“Hmmm.” She tugs at the sleeves of her sweatshirt, dragging them down over her hands.
I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She’s always talking to me, telling me things, but she’s put a wall up between us. She knows that I’m to blame for Cooper’s death. She knows I can’t be trusted. Maybe that should be enough, but I find myself wanting to clarify.
“I’m not a murderer. Not the way it sounds, anyway. I loved Cooper. I didn’t set out to hurt her. It was an accident.”
Indy stays quiet for a long while before she asks, “Then why did he say you did it on purpose?”
“Because it was my fault she died. My stupidity.” I hold onto the steering wheel with one hand like it’s a buoy, keeping me from being dragged away by the undertow of what happened back then and what occurred tonight. “We had a motorcycle accident. Lost traction in a corner and hit gravel. The bike pinned me, travelling a few yards. I came to in the back of the ambulance. Cooper was being airlifted.”
Indy covers my hand with her own, and it helps.
“She made it to the hospital, and they thought that if they could get the swelling around her brain to go down that she would be okay. But there was internal damage no one knew about. Her organs started shutting down.”
“I’m so sorry.” Indy shakes her head. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
I don’t deserve her empathy. “It was my fault. I was exhausted from the interning hours I was doing at my dad’s law firm. And under the influence…Cooper and I had fought the night before and I’d handled it badly. Then handled it with a bottle of Jameson. Cooper wanted to do so many things and I should have made them happen. I should have put my career on hold. I should have put her first.”
“Like you’re doing with me.” Indy withdraws her hand from on top of mine. She finally gets that everything I’ve done isn’t selfless.
I’ve done it for me. Except for being drawn to her the way I am. The way I don’t want to be. “I didn’t mean it—”
“You said that you liked me?”
I clear my throat. I can still salvage this. I can take it back. “I told Nelson what he needed to hear.”
She stares out the windshield at the lobby of her building. “That makes sense.”
“If he thought we were lovers he might have shot you.” I chew on my lip. Hopefully she’s buying this as easily as she bought that me looking at her tits was a guy thing. “I couldn’t risk that.”
“I guess.” She presses her lips together.
A man comes out of her building. I recognize his blonde hair and blue eyes from the pictures in her house. His eyes flare as he takes in the sight of his fiancée in my truck.
“Gray?” Indy straightens. “What is he doing home already? Oh crap, he looks mad.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I remind her. It’s me that made our friendship weird.
He starts to march toward us, and she shoves open her door. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Should I stay?” Because I will. I’m more than happy to help this idiot get real clear on how his behavior is affecting Indy.
Chapter Seventeen
Indy
“Youshouldgo.”Islam the door closed and hurry toward Gray, meeting him a few feet from the hood of Theo’s truck.
“This is the guy you’re hanging out with behind my back?” He glares over the top of my head, the cords in his neck prominent.
“It’s not like that.” I press both hands into his chest when he tries to storm around me. His jaw pulses with the way he’s grinding it. I’ve been so freaking stupid. “Gray, it’s really not. Let’s just go inside and talk—”
“The guy literally spent the night in our apartment the minute I left town.” He finally looks at me. His eyes widen as he notices my tangled, clumping hair and the messy state of my clothes. “What the hell?”
“Are you okay, Indy?” Theo’s voice is hard as a door shuts behind me.
Damn it. Theo isn’t leaving. I told him to go.
Gray’s whole body becomes rigid and his gaze cools as he lifts it.
