Page 46 of Indigo

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Strutting back over to my place the next morning after Indie basically kicked me out, needing to get ready for work and my dick not wanting to cooperate with the plan, I push open the front door to find Jagger pacing back and forth in front of the couch.

“Jag?” I ask, closing the door behind me and stepping further into the house, tossing my set of keys on the hallway table to my left. He stops immediately, and when his eyes meet mine, my stomach drops. “What’s happened?”

He shakes his head and runs his hands over his face, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes before locking his gaze back on me. “Have to talk to you about something.”

“Okay…”

“I made coffee,” he says, turning for the kitchen before I can say no.

I follow closely behind him, my brain conjuring up a hundred different scenarios that could have put that look on his face. None of them are good.

He grabs a mug for himself from the cupboard bolted to the wall above the sink, and offers one to me, but I shake my head, already having had my fill at Indie’s place.

Nervously, he grips his coffee, takes a sip and then places it down on the blue and white speckled counter with more force than necessary, causing some of the brown liquid to spill over the rim.

“Shit,” he hisses, reaching for a tea towel.

“Jagger,” I snap, needing him to focus and just spit it out so we can deal with whatever it is together. “Talk.”

With his back to me, his shoulders rise and then fall. “Matt asked me to move in with him last night.”

I swear to God my fucking heart stops beating. Of all the words to come out of his mouth, these I wasn’t expecting. I should have been, logically, considering how long Matt and Jagger have been together. My baby brother is twenty-four and in a committed relationship. He has a stable job, makes more than enough money to get by, and he’s a good man. He deserves this. But logic doesn’t stop the panic building in my chest.

It’s been the two of us for so damn long, having each other’s backs, cheering each other on, and now…

I don’t know if it’s the fear of him moving on without me, the parental part of me that worries for him and how this will affect him, or if it’s the images of shielding him from our father that are still fresh in my mind from my talk with Indie last night, but my throat constricts, and for the first time in a long fucking time, my eyes well with tears.

I try to blink them away, rubbing at my eyes furiously, feeling ridiculous. This should be a happy time. I did my job. I got him to this point. Everything I’ve done since I was nine was to get him here. To mould him into the healthy, happy, slightly sarcastic man that stands before me.

But what do I do now? Now that he doesn’t need me to be that for him anymore? Now, all he needs from me is brotherly love and support? How do I switch gears after nineteen years?

“Pax,” he croaks, moving toward me hesitantly, clearly freaked by the fact that I’m tearing up when he hasn’t seen me cry a day in his life.

Clearing my throat, I shake my head and plaster on a fake ass smile to appease him. “I’m happy for you, Jag. Fucking proud of you.”

He’s across the kitchen before I can stop him, wrapping his arms around me. I do the same, and hold my grown ass brother to my chest, the same way I did when he was a kid who’d just had a nightmare, or a bad day at school. I hold him without reservation, knowing that today marks the first step he takes away from me.

“Proud of you,” I repeat into his hair, tightening my hold a little before releasing him.

Stepping back, he runs his forearm over his face, wiping the moisture from his eyes. He shakes his head and laughs. “Jesus.”

I look at him, and pride swells in my chest for my boy. My kid. Mine.

“You hungry?” I ask, not knowing what else to say at this point. “Want to grab something before we head to work?”

He nods, running a hand through his caramel hair, pushing it from his face. “Yeah,” he replies. Strengthening his voice, he repeats, “Yeah. Sounds good. Give me five to shower.”

I wait for him to leave the room before I let my emotions take over for a second time. Leaning onto the counter, using it to hold me up, I scrunch my eyes closed and take a deep breath.

When the sound of music comes from next door, something in my chest shifts.

Indie.

Her face flashes in my mind.

Maybe that's what I do without Jagger? Build a life with the only woman I can imagine by my side when I’m old and grey.

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