Page 43 of The Heartbreak List

I squeeze the life out of the steering wheel like I’m wringing his neck. Perhaps I’m not being fair. Everything with Indy is complicated. He’s losing her, and that’s got to hurt. He’s having to deal with her hanging out with me and I wouldn’t be cool about that either. It could be that my own feelings about Indy are making me biased. “If you need me to bring him to a smash room…”

She jerks her chin. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Great.” Fuck my life.

“I thought smashing things was supposed to make us all feel better,” she says a few minutes later.

“It was.” I deflate. Have I ruined this for her? “You don’t?”

“Neither do you.” Her eyebrows squish together as she takes in my rigid posture and scowl. “You and EJ talked. Did he say something?”

“No.” I grit my teeth. If anything I thought he was going to take that golf club to me when I told him he’d regret not talking to her about how her diagnosis was affecting him. And that he better get on board with her choices unless he wanted to be the asshole that holds her back from getting the most out of her time. I may have lumped him in with the fiancé who is definitely doing that.

“Or, um…did you strike out with the attendant? You were super into her.”

I chuckle mirthlessly. “She’s not my type. It’s called being friendly.”

“Uh… people can be friendly without making fuck me eyes at each other.” She strengthens her jaw and stares me down.

“Can they?” I try to make it into a joke. By the expression on her face, my attempt to lighten up falls flat. I rest my elbow on the window as we drive through traffic. Press the top of my tongue to the roof of my downturned mouth. “I wasn’t giving her fuck me eyes.”

“You could have fooled me.” She turns her attention to the diamond on her engagement band.

My heart skips so much it makes my stomach hurt. Does she know that I wanted to kiss her? That I was so close to doing so? Did she catch me making fuck me eyes at her? But logic settles in. If she did, she wouldn’t be in my truck. She would have gotten her brother to drive her home. Or arranged a ride.

I would be looking at a text from her outlining all the reasons we should not hang out anymore. The bucket list would be kaput.

I’m so not ready for that. “Look, I didn’t—"

“I don’t care. It’s none of my business.” Her tone is clipped. She takes a breath, and her next words are softer. “I mean, you shouldn’t feel like you need to not make fuck me eyes at the attendant at the smash room because I’m around. I don’t want to cramp your style. We’re friends.”

“You don’t.” She’s not the problem. It’s me.

“Oh, I one thousand percent do.” She straightens the seam in her pants. “I’m more than you bargained for. You didn’t sign up to put me to bed because I’m blinded by pain or hold my hair back because the nausea makes it impossible for me to keep anything down for long. You didn’t think you’d be woken and tried by my lawyer brother after a long night of babysitting me. And then there’s my drama with Gray, and it’s a lot. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to change your mind about helping me with my list.”

Sigh’s answer finally comes through and it’s not what I want to hear. He’s been dealing with the police this morning. Some jackass provided information on the fights to help himself out and it’s causing some heat.

It’s nothing unusual considering the activity and the gambling that take place, but it means I’m going to have to wait until the next matches are announced like everyone else. Whenever that might be. I slam my hand on the steering wheel. “Damn it.”

Indy recoils.

“It’s not you.” That bottle of Jameson is looking mighty fine. I might make fuck me eyes at it before I tongue the inside of the glass clean. “That wasn’t at you. You’re fun. And I like… hanging out with you.”

“Sounds like it.” She rolls bratty eyes at me. Exhales a short, sharp breath through her nose.

“Fucking hell.” That does something to me too. It’s a jolt of adrenaline, making my spine straight and my body hum. If she were anyone else… but she’s not. There’s no treating her rough. There’s no stripping her bare and forgetting her name by the time I’ve had my fill. There’s no being such an asshole she wants to hurt me for it. “Attitude much?”

She sticks out her tongue.

I snort. Perhaps its best she isn’t like those girls. I think I’d find her hard to move on from.

Her eyes light up and she reaches across the cab to grab my arm. “I have an idea. Turn left.”

Chapter Fifteen

Indy

“Comeon,hurryup.”I jump out of the truck and stride toward the building with the big vinyl sign hanging on the side. It has a colorful picture of two people wrestling in a toddler pool full of squishy blocks of red gelatin and claims it’s famous for its Jell-O tournaments.

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