Page 204 of Snap Shot

“Are you telling me you're attracted to men?”

“No, but my dad didn't know when he got married.”

“Oh,Landon. He knew.” Her palms part from my jaw and fall to my shoulders.

“And what if it's you, huh?” That deep-seated fear of being left behind—the one I don't tell anyone about—rears its vicious head. “What if you wake up after twenty years of marriage and say you don't love me anymore?”

One fat tear slides down her cheek and crushes my heart. Her silent crying makes me want to cut my chest open, but the eerily calm tone of her voice makes me want to die.

“I don't have an answer to that, but I'm not sure that's an adequate reason to not get married.”

I'm not below begging. I'm already on my knees. “Indi,please. Listen to me.” I release her shirt to support her neck, tilting her mouth to mine for a kiss. “I love you. I want to be with you and no one else.”

She doesn't answer right away. “I want a ring,” she murmurs. “And everything that comes with it—”

“Baby, I'll give you athousandrings—”

“It's not about the ring!” Indi flies to her feet, knocking me back to my haunches. “I want a wedding and a marriage. It means something to me” —she paces around the room, hands miming scenes in the air— “my loved ones covering me in haldi, you searching for your name in my mehndi, for my family to hold your juta ransom, my sisters stopping your car from letting us leave. And more than any of that, I want a whole future with you. For you to introduce me as your wife and to call you my husband. To be able to tell the world that you are mine and I am yours in every way.”

I go upright, only to collapse onto the edge of the bed, groaning and digging the heels of my palms into my eyes until it hurts. “Besides the traditions, the last part is already true.” Wrenching them down my face doesn't take away the pain either. “The difference is, I don't need a piece of paper to prove it.”

My hand catches her wrist as she passes. Indi stops. I force her gaze. “Any vow, any promise, I can make and keep right now.” The slow pulse thrumming at her inner wrist against my lips sends a shiver down my spine. “I love you more and more every day. Can't that be enough?”

A quivering breath fans my face. “I don't know.”

My mouth meets the crook of her elbow, pulling a drawn-out kiss from the delicate skin. “Will you think about it? Please.” We can work through this. She loves me. I love her. “Stay with me.”

Tension looms through our quiet dinner. When we head to bed, the covers hide the shift between us. I cling to her. She melts to me. But it's different. Like candle wax burning and shrinking away instead of holding two pieces of paper together.

“I'm sorry I made you cry,” I whisper into her hair. “Can I make up for it?”

My hand roams over the arch of her hip and dives into her pjs, desperate to be inside her. To be as close to her as two people can be. To show her how much sheismine and Iamhers. How we're more whole together than when we're apart.

“Not tonight.” She stops me. “I'm tired.”

The rhythm of her breathing never slows as she pretends to sleep. I don't blame her. I can't sleep either. When I get up to take an early morning whizz, Indi's missing. I find her tiptoeing through the kitchen.

“Where you goin'?”

“Shit,” she says through a gasp. “Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.”

“You didn't.” My hands furl and unfurl at my sides, itching to hold her, bring her back to bed, and kiss her until we can't think about anything else.

“I'm heading to my apartment.”

The acid in my stomach lurches. “But you always stay here.”

“You have to go in, like, an hour for back-to-back road games this week. And I should make sure everything there is okay.”

I take a tentative step toward her. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Areyougonna be okay?” Both of my palms support her jaw. “I hate leaving you before we've resolved anything.” I peck the tip of her nose. “Promise me you'll be here when I get back.”

“I'll be here.”

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