Page 56 of Creeping Beautiful

“Fuck you.” I head to the kitchen, take a bottle of Jack down from the top of the fridge, and pour myself three healthy fingers in a water glass.

I down the whole thing and then Indie appears in the bedroom door.

Her eyes meet mine first. They are cold and hard. Just the way I like them. But when they track to Donovan they go soft and she smiles.

Donovan opens his arms wide, beckoning her towards him with a huge smile. “Come on. Bring it in.”

She walks forward like she’s on a string and he’s pulling her towards him.

But of course, she’s not.

She just loves him best.

Always has.

I pour that Jack down my throat, straight from the bottle, my eyes locked on their embrace.

Back when she was little I didn’t care so much. It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t anything like this. She was just a little girl and I was just there to prepare her for the world.

Donovan and Adam… they were the ones who protected her. Not me.

“That’s enough.” Donovan is walking towards me now, reaching for the bottle. He swipes it away and throws it into the sink. It clatters around the cheap metal and the dark amber liquid spills out and runs down the drain. “I was counting on you driving, you asshole. I’ve been up for thirty-six hours and it’s a two-hour goddamned drive home.”

I drag the back of my hand across the sticky, bitter alcohol on my lips and glare at him.

“What? Did I interrupt something?”

I don’t answer him. Just look at Indie. Glare at her.

Why am I so mad? I don’t know. I’m just fucking angry. At her. At Donovan. At Adam.

At myself.

I walk into the bedroom, pull a clean t-shirt from a hanger in my closet, and slip it over my head. Then grab some socks from a drawer and sit down on the mattress and pull them on. Head cocked towards the open door, listening as they whisper to each other in the living room.

I know what he’s saying. Did he do anything to you? Was he inappropriate?

Old questions. Familiar questions.

They started right after Indie turned sixteen and things were getting serious with Nate.

I knew that was inevitable. And I wasn’t jealous. Not the way Adam was. I wanted her to have a good life. I did. I wanted her to have all the things I never had. I took care of her for that reason. Not because Adam told me to. Not even because I had to or she wouldn’t live to see eighteen, let alone twenty-four.

But she did live. And I still feel like a fucking failure.

Donovan appears in the doorway. “You all right?”

“I’m fine.” I reach for a boot and pull it on my foot, then the other one. Stand and adjust my cock in my jeans.

Donovan looks down at my hand as I do this, then back up at me, furious. “Asshole.” He turns away and goes into the living room.

Whatever Indie was whispering to him out there, it wasn’t about my inappropriate behavior. But Donovan has never needed to be told things to know things. And what just happened with Indie and me was just… inevitable. Just like that first hug she gave him was.

I walk to the door, then stop and lean against the wall for a moment. Run my fingers through my hair as they leave the apartment and start going down the stairs.

Indie is only wearing the sweats and t-shirt I gave her earlier, but when I get down into the shop, she’s struggling with her still-wet brown boots, her leather jacket already on.

She stands up straight and looks at me. “I’m ready. Let’s go home.”