Page 58 of The Heartbreak List

The girls are helped to the ground. The guys follow.

Theo stares at me for the longest time. Then he climbs down from the bar and storms off.

“Hey, Indy. Let me?” Pez holds out a hand for me.

I can’t drag my gaze away from Theo as he starts chatting to the first woman who approaches him. She touches his chest and I want to scream. He smiles at her, and I will never be the same. When our eyes meet, I can’t breathe. And when he lets his hand linger on her waist, I can’t look any longer. Wetness slicks the back of my throat as they walk away together.

I nod as I take Pez’s hand. His gaze is sympathetic as he puts me on my feet right before he goes back to serving drinks.

“What the fuck, Indy?” Gray crowds me before I can catch my bearings. He grabs my arm and drags me away from the bar. His nostrils flare. “Do you want to tell me why I watched that prick make love to my fiancée in front of my eyes?”

“That’s not…we were dancing. We were fully dressed.” But I’d felt it too. How intimately we’d acted. Two lost souls finding peace in each other. Feeling the same ache. The same thrill in living.

“You had your clothes on. I’ll give you that.” He rushes me through the crowd toward the exit. I’m barely able to keep my feet. “And he immediately found some other woman to be involved with, but I saw the way he looked at you, Indy.”

“What are you talking about?” The cold air hits my sweaty body, cooling me down considerably as soon as we’re on the pavement. “Stop, Gray. We should talk about this.”

“Talk?” He lets out a pained chuckle as he pulls me away from the other club goers. Towering over me as my back finds the brick wall, he scrubs one hand down his face. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks. Ever since you stopped talking to that…” His expression crumples. “I see my mistake.”

“Hey,” Theo shouts.

Suddenly Gray isn’t touching me anymore. Theo has him by the collar of his shirt and is glaring at him like he wants to murder him. “Don’t fucking treat her like that, asshole.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Gray roars as he turns on Theo. He shoves him in the chest with both hands. “Indy is my fiancée. She’s my girl. What is going on between us is none of your business.”

“It is when you leave bruises on her, fuckstick.”

“Stop it.” My hands shake as I wrap my arms around my waist. I don’t want Gray to get hurt. I don’t want Theo to act like he cares when he walked into the arms of another girl as soon as he walked away from me.

“I would never hurt her. I would never toy with her.” Gray shoves Theo again. “You though…I can’t work out your agenda. Other than ruining people’s lives.”

“I saw the bruises, man. For someone who claims to care as much as you do…you’re doing a shitty job of everything when it comes to Indy.”

Gray’s eyes bulge and he roars as he throws a fist. It might be his first ever punch. My Gray has always been so sweet, but his knuckles hit Theo’s jaw with an audible thump that makes me wince.

I lurch forward before Theo can swing back. He has more than twenty years of martial arts training and fights regularly. The only reason Gray got a shot in at all is probably because Theo didn’t expect it. Gray will lose this one. He will get hurt. Because of me. And I can’t bear to let that happen. Getting between them, I press my hands to their chests. “Stop it. Stop it. Please. You have to stop.”

Pez and Lucas come running out of the club. They race toward us, but Theo has already dropped his fist.

“Are you okay?” Pez asks me while he watches Theo and Gray with the intent of someone who is used to reading body language and is ready to jump in if necessary.

“He had her fucking cornered,” Theo growls. “He’s angry and he’s not being careful enough with her.”

“Theo,” I cry. “Just stop. Gray has never hurt me. He would never hurt me.”

“Move out of the way, Indy.” Gray chews his words. “He doesn’t get to come into our lives and turn them upside down. Accusing me of hurting you. What are your motives, huh? Do you get a thrill out of getting a dying girl to fall for you?”

“No, that’s not what happened. And you know it, Gray. The diagnosis changed everything.” It isn’t Theo’s fault that we’re a mess. Or that I feel this connection to him. He never pretended to be the kind of guy I’d want to get mixed up with.

“Indy, let me take you inside.” Theo wraps his hand around my upper arm.

“No.” I shake him off. “But you should go back inside. You aren’t a part of this conversation. You should never have gotten involved.”

Theo draws away like I’m a flame and standing too close will burn him. His gaze swings from Gray to me. There’s a rawness to the emotions in those eyes that make my stomach flip-flop. “Indy—"

“He’s my fiancé, Theo.” I tilt my chin up. He has to understand that I will always love Gray. Nothing could ever change that. Not my feelings for him. Nor my dying. If I have to be harsh with Theo for Gray’s sake then I will. “You’re only the bartender who helped me with my bucket list.”

The color leeches from his face. “Do you really mean that?”

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