Page 122 of Fame & Chaos

I should have gone to sleep.

Should have had a cold shower.

Should have done literally anything else besides this.

I drag my hands through my hair and groan loudly. The only tiny consolation is the fact that I was apparently thinking about Indi the entire damn time.

Which, honestly, might make this even worse.

Sasha said it was a wild night, and maybe it’s better I don’t remember any of it. Because right now, all I know is I need to fix this feeling clawing through my chest.

I need to remind Indi how much she means to me.

How much I want her.

And maybe, just maybe, the fastest way to a woman’s heart is through gifts.

Indi

I’m driving home after being called into work for an emergency shift.

Three nurses went down with the flu, so I ended up covering overnight in the emergency room, before rolling straight into my normal shift this morning. I’m exhausted to the point my bones ache, and my eyes feel gritty from lack of sleep. But despite how tired I am, my mind keeps circling back to Caleb.

To last night.

To how completely I lost myself around him.

Because even though I know I don’t want a relationship, and even though I’ve spent days telling myself we’re only kissing and nothing more, everything spiraled completely out of control the second we were alone together.

I almost slept with him.

No.

Not almost.

I begged him to make love to me.

I grip the steering wheel tighter and exhale shakily.

God, what was I thinking?

The problem is, when I’m around Caleb, I stop thinking entirely. He gets inside my head and under my skin until everything else fades away. Last night he was so sweet and caring, fixing things around my apartment, cooking me dinner, holding me like I mattered.

For a little while, he made me feel safe.

And that’s dangerous.

Because as beautiful as it felt, it also made me forget why we can’t be together in the first place.

I love him.

That’s never been the problem.

The problem is trust.

The problem is Maddie.

The problem is remembering how it felt to see him with somebody else right after we slept together all those years ago.