AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t get it. Why me? I’m not— I don’t—” Indy sucked in a breath, her chest tight. “It doesn’t make sense. I thought my destiny was pointing toward Nick, but you… you still like me, without any reason.”
“I have plenty of reasons.”
“But it’s not—” She stopped, the words stuck.
“Not what? Destiny?” Ethan sighed. “No, it’s not. It’s better. Because this is me, choosing to fall in love with you. It’s not something I was made for or forced into. I wanted to, and I did.”
Every breath was a fight, like siphoning oxygen through smoke. Indy closed her eyes, not able to take Ethan’s intense gaze while she sorted through the jumble of want and shock and love that rumbled around her chest. She used to stand and watch concrete mixers as they turned sand and water into paste, mesmerized by the spinning, the steady tumble. If she could get her thoughts to quiet, she’d probably hear her heart knocking against her ribs, turning over and over again.
“Slowly, in and out. There you go.”
Indy had always thought she needed someone adventurous, who would push her out of her comfort zone. But it turned out she did plenty of that herself. What she needed was someone to bring her back, to soften her landing when her mind ran away with itself, someone to ground her. Why not the teacher-come-rock climber who drove a motorcycle?
Indy pulled back, tipped her chin, faced him fully. For Ethan, she could be brave.
“Where would I be without you?” she murmured.
“Give yourself credit. You’re strong enough on your own,” he said, palm soft against her cheek. “But every good climber needs an anchor point. Someone to catch them if they fall. Let me be yours.”
It was then, between the shelves of her favorite books, that she knew. What she felt for Ethan wasn’t less because it wasn’t foretold. The opposite, in fact. It almost scared her with how big it was. There wasn’t enough room inside her to contain it. It overflowed, seeping from her pores into the very space between them. It existed because she wanted it to, because Ethan evoked it. And there was no guarantee that he would feel the same, except hedid, and hehad, and he’d been saying it from the start.
Indy had simply been too scared to listen.
But more frightening to her now was the idea of walking away. Of never talking to him again.
“Thank you,” she said, resting her head against his chest, because Ethan had been oh so patient, and she wasn’t sure she could ever thank him enough for it.
Cool air hit her cheek when he leaned back, his eyes darting over her face. “You don’t need to thank me, Indy.”
He heaved a sigh, and oh, that was his serious face. “I got a call this week, from the big-shot corporation guy. Indy, not only is he giving us the money to replace every textbook in the school, but he wants to pay for the repairs we need. He practically gave us a blank check and said to do whatever we need for the kids.”
“Oh my god.”
“And it’s all because of you.”
“No, I—”
Ethan raised a hand, silencing her. “Nope, I’m not letting you diminish this. You did something amazing, and I don’t know how I’ll ever show you how grateful I am for it. How grateful I am for you.”
His eyes were glassy when he released her, and she felt her own tears approaching again at the sight. If he cried, there was no way she could hold back.
“I knew it the second I saw you sneaking around in Nick’s office. You might need a sign to be sure of your feelings, Indy, but I know how I feel, and I don’t need a single thing to convince me.”
That day felt like it had happened eons ago. Standing, determined, in Nick’s office, facing off against Ethan as he loomed larger than life in the doorway.
Somewhere along the way, her reasons for knowing him had ceased to matter. She no longer texted him for details about Nick or suggestions of where to bump into him. Rather, she asked him for details about himself. She asked questions about his work. And in return, he listened to her ramble about her writing. They teased each other about basketball. They sat in quiet comfort.
Ethan had started as a pain in her ass. Now she couldn’t imagine a life without him in it.
“Do you know what I thought when we first met?”
“Why is there a strange woman rifling through my cousin’s office?”
He laughed. “I thought, if there’s any chance she’s not here for Nick, I have to get to know her.”
Oh.
“Even after I discovered you were there for him, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I can’t explain it, but it was as though a light had turned on in a room I had forgotten existed. A whole world opened up to me, a part of myself that I’d been neglecting. You gave that to me.”
