Page 89 of The Plus One
Indira slid down the bed until they were nose to nose, watching over him, dragging her nails through his hair. Small tears rolling down her own cheeks.
Through it all, she rubbed her hands up and down his back. Whispered soft words of love against his throat. She held a magnifying glass up to the most hidden parts of his soul and still smiled, happy to simply know him.
“Indira,” he said, pulling his head back to look at her. She looked back—his safe soul. His happy place. His tether.
“Thank you for…” He paused, searching for the right words. None would be good enough. “Thank you for being you,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck, feeling her pulse against his lips. “I’m on my way back.”
Indira smiled, eyes glistening. “I know.”
“And… I love you.”
“I know that too.”
CHAPTER 30
Indira
“I’m going to kill this motherfucker.”
Indira looked at her mom, Angela, silently agreeing with the sentiment.
“I should have known he’d pull a stunt like this,” Angela continued, talking in hushed tones out of the side of her mouth as the pair hovered in the back of the barn at Collin’s wedding rehearsal.
The space was breathtaking, glowing lights strung across the lofted ceiling and down supporting beams, a large, arched window framing the mountain view that Collin and Jeremy would stand in front of the next day to take their vows.
Everything was perfect.
Except for Indira’s father yet again fulfilling his role as the ultimate disappointment.
“I’m so sorry,” Natalie, the venue owner and coordinator, said as she approached Indira and Angela. “But I’m not sure we can delay the rehearsal much longer. I have a different appointment to get to in forty-five minutes.”
“I understand,” Angela said. “I’ll talk to Collin.”
Natalie offered a sad smile before nodding and walking off.
Indira and Angela watched Collin pacing at the opposite end of the space, Jeremy and Jude standing helplessly nearby.
Angela shook her head. “I thought Greg’s done unforgivable things in the past, but this is a new low.”
With a sigh, the women approached Collin.
“Just a few more minutes,” Collin said, his face strained but voice casual. “I’m sure Dad will be here any second. Probably a flight delay or something.”
“Collin,” Angela whispered, stepping toward her son. So many sentiments were embedded in the way she said his name.There were no delays. There’s no point in waiting. The man isn’t coming.
Indira’s hands shook and her stomach roiled, a queasy, dizzy type of anger boiling in her. The shiftiness of Collin’s eyes felt like a knife twisting in her chest.
“Collin, we—” Indira’s voice was cut off at the trill of a phone.
Collin’s face bloomed in hope as he hastily fished it out of his pocket, a relieved grin breaking across his face. “It’s him. Told you he’s coming.”
“He’s not,” Indira said softly, shaking her head. She wanted to tear that phone out of Collin’s hand and chuck it off the side of the mountain. Destroy any objects that helped carry Greg’s empty promises.
“Hey, Dad!” Collin said, answering the call. “I know being fashionably late is a thing, but this might be a bit next level.” Collin’s voice was light. Breezy. But it cracked with the forced laugh at the end.
Indira recognized that voice; it was the same one she’d used with her dad for so many years as a teenager and even in her early twenties. It was cool but earnest. Calm but keen. It was reined-in excitement drenched in pitiful desperation to say the right thing in exactly the right way and then, maybe then, it would click things into place. Win Dad over. Make him eager to change.
Indira’s heart squeezed in pain for sweet Collin.
