Page 38 of Keeper
I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t like that. We’ve never been anything other than friends. Never even kissed. But the older I got, the less friendly I saw him, if you know what I mean.”
Belle nods. “You saw him naked”—she taps her temple—“in your mind.”
Indie giggles. “I think of Cam naked all the time.”
Belle rolls her eyes. “That’s because he’s the only man you’ve ever seen naked, my darling.”
“I’ve seen lots of blokes naked. I was a surgeon and now I’m a doctor for a football team!” Her little put-out attitude is so bloody cute.
Belle swallows and replies, “Yes, but none of them deflowered you.” She says it all so matter-of-factly, I’m left frozen.
Indie’s cheeks heat. “I guess there is that.”
They try to get me back on topic, but I can’t get past what they revealed. I lean forward toward Indie. “Wait. Are you saying that Cam is the only man you’ve ever slept with?”
She nods.
“And now you’re going to marry him?”
Her smile grows and she nods even harder.
I sit back, shocked. “I’m amazed.”
“Why?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Because you’re so confident in your decision. I went off to Uni thinking I needed my horizons widened. Growing up in Chigwell, I had such blinders on all the time. All I saw was my own little world. Then the moment something went wrong, it felt like the ground was ripped out from under me. I had to leave. I needed to experience other cultures. I wanted to meet men who made me feel lessfragile.”
Indie stares back at me thoughtfully. “Booker makes you feel fragile?”
I nod. “Like cracked glass.”
Belle pries, “What did he do?”
My belly heaves with pain. An old pain. A pain I don’t care to revisit and give life to, but a pain I can’t ignore anymore. “God, you guys must think I’m pathetic opening up to you like this after one bloody drink. I just have nowhere to go for advice because the person I normally go to is whom I need advice about!” I sob internally over how wretched this entire thing is.
“Go ahead and let it out. We’re here to listen,” Indie says, reaching over and touching my forearm. It feels nice.
I groan and reply, “He took a place that meant a lot to me…to us…to our friendship, and he shared it with someone else.”
“Another girl?” Indie asks, her voice quiet.
I nod and add, “It wrecked everything I thought I knew. It made me feel like I must have been delusional about things I thought were special between us. Surely I was off track. I didn’t see the truth.”
“Which was…” Belle prompts.
“That Booker didn’t love me the way I loved him.”
“He was eighteen,” Belle says in his defense.
“So was I.” My eyes begin to well, so I quickly slosh another drink in my mouth. “That only means it hurt that much more.”
“But now you’re both grown up,” Indie says, a helpful gleam in her eyes. “Maybe this means things have changed. Girls mature faster than boys. Surely he’s caught up and you see a maturity in Booker now.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t come back to London hoping to see a difference in him. I came back for a great job. Regaining a friendship with Booker was just going to be a big bonus. I really did miss him, but I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.” The image of his eyes on me at Old George flashes through my mind. Then the image of his eyes on me in my bedroom after we slept together and he flipped the switch. “Things are so complicated between us.”
“Because you’re not fucking kids anymore,” Belle states pragmatically. “Because you’re both shit hot and living under the same roof with plenty of free time. That’s sexual tension for miles. Couple that with a history of friendship and heartache, and you’re in the middle of a proverbial shit storm.”
I groan and cover my face with my hands. “I know. So what do I do? I have to move out, don’t I? I was foolish to think spending this much time with Booker would help us become Booker and Poppy again. I realise now that too much has happened. Too much has changed. I need to get out.”
