Page 69 of Bound By Temptation

We both took off out the door, but I paused momentarily at her words. From my sister … the one who hated the man just as much as I did.

Once again, I hated to admit it but sex here, with him would be hotter than hell. Shit, I had it bad for the man who broke me all those years ago. How was that possible?

Those walls I’d built up were beginning to fall faster than I could put them back up. This did not bode well for me.

I stopped at home and took a quick shower because the cake in my hair was not coming out any other way. Damn man.

I’d made it to the gymnasium with ten minutes to spare. Never thought I’d be in my own high school on the regular, but with Trinny playing volleyball from sixth grade on, I was here more than I really wanted to be. High school looked exactly the same. With two nieces, Trinny and Farrah, I knew the kids acted the same as well. The clicks, cool kids, jocks … all the drama. They both loved to tell their aunty all the shit they wouldn’t dare tell their mother.

I hoped that when I had kids, mine would tell me all the shit that Trinny and Rah told me. Not that I’d like it, but I’d love to be a mom who could be there for her kids to talk to no matter what the situation was.

I don’t know… Maybe when a sex tape of ‘you’, your boyfriend, and a teacher leaked out. Yeah, that one was not fun to tell my mother.

How she’d already forgiven him, judging from her reactions, I wished I could follow her path.Please let me follow the path.

Meadow waved goofily at me, standing up in the bleachers as did Mom. GramO smiled upon my approach. Devon, my brother-in-law and Meadow’s husband, came down the few stairs from where they were sitting and took my hand to climb up the bleachers.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” I replied on a smile, absolutely loving that my sister had this in her life. She deserved to be pampered. This man opened the doors for her all the time. Like all the time. I’d be surprised if he didn’t do it when she went to the bathroom just so she didn’t have to touch the handle.

“Help a beautiful woman? Hell, I want to!” he teased with a wink, giving my hand a squeeze and releasing it as I sat next to GramO, who was on the end of the bleachers. She always loved sitting on the aisle. Said it was the best seat in the house, when there was a fire or you had to pee.

She was wise, but nuts sometimes too.

“Hey, GramO. How ya doin’?” I greeted, leaning in and nudging her shoulder.

Her hand came to mine, and I took in each line, wrinkle, bruise and freckle. Each mark was a stage in her life that made her the woman she was today. It was also a reminder of how many years she’d been on this earth. It sucked that the ones you loved got older. If I had a genie, I’d wish for time to reverse itself. It was something I hated thinking about and was why I cherished each moment I spent with her.

No one ever gave you a manual saying when your time would be up. I prayed that wouldn’t be in the cards for a really long time.

“I’m good, child. I should ask you how you’re doing.” She squeezed my hand even harder, bringing my eyes to hers as she wiggled her eyebrows.

The deep breath I sucked in didn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out. “GramO. Stop that. We’re just writing the last chapter of our story. We needed to do it and get it all out there so we can move on.”

“Oh, my dear, your story may’ve had some serious bumps in the road, but it is nowhere near the end. If anything, it’s beginning again. Like what you had before was the prologue, and now you get to the meat and bones. He messed up. Huge. He knows it. You can see it in his eyes. You can feel it when he looks at you, especially when you’re not paying attention.”

This made me curious, but she kept going so I couldn’t ask.

“Like you were precious, and if he so much as blinked, he feared you’d disappear. One thing I know. Don’t have a twin but know down to my bones that I’d do anything for my family. He might’ve gone about it the wrong way, but he’s older now. Wiser. He realized that losing her was the consequence to his choices. And let me tell you, Indie, he won’t make that mistake again.” She gave my hand another squeeze.

I leaned into her ear. “How do I trust him, GramO? He didn’t stop the kids at school from taunting me or spreading rumors. He never said a word. Not about the tape. Not about me not being in it. How do I let that go?”

“Everything in life is a risk. Some come out good. Some come out bad. But I know my Indigo Jamison, you are strong, quick-witted, super smart and won’t take any of Ax’s crap. You’re not the same woman as you were before. You’ve grown and learned a strength I always knew was there, but you had to develop. You’ve changed and experienced life outside of the city of Sumner. Realized that it didn’t matter what the people of this town thought because you knew who you were inside. You knew there was a bigger world out there. Whatever obstacles come up in your life, you know you can weather the storm. You’ve got my grit and determination.”

I felt the tears starting to well up but pushed them back as best as I could. Here we were, in a gym of all places, having this conversation. This needed to be an “in the living room with a bottle of whisky talk.”

“You love him. Have always loved that man, and he knows what he almost lost forever. The crowned jewel you are… He won’t make that mistake again, dear. I swear it.” GramO shrugged, and my heart swelled. “And I told him if he hurt you again in any way, I’d cut off his balls.”

I burst out laughing so loud everyone around us started staring, but I didn’t care. “I love you. You know that?” I told her, wrapping my arms around her and hugging her tight.

“I know. And I you.”

Others obviously, seeing the heart to heart GramO and I were having, began to interrupt and say hi. Yes, there were those who remembered the past, but ninety-nine percent of the time, it was just me—Indie, the woman who bakes like a dream.

Thinking back, really there were only a few who still said things under their breath, and it was mostly old bitties.

Maybe more had let it go than I’d realized. Because each time I thought about it, it was so raw and fresh.

When the whistle went off, the stands erupted, including my family, taking me out of all the thoughts swirling in my brain. Where was the off switch when you needed it? Guess volleyball would be the way out this time.

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