Linc
Thirty seconds earlier and Bailey would have seen everything. I hadn’t even thought to check if the door connecting the two rooms was locked. I didn’t know who was more surprised or disappointed, to be honest. Bailey’s face turned a nice shade of red, and she looked like she was going to die from embarrassment when she caught me slipping on my shirt. And I couldn’t deny I was disappointed it wasn’t Indie who had mistakenly walked into my room. I also couldn’t deny I’d spent the next twenty minutes with my shirt on and off again, on the off-chance Indie decided to stroll through that door and demand to know why we were sharing and why I hadn’t told her. But she never came.
Instead, at seven o’clock, I paused at the door joining our rooms and thought about seeing if she wanted to head downstairs for dinner with me. I was sure she had no idea where to go, but I decided against it. She knew where I was, and if she wanted to walk with me, she would have knocked first. She didn’t. So I made my way to the elevators and downstairs alone.
Images of Indie with her arm linked through mine as we walked in together flashed through my mind. Of course, in those flashes, Nate and her parents were totally cool with us as a couple. In those images, Indie’s eyes lit up when she saw me. In reality, her eyes seemed to narrow and shoot daggers at me most of the time, and Nate would cut my balls off and feed them to Fang, his pet duck, if I so much as looked at Indie the wrong way.
Couldn’t blame him, though. We were both protective of her, just for entirely different reasons. He was her brother. But she was mine. My best friend. My soulmate. All mine. I’d been threatening all the losers she went to school with since I was nine years old. Every time any one of them showed a hint of being interested in her, I shut it down completely. Scared them all off.
No way was I letting little David Miller play kiss-chasey with her when she was six. Told him she had cooties, and he cried, refusing to play with her again. I wanted to be her first kiss.
I hung Stevie Blake’s school bag from the top of the flagpole the day he tried to give her a bunch of flowers he’d picked from some old lady’s garden on the way to school. I refused to get his bag down until he gave the flowers to another girl, effectively starting their relationship and making him forget all about Indie. I wanted to bring her flowers and see her face light up with a smile that was just for me.
Those were the easy ones. When she got to high school, things became harder. The day I heard Alex Knowles talking about how nice Indie’s ass looked in her jeans, Nate had to stop me from shoving the kid in his locker. But, damn, her ass did look good…in everything.
Then came Matt Marsden. Poor kid. Showed up at her house with chocolates and flowers on Valentine’s Day when she was about fifteen. Nate and I were playing basketball in the driveway when he arrived. Scared him off, too. Threatened to tape him to a tree if he so much as looked at Indie again. Kid dropped his gifts on the grass and ran away faster than a hundred-meter sprinter going for gold. I wanted to be her Valentine.
I wanted to be her everything.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t risk twenty-three years of friendship with Nate for a girl. Even if that girl was Indie. Nate was my best friend, and I’d never do that to him. Bros before…No. Not that. That wasn’t Indie at all. She was so much more. She was perfect, and she deserved someone who treated her like a queen. But hell if I wasn’t going to make life incredibly difficult for each and every guy who tried to be that for her. They were going to have to prove they deserved to be with Indie. So far, no one had been worthy. They all bailed at the first sign of trouble.
Except Jayden, a friend of Ryder’s who was supposed to take Indie to prom her final year of high school. He was a fighter. He didn’t back down, no matter how much I tried to intimidate him. For a moment, as I stared him down, and he glared back, refusing point blank to ditch Indie on her prom night, I feared I’d met my match, that he would be the one to swoop in and steal Indie from me. But then, suddenly, his face changed. Holding up his hands defensively, he mumbled something that sounded like, “You’re him,” and walked away.
Indie was devastated. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look so heartbroken. She sat crying on the front steps in her pretty black dress and worn, scuffed, black chucks on her feet—in true Indie style—though it had been a long time since she’d worn something so feminine. I showed up in a suit with flowers for her, because it was always meant to be me who took her to prom. The thought of her dancing in the arms of someone else was like a knife to the chest, and the idea of what went on after prom was like a kick in the guts. Not. Happening.
She’d looked up at me and didn’t even try to wipe the tears from her face. That was one of my favourite things about her. She didn’t hide her emotions. If she felt it, the entire world knew, and in that moment, I knew I’d screwed up.
“What’s wrong with me, Linc?” She sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
“What are you talking about?” I sat beside her and tried to mask my expression with a neutral one, but it proved difficult. I knew what was coming next.
“No one wants me. Jayden bailed, like every single guy who’s ever been interested. Am I that repulsive?”
My heart ached. I did this to her because I was too selfish to admit my feelings for her, or at the very least back away and let her live her own life on her own terms. I destroyed her confidence because I couldn’t handle seeing her with anyone who wasn’t me.
“Hey, look at me.” I tilted her face up so I could look into those pretty blue eyes that were a raging storm of emotions and heartbreak. “You are perfect. There is nothing wrong with you, Indie. Trust me. All those guys, they were kids. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. You deserve only the best,” I’d told her truthfully before handing her the flowers and asking her to be my date.
Nate thought I was crazy for even “offering” to take her to prom, laughing his head off and mocking me for attending a high school event when I was twenty years old, but there was nowhere else I wanted to be. There was nowhere else I ever wanted to be but beside her. And the smile she gave me when I asked nearly stopped my heart. I wanted to see that smile forever.
The restaurant in the lobby of the hotel was relatively quiet, considering how busy it was. I scanned the faces of everyone enjoying their meals in search of the Kellerman table, and then I heard her laugh. Loud and obnoxious, completely unfiltered, just like Indie. I followed the sound of her voice and stopped short when I saw Jack sitting beside her with his arm wrapped around her waist, in conversation with Ryder and Nate while Indie chatted excitedly with her parents.
“Oh, Linc, honey, you made it.” Leanne Kellerman stood and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, followed by Nate’s dad Steve, who rose and reached out to shake my hand. They were always formal and polite and reminded me so much of my parents. I guessed that was why they got along so well.
“Sorry I’m late.” I cleared my throat and glanced at my watch. Late by two minutes. Bailey flicked her eyes to me before quickly lowering her head in embarrassment. I smirked. Indie glared.
“Oh, nonsense, we’ve only just sat down,” Leanne said kindly, looking over my shoulder as the waiter approached with two bottles of wine. Bailey and Indie both reached for a bottle and laughed nervously. What had them so worked up? Chancing a glance at Ryder, he seemed as clueless as everyone why the girls were pouring copious amounts of wine into their glasses. He wasn’t giving me threatening looks, so I guessed Bailey hadn’t told him she had walked into my room mistakenly, because no doubt he’d be furious with me right now.
“I think we’re going to need a couple more bottles,” Steve announced, looking at the girls with an amused expression.
Jack whispered something in Indie’s ear, and she laughed softly.
I reached for the waiter. “And a whiskey.” I was going to need something stronger than wine if I was to endure an entire dinner watching Jack-ass fawn all over my girl in a…dress.
She was wearing a dress. And he had better keep his hands to himself.