Page 150 of The Right Move

She laughs, but I can hear how much it hurts her as it comes out. “Explain what? Why you slept with someone else?”

Alex looks down towards the ground, hands in his pockets. “Well, yeah, exactly. But I’d like to speak to you alone.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I interject.

“Indy. Twenty-two years. You owe it to yourself to hear me out.”

Manipulative piece of trash, using history as a chess piece with the most loyal woman I know.

Indy inhales a deep breath and I know he’s got her. I hate it.

“Fine. Five minutes.”

“Blue,” I protest over my shoulder.

“It’s okay, Ryan.” Her focus is back on Alex. “It means nothing.”

I refuse to move, to allow any open space between them, but it doesn’t matter because Indy rounds my body, facing me.

“It’s okay. I’ll call you when I can. Have a safe flight.”

The daggers shooting from my eyes fall to the prick behind her. Touch her and I’ll kill you. Say something that makes her upset and I’ll ruin your life. Look at her inappropriately and I will beat the living shit out of you.

I don’t know that he was able to gather that all from my stare, but here’s hoping he understood.

My hands cup Indy’s face as I silently beg her to just go home instead, but she holds her ground, determined to have this conversation.

I’m a possessive man when it comes to her, there’s no denying that, and even though I’m controlling in my own life, I’d never control her or her decisions.

Relenting, I press my lips to her temple and linger there as long as I can.

“Ryan!” Ethan calls out from the team bus behind me. “We’ve gotta go!”

There are so many things I want to say to her right now, but mostly I want to know if what she feels towards me is enough for me not to worry. I also want to know if she’s really okay to do this. It wasn’t all that long ago she was crying in our living room before throwing a shoe at my door after being stranded without a place to live because of him.

But I don’t have time to ask a single question with a bus waiting for me and a plane sitting on a tarmac, ready for our road trip.

“Call me when you can?” I ask, walking backwards towards the bus.

She nods, and I keep my eyes on her until I have to climb the steps on the bus, where I practically sprint to my seat and look out the window, finding the two of them taking a seat on the curb outside the arena.

Why are they sitting? They don’t need that much time. In fact, they don’t need any time at all.

No part of me is calm, cool, or collected. I’m entirely out of control. In a sense, I’ve been out of control ever since that girl waltzed into my apartment, but this time, the powerlessness doesn’t feel freeing. I’m spiraling as we drive away.

Whatever is going on between us is so new. We haven’t had the opportunity to fully discuss it, and at the time it felt weird to throw a label on something so organic.

But now I wish we had. That way she could tell him, but more importantly, she could tell me where we stand.

Every single insecurity of mine floods my body, overtaking any reasonable senses I have left.

Do I mean enough to her?

Will she go back to him?

Was it always him?

Does she want me at all?

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