Page 72 of The Plus One
“Out, man! Out!” Indira yelled, pointing her finger at the door in a menacing way reminiscent of her mother.
Jeremy tripped backward a few more steps, grabbing onto thedoor handle. “We—I… What the fuckisthis?” he said, eyes ricocheting between Jude and Indira like bouncy balls. “You’re cracked if you think we aren’t talking about this,” he yelled back, moving out of the room and slamming the door behind him. “Get some clothes on and meet me downstairs.”
“Don’t think I will, thanks,” Indira said, nibbling on her bottom lip and hopping from foot to foot.
“Jude, Collin is going to fucking kill you. Get some pants on.” Jeremy stomped down the hall, a piercing silence filling the room.
Jude slowly rolled over and sat up, and Indira tossed him a blanket. They stared at each other in wide-eyed shock from across the room for a solid minute.
And then, without warning, Jude dissolved into laughter, a grin cracking across his face as he looked at Indira and her wild hair and barely covered body. She was a dream and a nightmare and Jude couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to have her in his room. And the more the overwhelming joy filled him—the impossibility of it all pumping his blood through his body—the harder he laughed.
After a moment, Indira started giggling too, the noise like soft music.
When Indira laughed, she did so with her whole body—shoulders shaking, throat working, toes curling on the hardwood floor—and it was like watching a dancer move across a stage.
Jude reached out to her, and she went to him, the pair collapsing into a giggling knot on the mattress. Jude pressed his nose into her hair and breathed her in, the sound of their joy harmonizing and filling the room around them in an alchemy all their own.
Eventually, they both got a grip, trying to steady their breathing.
“So,” Jude said, absentmindedly winding a strand of her hair around his finger, “that went well.”
Indira smacked him on the ribs. “That was the single most embarrassing moment of my life.”
“I’m sure everyone has an awful story of a family member walking in on them naked,” Jude countered, tugging at her curl.
“That’s a distant second to being caught in bed withyouof all people,” she said with another throaty laugh, pressing a soft love bite into his pec.
“Oh please. I’m not sure I’ll ever recover my dignity after being caught canoodling with the enemy.”
“Canoodling? Is that what you call it?”
“I’m a doctor. I like to use technical terms for bodily mechanics.”
“Ha. Well, however you want to put it, your dignity and your body can rest in pieces based on Jeremy’s threat,” Indira said, untangling from him and standing, grabbing her leggings and stealing Jude’s T-shirt so she could dash to her own room. “Let’s get this over with. I have a feeling Jeremy might have a few questions about the, uh, ‘mechanics’ of our fake dating.”
CHAPTER 25
Indira
“Deplorable, inconsiderate, disrespectful, irresponsible… I could go on forever. How could you let this happen?”
Indira let out an indignant huff, crossing her arms over her chest as she stood next to Jude in the living room. “Who I fu—have relations with—is absolutely none of your business, Jeremy.”
Jeremy turned on her. “You think that’s what this is about? I could give a flying fuck about whose… uh, appendages… you’re, erm… accepting—”
“Gross.”
“I’m talking about my house! My beautiful yard! The eggs dried on my windows!”
“Yikes,” Jude said, pulling aside a curtain to reveal endless sheets of toilet paper swaying gently in the breeze.
Indira pressed her face against the pane, taking in the massacre.
“They got you good,” she said, unable to tamp down the laugh in her voice. She loved Jeremy like a brother, and, as all good siblings do, she took a certain type of joy in seeing him tortured. In a very healthy, mature, familial way, obviously.
“It’s not funny, Dira!”
“It’s a little funny,” Jude said, pressing his mouth into a firm line. Indira didn’t miss the tiny quirk at its corners.
