” Louisa said.
“Sorry, luv,” Jim offered.
“I fucking hate both of you,” Alex seethed, grabbing a bag of frozen French fries his mother handed him and pressing it against my eye. “It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, but you need this right now.”
Same could be said about you.
I nodded, feeling the bite against my skin intensify with every second the cold bag was on my heated flesh. Alex took out his phone and demanded Siri call Blake.
“I need a cab back to the hotel from my parents’ house. Now.”
There was a pause before he said, “A hundred? You’re fucking joking.”
By the look Alex shot behind his shoulder to his shrugging parents, I knew Blake wasn’t joking. A hundred photographers waited outside. His parents must’ve told the entire world and its nephew that Alex was coming over. Carly was sitting down at the table, staring at her hands. I wondered what part she’d taken in all this. Not once had she tried to interfere with the confrontation between Alex and his parents. My gaze wandered back to Alex, who frowned and stared at me with a mixture of exasperation and wonder.
“Well, the only way I’m spending the night in Jim and Louisa’s place is in a fucking body bag. So sort something out.”
Jim and Louisa. He didn’t even call them Mom and Dad anymore. Man, I felt shitty for pushing him into this whole thing. I shook my head, placing my hand on his arm. He immediately relaxed under my touch. Like he’d been waiting for some confirmation that he wasn’t a complete monster for giving me a black eye. Which he wasn’t. He had no idea I was behind him.
“If we need to stay, we’ll stay.” I gave him a weak smile. Ouch. That hurt the entire area under my eye.
“We never thought it’d be that big of a deal,” Carly finally murmured from her place at the table, still staring hard at her hands. “You always deal with them. We thought it would be just another day at the office for you.”
Blake was saying something on the other line, and Alex sighed and hung up, dropping his forehead in defeat.
“Is that okay?” His hand cupped my knee, his thumb brushing over it in lazy circles. I didn’t know if he meant his touching me or staying the night at his parents’ house to make sure the coast was clear and prevent them from seeing my black eye. “Sure.”
“Harry and Hamish should be at the front door at six a.m. to pick us up. The paparazzi will clear up by then.”
That made sense.
Louisa opened her mouth again, about to say something, but Alex shut her up, jerking me upward to stand in front of him.
“Spare me the excuses, Louisa. This is the last time you fuck me over.”