Page 119 of True Blue

Indie is quiet for a long moment before she dips her chin once. A nod. That’s it. A part of me deflates, a part of me knows I have no right to hope.

And the biggest part of me is telling me that my feelings aren’t the ones that matter in this—hers are. And that’s the loudest voice in my mind.

She looks at the ring for a long time before glancing back up at me.

“Thank you for bringing this to me, Teddy.”

The sound of my name from her lips hits me like a drug, all the air is punched from my lungs, and I temper the smile threatening to spread across my face.

I don’t want to push my luck.

“Of course.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re really staying?”

“Yes, but you won’t see me. I’m going to stay out of your way,” I tell her, pressing a hand over my chest. “I promise.”

She sighs, squeezing her eyes closed for a brief moment.

“Please… do not ruin this trip for me,” she half-begs, half-hisses. My heart clenches at the sight, being so strong and so vulnerable. When she opens those eyes, they’re begging while her face is hard. “Do not take this away from me, Teddy. You’ve already…”

I take one step toward her—completely instinctual—but her head snaps up, and she gives me a look that stops me in my tracks.

“You’ve already taken so much,” she gasps, harshly wiping the tears with the back of her hand. Each one feels like a knife to the throat. “Please, give me this.”

“I’m not here to take anything from you,” I say quickly, my skin feeling too tight, my whole body tense up with the effort it takes not to move closer again. I press a hand over my heart. “I promise, Indie, with everything in me. I will never take anything from you again. Nothing you’re not willing to give. Even if that means nothing at all.”

Indie nods. “Fine.”

And because I’m a stupid, stupid man where Indie is concerned, I open my mouth before my brain can stop me.

“Is she… are you guys…” I gesture to the brunette watching us through the window with narrowed eyes. She even uses a finger to pantomime slicing open my jugular, which would be funny if I didn’t actually think she would do it.

Indie sees it and snorts. “Do you think I came to Europe to go on some fuckfest?”

My own cheeks heat.

Sometimes, Indie’s matter-of-factness around sex catches me off guard. It was amusing to me because she could be so shy in social situations when she didn’t know people, yet so competent with her patients, and then so open and talkative about and during sex.

She drove me fucking insane with want, telling me in that husky tone to eat her pussy until she came, and then we’d cuddle in bed while she told me about a paper she read on the role of tumor microenvironment in cancer metastasis and facts about velociraptors she looked up after watching Jurassic Park.

My fucking dream girl.

“No, Indie, it’s not my business—” I mumble, shaking my head. “I’m just…”

“Jealous?” her lips quirk into a smirk, and I feel my face twist in embarrassment.

“Yeah,” I nod, shrugging easily. “I am.”

Because you have options.

Because you’re so fucking beautiful it hurts.

Because I had you and lost you and there is probably someone better, someone smarter, someone who would do everything right the first time out there, but fuck I love you so much, and I want to be that person, but a second chance feels like nothing more than a pipe dream right now.

“No, she’s a good friend and married, she was just fucking with you,” she says, and I feel myself deflate with relief. Indie crosses her arms once more and averts her gaze as she mutters, “And I’m still in love with some idiot that broke my heart.”

I blink. Damn if my heart doesn’t do a little leap at that. A sprig of hope that I don’t deserve to feel, to let grow. But I tell her the truth.