When We Met

prologue

Indy

Swiping at my wet cheeks, I drove past the house I shared with three girls not far from campus during the school year, and kept going until I pulled up outside Dean’s frat house. I wasn’t supposed to be coming back to Ann Arbor for a couple more days. But Dean was already here, and, well, there was apparently nothing left for me in Chicago anymore.

My parents had made that all too clear when I’d come home from the gym this morning to find my suitcases on the driveway. A note pinned to one of them had said We can’t keep pretending everything’s okay, and the locks on the door had been changed.

Gone for an hour at the gym—and they changed the locks and packed all my stuff. They’d obviously been busy carrying out plans they’d had for who knew how long.

Through my tears and depressed-to-angry mood swings, I’d made the drive to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in only three hours, and remembered maybe five minutes of that. But none of that mattered now. As I let myself in the stale, funky-smelling frat house, I was already breathing easier knowing I was seconds away from being in Dean’s arms. He would make everything better—he always had over the last two years.

Jogging up the stairs, I worried for a second about looking like a disaster when I was about to see Dean for the first time in months, but I knew he’d already seen me at my lowest. A red, blotchy face and workout clothes weren’t going to faze him right now.

As I opened the door to his room at the end of the hall, my already shaky smile immediately fell, and I froze with one foot inside his bedroom. After the day I’d had, I wasn’t comprehending what I was seeing. I wasn’t getting the memo that I needed to do something. Like leave. Or scream. Or cry some more. Something. Anything. I just stood there staring—Dean not even noticing me through the music blasting in his room as he repeatedly drove into some girl I’d never seen before.

When everything seemed to snap back into reality, I grabbed at the docking station on the dresser near the door and launched it across the room—the music immediately stopped and was replaced by my voice.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I screamed.

The girl shrieked and shoved Dean back before trying to cover herself. “Get out of here!”

“Indy!” Dean yelled, and looked around wildly for a few seconds before coming toward me. “Indy, oh my God!”

“Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare fucking touch— You’re not even wearing a condom!” I didn’t know why that was the important issue right then, and I didn’t know why my gaze had flashed down. But that stupid, simple fact was what had the tears falling. He always wore a condom; he was obsessive about being safe.

“Get her out of here!” the girl demanded.

Dean stopped his advance for a second to snap, “Babe, shut up!”

“Babe?” I choked out, and looked away, holding my hands out in front of me to block my view of his junk just in case I turned around again. I’d seen him naked too many times to count. I knew that area of him intimately. But right now it was like a stranger was standing in front of me.

“Indy,” he crooned, his voice much closer.

“Tell me this isn’t happening. Tell me this isn’t fucking happening, Dean!”

“Just listen—”

“We were going to get married one day. You’re supposed to love me. You just told me last night that you love me. What—I don’t—what the hell happened?”

He sighed heavily. “I just . . . Why are you even here? I thought you weren’t coming back until Saturday.”

I dropped my hands and looked at him, a look of disbelief covering my face. “Obviously I’m back early! Don’t put this on me! It doesn’t matter if I’m here now, or if I’d waited until Saturday. You were just screwing someone else! How long has this been going on? And for the love of God, will you two please put some damn clothes on?”

“You need to leave,” the girl said, sneering.

“I’m his girlfriend!” I screeched, my voice echoing off the walls as I shot a glare at her that I wished could kill.

“Look,” Dean said softly, and moved forward to grip my arms. “I was going to wait until you got back to talk to you, I just couldn’t upset you while you were having to deal with your parents. It’s just—”

“No,” I pled. “No, don’t do this.”

“It’s just not working out, Indy. I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore.”

My sobs finally broke free from my chest, and when Dean tried to pull me into his arms, I pushed away from him. “Why would you say the things you’ve said to me? Just a few nights ago you brought up getting engaged. Why? You can’t—you can’t tell me you’re not in love with me anymore!”

“Jesus Christ,” the girl complained. “He was trying to make things easy on you then, and he’s trying to let you down easy now. Dean was feeding you that bullshit while his cock was in my mouth. The talk about getting engaged? Sweetheart, it’s already happened, just not to you.” She held up her left hand, and my head jerked back.

“What?” I couldn’t breathe. All the air had been sucked from the room. This wasn’t happening. This whole day was a prank, or a nightmare. Something. I looked at Dean, but he was staring past me with a blank expression.

“Do you think this was just something over the summer?” she continued. “This has been going on almost as long as the two of you have. I didn’t mind letting you think you had him, because I knew he’d be mine in the end.”

“You’re lying,” I breathed. “Dean.” His name fell like a plea from my lips. I needed him to tell me this was all a lie. But he still wouldn’t look at me.

“Why wouldn’t I be sure of us? After all, you already confirmed something else. He’s never worn a condom with me. Doesn’t sound like it was the same with you. And seeing as you didn’t seem to have a clue about me, but I knew all about you . . . it wasn’t hard to figure.”

She wrapped the sheet around her body as she stood from the bed and pointed toward the door. “Now you need to go. It’s finally our time. The days of having to listen to Dean bitch about how useless, needy, and frustrating you are are behind us.”

I bent forward, grabbing at my stomach when it felt like the air had been knocked from me. I looked up to Dean, once again hoping he would deny what was happening—what she was saying. But there was nothing on his face that hinted otherwise.

“All he’s been doing for the last two years is putting up with the mess that is your life. He’s done, and I’m done letting you pretend you have him. His ring is on my finger, and his last name will be mine. His baby is in my body. And you have no more claim on him, or right to be here. Leave.”

My head snapped to the left to look at her, and my eyes dropped to her hidden torso. There was no indication that she was pregnant—but after everything else, I had no reason not to believe her. My life was a mess. I was always wondering why a guy like Dean would stay with me after everything I’d been through. I had considered myself lucky.

I’d been wrong.

He’d just been biding his time.

chapter one

Indy

Two and a half months later

I was frozen somewhere between getting out of the chair and standing— my empty cup of coffee in one hand, my purse hanging uselessly in the other. My mouth and eyes were wide with horror as I stared at them from across the warm coffee shop. They hadn’t seen me yet, and I hoped like hell they wouldn’t. But I couldn’t seem to stop staring, just like every time I saw them together. Only this time she had a very obvious baby belly. It had jutted out considerably in the couple of weeks since I’d last seen her. Vanessa, as I’d come to learn—and loathe. Dean had his hands on her belly, his lips pressed to her neck; her diamond was shining subtly in the dim lighting of the shop like it was mocking me or something.

They looked ridiculously happy. And that probably killed me as much as it did to see him caressing her stomach. I glanced up at his handsome, smiling face and once again wished I’d actually broken his nose when I punched him that day in his room. Given him a reminder of what he’d done to me every time he looked in the mirror. But no broken nose. No nothing on that stupid, perfect face.

I sat roughly back in my chair and quickly put on my large sunglasses. Like that would help. Like they wouldn’t see my hair and know it was me. Who else had hair as naturally red as mine?

“Indy.” Misha, one of my housemates, wiggled her fingers in front of my face before her body blocked my view of them. “What are you doing? Do you feel okay?”

“No,” I panted. “I need to get out of here.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked a little louder, concern lacing her words. “What can I do?”

“Just shh! Don’t draw attention to us,” I whispered, and her dark eyes widened.

She barely glanced over her shoulder before her entire body went rigid. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ Let’s go. We need to go. Like right now.”

“Back door.” She nodded in the direction behind me, and I stood and turned at the same time, keeping my head down as I did.

“Indy!”

“Balls,” I whispered harshly, and turned back around to see a guy approaching me—and just past him Vanessa and Dean were staring at me with wide eyes.

“Hey,” the guy said. “I didn’t even see you in here until you stood up. Are you going to the party?”

Do I know this guy? “Uh, what party?”

He gave me a look, amusement dancing in his eyes. “At your neighbors’ house.”

Apparently I do. Unfortunately this wasn’t uncommon lately. After running out of Dean’s frat house at the end of August, I’d called Misha to see if she was on her way back to Ann Arbor, only to find she hadn’t planned on coming back after what had happened between her and Hunter last year. But I hadn’t been about to let her hide away, and I’d needed my friend to cry to, and stand tall with me this year. She’d stood tall, and I was so proud of her . . . Me, not so much. Misha ended up meeting Darryn, a new guy next door, and I’d just tried to lose myself during every party.

Everyone thought I was showing my wild side and finally letting loose since I wasn’t with Dean anymore, but they couldn’t have been more wrong. I wanted to forget Dean, I wanted to forget everything about him and our time together—so I drank until I did just that. The downside of that was times like this. I didn’t remember those nights, which meant I sure as hell didn’t remember the people I’d met or interacted with.

“Most likely . . . ?” I responded awkwardly. “Are you going to stalk me if I do?”

A grin tugged at his lips as he stepped closer. “Don’t you want me to?” he asked huskily, and his arm wrapped around my waist just before his lips fell on mine.

My eyebrows rose, and my eyes widened. Before I could gather myself enough to push him away, he was stepping back. “Wha—”

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said confidently. Turning, he walked back a few tables and sat down where there were a couple of people studying.

I gaped after him for long seconds before turning to leave with Misha, only to find Dean and Vanessa still staring at me. Vanessa with a satisfied smirk, Dean with a raised eyebrow and an annoyed look on his face.

I needed to get out of there before I did something stupid like cry. I needed to get to that party so I could try to have fun as I drank away memories of Dean as I had done every weekend since I’d walked in on him and Vanessa.

“I don’t know what the hell just happened,” I hissed as Misha and I walked out the back door of the coffee shop.

“What do you mean?” She looked over at me with her dark eyes, her expression telling me she really had no clue what I meant.

“That”—I pointed behind us—“in there, that guy. I don’t know him, and I don’t know why he ki—”

She laughed in that soft, quiet way of hers and shook her head—her dark curls bouncing around her face. “Oh, I’m pretty sure you know him, Indy. Quite well, in fact.”

My face fell as we got in her car. “Oh no, no.”

“Oh yes, yes.”

“I’ve slept with him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I just saw Dean and Vanessa and her stupid, pregnant stomach. And a guy I don’t know—or remember—kissed me. And Dean was there. And—I need a drink. Or five,” I groaned, and slumped down in the passenger seat.

Misha sighed. “That’s usually how the night starts out when you end up sleeping with him or someone else—and then you never seem to remember it.”

I sat back up quickly. “Someone else?” I nearly shouted. “Where are you and Darryn when this is happening? Why don’t you stop me from sleeping with guys I won’t remember the next morning? And why are you just telling me all this now?”

“It’s not like we don’t try, and based on how drunk you get and the things you say, you don’t want anyone telling you about what you do when you’re drunk,” she whispered, her tone indicating she was done with this conversation, and judging from it, I wondered just how many times they’d tried to stop me from myself when I drank.

Six hours later I’d successfully put Dean and Vanessa out of my mind, had lost twice and won once at beer pong, had beat three frat guys at downing six shots the fastest, and had eaten half a loaf of warm, fresh garlic bread.

Wait. What the hell?

“Who gave me bread?” I yelled, and looked around at everyone before tearing off another piece of the soft disgustingness and shoving it in my mouth.

Despite not knowing where it came from, I kept the foil-covered loaf firmly in my grip. I was going to gain five pounds off this alone, and I didn’t care at all right now. Someone started moving against me, and I automatically began moving to the music—half loaf and beer still in hand.

A deep chuckle vibrated against my neck. “What’s that you got there, Indy?”

My eyebrows rose, and my eyes opened sluggishly. “Hmm?”

The person behind me tapped my bread, and I snatched it away from him, holding it close to my chest. “It’s my present. It’s delicious and soft and melts in my mouth, and you can’t have any.”

He pressed his body closer to mine, his hands gripping my hips. “You know what else melts in your mouth,” he said suggestively.

“M&M’s?” I asked with false naivety before laughing loudly and turning to look at him. “I don’t know you, either,” I mused, a smile on my face. “But I do know you, don’t I?”

The handsome guy nodded. “We definitely know each other, Indy.” His body was still moving to the music—as was mine—and his head dipped to kiss behind my ear.

I pushed at his chest, and giggled. Why am I giggling? I’m not a giggler. Am I? Garlic bread plus hot guy plus drinking equals the giggles. Oh God, drinking makes me do math problems. “No.” I drew out the word. “I promised Misha I’d be a good girl.”

A grin tugged at his lips. “You weren’t last week.”

“Last week, huh?” I tilted forward as I studied his eyes, and clapped my bread and cup together. “You’re really hot. Go, me.”

He huffed out a laugh, his expression morphing into something other than the heated look he’d been giving me. He looked confused and kind of shocked. I didn’t blame him—I’d already been mauled by the guy from the coffee shop about an hour ago, and now there was this guy in front of me. I was beginning to wonder how many more guys I’d run into tonight who I’d been hooking up with over the past couple of months. Even through the haze of my drunken mind, I was disgusted with myself.

I wasn’t this girl, never had been. I’d lost my virginity to Dean and had planned on being with him forever. Multiple partners weren’t my thing. Drunken hookups weren’t my thing. Actually . . . getting drunk at all wasn’t my thing.

And now I was frowning.

“Uh, am I missing something?” he asked, and I frowned harder as I wished I remembered him. He really was cute.

I could have gotten his name, I could have walked with him back to my room next door . . . but I didn’t want to fuel this side of me he thought he knew.

I held up my beer and half loaf and smiled. “Cheers.” Turning, I walked away from unknown guy number two and stumbled my way to the hall on the first floor to find the bathroom.

It shouldn’t be that hard. This house was built exactly like ours, and I’d spent enough time in this house that I knew it as well as I knew my own. But the walls were spinning sideways and tilting forward, and my bread was starting to smell like bananas, so . . . yeah, difficulty level in finding the bathroom was at an all-time high.

After one miss, I hit a door that was locked and smacked the hand holding the loaf against the door. “Hurry,” I whined, as I kept smacking my hand against the door.

It was official. I turned into a three-year-old when I was drunk. Note to self before I drank again: I’m an annoying drunk.

“Bathroom!” I whined again, and went to take a sip of my beer, but my cup was suddenly empty. “Lame. So much lame in that cup.”

The door swung open, revealing a flushed couple, and I grinned widely at them. “Hope you used protection,” I sang as I stepped into the bathroom and they hurried out. I’m sure tomorrow I would be grossed out that I used a restroom after people just got done doing unmentionables in it.

After leaving the bathroom with more bread in my mouth, I looked to the left and my eyes narrowed on a closed door. On my right, the music was loud, and the people at the party were even louder. But something about that door called to me.

Rolling up the top of the foil again, I went to the door, twisted the handle, and put all my weight into it, expecting it to be locked.

It wasn’t.

I stumbled in, a giggle bubbling up from my chest as I gripped the doorknob and my bread like a lifeline, trying to keep myself vertical.

“Whoa—shit,” I laughed, and straightened.

There was a sigh behind me. “Guess it’s time to go home?”

I whirled around and fell back into the wall from my too-fast movement, the familiar guy lying on the bed darted up like he could save me from over there.

“Definitely time to go home.”

“You scared the shit out of me!” I hissed.

“Really, Indy?” he said on a soft laugh, his hand rubbing the back of his neck as he stood up.

My frown was back. “You know me, too?”

He sent me a patient smile. “Not really.”

“But you know my name,” I prompted.

“Yeah, well—yeah. Come on, let’s get you home.”

I pointed at him and gasped. “Casey!”

His face fell. “No.”

“Cain?”

“No.” He reached me then and put one arm behind my back. “Hold on to your bread, Indy.” And that was the only warning I had before I was in his arms and he was walking me out of the room and down the hall.

“But that was your room. You live here, right?”

“Yep.”

“Keith?”

His lips twitched as he stepped out of the house. “No.”

“You’re the quiet one. I don’t ever see you because . . . because I don’t see you. You’re never at the parties, and you don’t talk to anyone.”

“I’m talking to you now.”

I tore some bread off and used it to point at him before shoving it in my mouth. “That you are,” I said around the bread. “Chris?” I guessed when we were in my house.

“No.”

“I’m on the second floor.”

“I know.”

My brow furrowed as I studied him. He wasn’t looking at me, just looking straight ahead. His black hair looked like it had been styled by running his hand through it, and his eyes looked dark from the lack of light in the house—but somehow, I don’t know how, I knew they would look like honey in the light.

By the time we got to my room, I was chewing on more bread, still studying him, and he was trying to keep his breathing steady even though his arms were shaking from having carried me so far.

“Here we are.”

“Hello, room, I’ve missed you!” I called out, and he actually laughed. My head whipped back around to look at him, my voice filled with awe. “I’ve never heard you laugh.”

“There’s a first for everything, isn’t there?”

“I guess. Can you tell me your name?”

His face fell into a serious mask as he laid me down on my bed, kneeling at the side of it. “You know my name. You just don’t want to remember it right now.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t I remember it if I knew it?”

“Great question, isn’t it?”

I grabbed for more bread, and he took it out of my hands. I pouted but didn’t comment on that. “You’re confusing.”

“I know,” he said on a sigh. “Get changed. I’ll go—”

Oh no. Guy number three. “Apparently drinking brings out my inner slut, and I’m sorry if we’ve had sex before, but I don’t want to and I promised Misha I wouldn’t.”

“We haven’t, and I’m not trying to have sex with you, Indy,” he whispered, his eyes burning into mine.

Then why was he here? Why did he know where my room was? He wasn’t shy like Misha. He was just quiet . . . like he’d rather not be a part of whatever everyone else was doing, and our conversations never interested him. I couldn’t remember ever speaking to him before tonight.

I inhaled a soft gasp. “You gave me the bread.” It hadn’t been a question, and I didn’t know how I knew. I didn’t even remember receiving the bread. I just remembered having it all of a sudden. But even without his confirmation, I knew without a doubt that this guy gave me the bread.

He looked away for a few seconds before sending me a brief, strained smile. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

“That’s not important right now. Just get changed and get some sleep. I’ll leave water and aspirin on your nightstand, okay?”

Before I could respond, he straightened and quickly walked out of my bedroom. I heard his footsteps on the hardwood floor before the sound descended the stairs.

After kicking off my shoes, I tugged off my jeans and threw them over the side of the bed before tearing off my long-sleeved shirt and bra—leaving me in only a camisole and a pair of lacy underwear. I had my makeup on and I felt grimy and gross, but now that I was in bed I couldn’t even think of getting up to turn my light off, let alone to take a shower. I jerked at my comforter until it was covering me, and rolled over on my stomach, wrapping my arms around the pillow I rested my head on.

A minute later I heard footsteps on the stairs again. Before I knew it, the handsome boy from next door was walking into my room. He didn’t say anything as he set down a glass of water and bottle of aspirin, and it was when he straightened and turned to leave that I just knew.

“Kier?” I called before he could switch off my bedroom light.

His body stilled, and he looked over his shoulder at me, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, Indy?”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“I swear I’ll remember you tomorrow.”

The smile fell, and a sad look touched his face. “Good night.”

“Night,” I whispered when he shut off the light and walked quietly out of my room and away from me.

I fell asleep trying to commit everything about Kier to memory, and chanting over and over again that in the morning I would go to him and prove I remembered him.

Kier

“Hey, excuse me?”

I paused midstep and shut my eyes. That voice. That fucking voice that belonged to a girl who refused to remember me, refused to remember parts of her life for reasons I’d probably never understand. The girl who refused to leave my damn mind.

I ground my jaw and turned, already knowing I’d find her looking apologetic for stopping me—and there she was. Hands covering her mouth, eyebrows drawn together as she bounced on the balls of her feet once.

“I’m so sorry. I’m sure you’re busy, and I don’t really know you—I mean, we’re neighbors, but we don’t talk. And anyway, I need your help, or someone’s help,” she rambled. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.” Her cheeks filled with heat, and my lips twitched up.

“You’re not bothering me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive, what do you need?”

“Um, my car”—she hooked her thumb over her shoulder, and then turned to look at it—“is dead. I need someone to jump it so I can get to class. I only have one today, but I have an exam that I can’t afford to miss.”

I grimaced. “I don’t have cables.” Lie. “But I’ll give you a ride. I’m heading to campus and will only be there for an hour or so. I’ll drive you back.”

She chewed on her bottom lip for a second. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“You’re not, come on.” Not waiting for her, I turned and walked over to my SUV, and was actually surprised when I’d started it and she was sliding into the passenger seat. I hadn’t expected her to come that easily.

“Kyle, right?” she asked, her face excited as she waited for my answer.

My lips tilted up again. “No.”

“Oh God. I’m sorry.”

My eyes bounced over her face for a few seconds, taking in the redness there from the cold air outside, and her embarrassment. It was adorable on her. She ran a hand through her waist-length red hair, and her green eyes darted back to mine as she pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her fingers.

“Kier,” I offered.

Recognition flashed in her bright eyes. “Right! I know I’ve heard that. You’d think I’d remember an awesome name like that.”

You’d think you’d remember a lot, I thought. I wanted to tell her she’d promised me four days ago that she would remember me, but there was no point. She promised me that almost every Saturday night. So I didn’t respond, just pulled out onto the street and concentrated on driving.

“Um, my name’s Indy,” she said when I was looking for a parking spot. Her voice was so unsure, and I knew she thought she was bothering me again. One glance at her red cheeks confirmed it.

For a redhead, she didn’t have a lot of what you’d expect to find. She had tan skin and no freckles. But goddamn, could this girl blush when she wasn’t drinking.

“I know.”

“You do?” Her eyebrows drew together.

After I pulled into a space, I turned to look at her and winked. “It’s hard to forget an awesome name like that.”

She blushed harder, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

Her green eyes went wide. “Oh my God. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh.”

Of course you haven’t, I thought sarcastically. Taking my keys out of the ignition, I raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, there’s a first for everything, isn’t there?”

“Yeah, I guess there is.” She gave me a strange look and huffed a soft laugh. “I just had the weirdest sense of déjà vu. Have you ever had that?”

“Every week,” I muttered. “What do you say we go get this bullshit test out of the way?”

“Tell me about—wait. We?”

“Yeah. We. We have the same class, Indy.”

Her face fell. “Where have I been?”

I got out of the SUV and shook my head. “I ask myself that all the time.”

She rushed around the back to join me, her face pinched together in confusion. “Wait, how did I not know this?”

I shrugged and started walking with her at my side. It felt weird. Instinctively I wanted to pull her up into my arms and carry her, but this was different. She wasn’t wasted, she wasn’t about to forget this conversation, and she wasn’t trying to feed me bread. This was normal—just her. For the first time in the year since the girls moved into the house next to us, she was trying to have a conversation with me—sober.

“It’s a big class. It’s not hard to miss someone.”

“But we’re neighbors,” she argued, and then muttered to herself, “Well, I guess this goes back to the whole us-never-talking thing.”

“I’m talking to you now.”

She looked up at me with a smile on her face, her green eyes narrowed like she was trying to figure me out. “That you are.”

We walked in silence the rest of the way to the lecture hall, but every minute or so I’d catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye—that same curious expression on her beautiful face.

Grabbing the door, I opened it and held it for her as she walked in, but she paused in the doorway. She stared straight ahead for a few seconds before turning to look at me, her mouth open like she was going to say something. But instead she closed her mouth without speaking and her eyebrows bunched together again.

With a slight shake of her head, she exhaled audibly and shrugged. “Good luck, Kier.”

“You, too.”

I watched her turn and walk into the room, walking toward the middle where she usually sat with a group of girls. I went to my normal spot in the back left corner and sank into my seat as I pulled out my phone, waiting for when the professor would come in.

My thumb paused on the screen of my phone when a bag was dropped a couple of chairs down, followed by a long leg stretching over the back of the row of chairs. Long red hair shielded her face as she hopped over and plopped down into the seat next to mine. Brushing her hair away from her face, she glanced at me, a small smile playing at her lips before she stared straight ahead.

She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. Because not only had the professor just walked in and already begun passing out Scantrons, but there was nothing to say in that moment. I fought back my own smile.

Indy was coming to me sober.

chapter two

Indy

I stepped back as one of my housemates, Chloe, ran through the house to leave for work, and called out a good-bye before I heard the door shut. Walking through the kitchen, I pulled my thick hair up into a messy bun on top of my head and grabbed a soda before joining Misha and my third housemate, Courtney, in the living room.

Neither was talking. The TV was on a music channel, but it was turned down low as they both did homework. I knew I needed to finish this paper, but I couldn’t concentrate on it . . . All I could think about was Kier and how weird it had been to talk to him today. How I’d felt like I’d known him—how every time he spoke, I had the craziest sense of déjà vu . . . like we’d already had that same conversation before. But that was ridiculous; he never talked to anyone, including me. He was absurdly quiet. Not just in comparison to the other guys next door, but compared to anyone.

With a huff, I tried to push thoughts of him out of my mind and pulled my laptop onto my crossed legs, determined to finish this stupid paper. Twenty minutes later, I had written the word the and was staring blankly at the screen . . . only seeing a pair of honey-gold eyes, a too-perfect smile, and black, messy hair.

“Misha,” I whispered. Why I was whispering, I had no clue.

“Hmm?” She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head in my direction but didn’t look up from her laptop.

“Misha,” I repeated, this time harder.

She looked up at me this time. “Yeah?”

“What do you know about Kier?”

Both eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t say anything.

“Kier—neighbor, Kier—lives with Darryn. Really quiet, doesn’t ever talk.”

“I know who he is. He’s actually really nice. I’m just surprised you know him.”

I sat back against the couch and made a face. “Why?”

“Because—well, because like you said. He doesn’t talk.”

“But you just said he’s really nice. Which means you’ve talked to him.”

She shrugged and looked back at her laptop. “Only a couple times, and it was just a few words. I think I only heard him talk because I was sitting there with Darryn.” Her dark eyes flickered over to me. “Why are you asking about him?”

“He drove me to class today. Apparently we have a class together and I had no idea. And he didn’t talk a lot, but he talked. It was weird. Nice, but weird.” When I looked up, Misha was just staring at me. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at me weird. It’s not nothing. Is there something about him I should know? Is he a creeper or something?”

Misha laughed softly. “I doubt he would be living with the guys if he were. From what Darryn says, he just doesn’t talk a lot.”

“Do you know why? Because he doesn’t seem shy.” And why was I so interested in knowing about Kier all of a sudden?

She shook her head and looked back down at her laptop. “Not shy. Just isn’t one for talking, that’s what I know.” Her fingers began moving over the keys again, and my shoulders sagged in defeat.

I wanted to know why he was so cryptic, and why I felt like I knew him and could trust him when I hadn’t said more than five words to him before this afternoon. I wanted to know why he gave me little, knowing smiles like I was missing some private joke that I was supposed to be in on.

None of it made sense. He didn’t make sense. But for the life of me I wanted to make sense out of what was pulling me to him.

My feet pounded rhythmically against the concrete, and my breath came out in puffs of little clouds in front of me as I pushed to finish the last bit of my run the next morning. I’d barely slept last night as I went over every detail of every word that had passed Kier’s lips, and I was paying for it this morning. Even cutting half a mile off my normal distance, I felt like I had tried to run double what I normally did.

Three more blocks . . . three more blocks, I chanted to myself. Two more. Even the music blaring through my earbuds couldn’t pump me up enough to finish hard. I didn’t even know what song was playing as I tried not to collapse. Just then, my eyes caught the paper tucked under my windshield wipers, and I stopped running.

Looking around the empty street as I walked over to my car, I had one of those flashes. Like I was about to be in a bad horror movie, and people were screaming, “Don’t go over there! Run away!”

I rolled my eyes and ripped the paper away from the windshield. Unfolding it, I read the words twice, my heart pounding harder than it had been during my run.

We tried jumping it, still wouldn’t start. Went and got you a new battery, she’s running great now.

My lower legs had been a weird, stinging mix of cool and hot as the freezing air blew around me, and I knew my ears, nose, and cheeks had been bright red from the cold and my run—but now I didn’t feel the cold. I didn’t feel the shakiness from pushing myself even though I’d been too exhausted for my run this morning. My cheeks were now filled with heat as I just stood there staring at the paper, my breathing too fast as I thought about what he’d done for me.

Embarrassment and wonder coursed through my body and I slowly turned my head to look up at the house next to ours. People didn’t take care of me. Not anymore. Dean had been there for me when I broke and fell too far when it felt like my entire world was crashing down on me—but it’d been a lie. And this? This was different. This was . . . too much.

I walked up to their house on shaky legs, the note clenched tightly in my fist as I stood at the front door for a few seconds before knocking. When there was no answer, I knocked again, harder this time. Less than a minute later, Kier answered the door.

“You . . . ,” I whispered, and pointed behind me in the direction of my car.

“Indy?”

I ground my jaw when my eyes began to sting, and when no words could make it past the tightness in my throat, I launched myself at him—throwing my arms around his waist and burying my head in his chest. “Thank you,” I choked out.

He laughed awkwardly, and hesitantly wrapped one of his arms around my back. Pressing his closed fist under my chin, he leaned away from me and tilted my head back so he could look at me. “For what?”

Unwrapping the arm holding the note, I held my hand up between us. “My car. You fixed it. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that. Please tell me how much it cost. I’ll pay you back.”

Kier released me, and his lips tilted up in the corners. “As much as I love having a beautiful girl throw herself at me . . . I didn’t fix your car.”

I blinked quickly. “What?”

“I didn’t fix your car, Indy.” He shrugged. “That was Darryn and Misha. I saw them working on it when I came back from an early class this morning.”

My face fell, and I took a step back. Oh. My. God. I’d been so wrapped up in the enigma standing in front of me that I’d started making everything about him. “Oh my God,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry, I just—oh God.” I dropped my head to stare at the porch, my eyes wide with mortification.

“Indy, it’s fine. I’m glad your car’s running now.”

I nodded, not looking back up at him. “Uh, I’ll, uh . . . see you later.” Never. I never wanted him to see me again. The girl who didn’t even know he was in her class. The girl who launched herself at him for apparently no reason. The girl who couldn’t remember his name.

Turning, I jogged down the few steps and took off for our house. I slammed the door behind me, still running until I found Misha and her boyfriend at the table in the kitchen.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and stood, her expression worried.

“No—yes—I just, oh my God.” I pointed in the direction of the house next to ours and looked at Darryn. “I thought . . . I’m such an idiot,” I groaned, and sagged against the counter.

“Because none of that made sense,” Darryn said.

I laughed lamely and covered my face with my hands. “I know. I’m full of win this morning.” Looking back at them, I took a deep breath and hoped I could make them understand how grateful I was for what they had done. “Thank you both so much for fixing my car. Please tell me how much the battery cost and I’ll pay you back.”

They gave each other a look, and Darryn glanced at me before his eyes darted to the floor. “Uh, we—”

“Just think of it as a late birthday present,” Misha said, cutting him off before shooting Darryn a look.

“I can’t, that’s too much.”

“Well, you’re going to have to. Because I won’t be telling you how much it cost.”

“Misha,” I complained, but knew she wasn’t going to give on this. “If I wasn’t covered in sweat right now, I’d hug you both.” It hit me then that I’d just hugged Kier. Oh God, kill me now.

A small smile crossed her face. “No need, really.”

“Thank you guys, again.” Pushing away from the counter, I went upstairs to shower and try to forget how badly I’d just humiliated myself. I’d gotten halfway through my junior year without talking to Kier. It wouldn’t be that hard to go back to how it had been before yesterday.

And it hadn’t been hard. Well, it had, and it hadn’t. It’d been nine days since I thanked him for the battery he hadn’t even bought for me, but it’d been impossible to forget about the quiet guy next door. I looked for him during the party at their house a couple of days later, but before long I’d gotten lost in drinking games—not that I would have said anything if I had seen him. And even though I knew he was in the back left corner of the lecture hall in our class on Monday and Wednesday, I refused to look back there, even though everything in me was screaming to do so. I didn’t remember anything from those classes other than once they were over, I’d let out a relieved breath.

After looking for him for a few minutes at the neighbors’ party tonight, I’d given up. It was stupid to look for him. I’d never seen him at one of these parties anyway. For all I knew, he wasn’t even here tonight. He could be at work if he had a job; he could be out with his girlfriend—oh my God. He could have a girlfriend.

“He could have a girlfriend!” I said out loud, and the guy I was curled up against on the couch gave me a funny look.

“What?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “This whole time I’ve been— Where the fuck did this bread come from?”

The guy laughed loudly, and curled his arm around my waist. “Baby, you are wasted. You keep forgetting about it, but you’ve been holding it for an hour at least.”

I stared at the gold foil as I leaned away from his body. I didn’t like the way he called me “baby.” “Did you give this bread to me?”

“No, and you won’t let anyone touch it.” He pulled me back toward him, his mouth going to my ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Mm. No, no.” I made a sound of disapproval as I scrambled away from him and off the couch, taking a few seconds to get myself steady when I was standing.

Holding the bread close to my chest, I moved through the tightly packed bodies, needing air. I don’t know why I didn’t go toward the front door. It would have made more sense to leave and go to my house, but before I knew what I was doing, I was standing in front of a door in the hall on the first floor.

“Safe room,” I mumbled to myself, and tapped my finger against the wood.

Unrolling the top of the foil, I tore off a piece of the warm bread and put it in my mouth as I continued to stare at the door, like if I stood there long enough, it would do something for me.

It didn’t.

I let my forehead fall roughly against the door and whined, “Stupid safe room. You didn’t go all wardrobe on me and lead me to Narnia.”

The door swung open and I stumbled forward.

“Shit—I got you,” a deep voice grunted as a pair of arms caught me and helped get me standing again. “Guess it’s time to go home?”

I looked up and gasped. “You. You have a girlfriend!”

Golden eyes widened with shock. “What?”

“You have a girlfriend, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“You don’t?” I breathed, and staggered closer to his body. His hands tightened on my upper arms to keep me where I was. My lips fell into a pout. “And you didn’t fix my car.”

He laughed softly and moved to wrap one arm around my back. “Hold on to your bread, Indy.”

I held up the bag and shrugged. “I don’t know where it came from,” I murmured. “But it’s delicious.”

“I bet it is. Up you go.” He lifted me into his arms, and I squealed.

“No, no! No!” I said sternly, my eyebrows slamming down.

“If you’re in my room, then it’s time to get you back to yours.”

My face fell, and I kept my eyes trained on the bread in my hands as he walked us down the hall, through the people at the party, and out the door. “I bothered you. In your room. That was your room, not Narnia.”

He missed a step and tightened his grip on me as loud laughs burst from his chest. “Narnia? What the hell did you drink tonight, Indy?”

I tried to glare at him, but I probably just looked like a three-year-old not getting her way. “It was the safe door. It was supposed to be magic,” I whispered. “No magic.”

He did stop walking then. “What did you just say?”

“No magic,” I repeated.

“Before that.”

I stared at his face for a few seconds before popping a piece of bread in my mouth. “I don’t remember,” I said honestly. “Why are you carrying me?”

“Because you would fall otherwise.”

“Nu-uh.”

“You did the first night,” he grumbled, and looked away.

I stopped chewing. “What first night?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He began walking again, his hardened eyes straight ahead.

“Cookie?” I asked when we walked into my house.

He snorted as he kicked the front door to my house shut. “You’ve called me a lot of names, but that’s definitely a new one. No.”

“I know your name,” I said, and held up my hand. “Do you want a cookie?”

His dark eyebrows pinched together. “That’s bread, Indy, not a cookie.”

I looked at the bread and frowned before offering it back up to him. “It’ll be our secret,” I whispered. “We can pretend it’s a cookie.”

He smiled wryly at me before dipping his head and biting the food out of my hand. “Amazing cookie.”

I watched his mouth as he chewed, and didn’t know if I should be embarrassed by the fact that my breathing was heavy now. “My room is—”

“On the second floor,” he finished for me. “I know.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Why’d you call my door the safe door?” he countered, his eyes flicking to my face for a second before he began climbing the stairs with me still in his arms.

This felt familiar . . . and right. But that couldn’t be right, because I’d only talked to Kier twice, a week and a half ago.

“Indy?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you call my door the safe door?”

“When did I call it that?”

He exhaled heavily but didn’t say anything else as he finished walking up the stairs and straight into my room. My eyebrows pinched together, and I wondered again how he knew where my room was, but before I could ask, he was lowering me onto the bed and pulling the bread from my hands.

“This is mine,” I complained, and tried to pull it back toward me.

“I know it is, but I’m betting you have about five minutes before you’re asleep. And you don’t want to fall asleep with garlic bread in your hands, do you?”

“Yes! Yes, I do!”

A bright smile crossed his face as he uncurled my fingers, one by one. “No, you don’t.” Once it was in his hand, he straightened and looked down at me, his gaze lingering on my face for a few seconds. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes. Get changed.”

“For what?”

He stopped midturn and looked back at me. “To go to sleep.”

“But I’m not tired,” I insisted when he walked away. He didn’t respond. “I’m not.”

I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know why he never talked to anyone, and why he didn’t have a girlfriend. I wanted to know why he sat in the back of the class, how he knew where my room was, and why he wasn’t the one to fix my car. I wanted to know if he’d been as consumed in thoughts of me the last week and a half as I’d been in thoughts of him.

Unzipping my hoodie, I yanked at the sleeves and fought with the material until it was off my arms and on the floor. Then I grabbed my long-sleeved shirt. But that proved to be much more difficult to deal with. I ended up on my side with one arm hanging out of the hole where my head was supposed to go, and the other caught up in the material along with my head before giving up.

I didn’t need to get undressed anyway, and it was oddly comfortable. Or that could’ve been because I was drunk and any position would be comfortable, but my eyes were already shutting, even though I knew I wanted to stay awake to talk to Kier.

My eyes were shut and my breathing was deep when I heard a low laugh followed by the sound of glass being set down on wood. “Kier?”

“Yeah, Indy?”

“My shirt attacked me,” I mumbled before letting myself go back to the place where sleep was calling me.

“I can see that.”

His hands were touching my arms, maneuvering them through the correct holes of the shirt as he tried to pull it off my body. When he was done, he moved me back so I was lying on the pillows, and I heard his footsteps cross my room before the light behind my eyelids disappeared.

My eyes cracked open, then shut again as he lifted one of my legs to tug my boot off. “Are you staying?”

“No,” he said as the other boot slid off, a dull thud sounding in the otherwise quiet room when it hit the floor. I was so close to sleep that the sound seemed miles away.

I felt a pull on the button of my jeans, and groggily slapped at his hands. “No,” I protested, and tried to open my eyes.

“Don’t kick me, Indy. You’re safe with me. Safe door, remember?” Kier’s voice filled my head seconds before his hands touched my ankles, grabbing the bottoms of my jeans and pulling them down.

“No, no,” I said louder, panic filling my voice as my eyes finally snapped open.

Kier let my pants fall to the floor as he pushed my legs onto the bed and pulled the comforter over my body, his eyes never once on any part of me as he did so. When I was covered, he glanced at me and cupped my cheek. “Get some sleep, sweetheart.”

He turned and walked from my room, shutting the door behind him as he did. But before he left, his fingers twisted the lock on the doorknob, and I knew he’d made it a safe door. He hadn’t been about to take advantage of me. He was taking care of me, and he was making sure no one was getting in my room tonight.

chapter three

Kier

I jogged down the steps of the house and hurried over to my SUV. As I neared the end of the walkway, movement to my right captured my eye, and I paused when I saw Indy slowing from her run. Her eyes widened before she glanced away, and she looked like she was trying to figure out a way to avoid seeing me.

Two weekends of her remembering my name, but nothing had changed during those weeks. It was painfully awkward to see her now, especially after the morning I’d had Darryn and Misha make Indy believe they’d been the ones to fix her car instead of me. But I hadn’t wanted her to know, just like I didn’t need her to know about how I took care of her every Saturday night. Until she figured it out, there was no point in talking to her about it.

I glanced at my SUV before looking at her again, a grimace tugging at my lips as I decided against what I knew was the right thing to do. “I thought you’d be gone for Thanksgiving break,” I said when she got a little closer.

“We still have classes for a couple days.”

“And? Most people skip them so they can actually have a full week off.”

Her green eyes fell to the straps of my backpack before she looked to the ground. “You’re not.”

“My parents aren’t big on celebrating Thanksgiving.” Or any holiday for that matter, including birthdays. “They take a trip every year instead, so there isn’t much of a point in going home.”

“Without you?” she asked, her eyebrows pinching together when she looked back up at me.

“Most years.”

“That’s sad.”

I laughed. It might have been sad when I was ten, but now it was normal. “Not really. Have your parents ever taken a trip without you?” She didn’t respond for a few seconds, but finally nodded. “That’s all it is. We just don’t do the whole traditional holiday thing, never have. When are you gonna head home?”

“I’m not.”

She looked uncomfortable, so I didn’t press for anything else. When she looked at the ground again, I took that as a cue to leave and turned to walk back to my car.

“What is it about you?”

I paused but didn’t turn around for a few moments, and then it was only to look over my shoulder.

“I don’t know you. Other than right now we’ve only talked to each other twice and it was for a handful of minutes, but I feel like I know you. I feel—I don’t know how to explain it,” she huffed, and a frustrated smile crossed her face. “I’m about to embarrass the hell out of myself, but I don’t care anymore. I feel like when I’m near you, I’m safe, and it makes no sense to me. It is the weirdest feeling to have with someone I only know three things about.”

My eyebrows rose at that and I turned to fully face her. “Three?”

“Yes. Three things. Your name is Kier, you’re extremely quiet, and you are the biggest puzzle I’ve ever tried to figure out.”

“I’m the puzzle?”

“Yes!” she said in exasperation.

That had to have been the most backward statement I’d ever heard. “And why am I a puzzle?”

“Because of what I just told you. I don’t know you, you don’t even talk to anyone, and I feel safe when you’re near me! Why is that? I feel like I’m going crazy because all I’ve been able to think about for these past two weeks is you, and how every time you open your mouth it’s like déjà vu, and I just—I don’t know what’s happening.” Her green eyes were massive and she looked like she was on the edge of losing her shit.

I took a few steps toward her and lowered my voice. “Calm down, Indy. You’re fine.”

“I just don’t understand,” she said loudly, the pitch of her voice rising. “Do you believe in past lives?” she asked suddenly.

I paused, a laugh slipping past my lips. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Past lives? Like that whole stupid YOLO saying is really just bullshit, because we’re about to get another shot down the road?”

I tried to contain my smile, but she was really fucking adorable when she was like this. “What does that have to do with what you’re freaking out over?”

“In stories with soul mates they find each other no matter what in every life. And it’s like they have a weird connection they can’t explain.”

I closed the distance between us and dropped my head so I was looking directly into her eyes. “Are you saying we’re soul mates?”

“No!” she said, horror lacing her voice, her cheeks filling with heat.

“I think you were,” I teased.

“I wasn’t, I was just saying that in stories . . . I don’t know what I’m saying, okay? But I don’t get what’s going on with us!”

“So now there’s an us?”

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I need to stop talking.”

I laughed and took a step back. “I’m teasing you, Indy. And no, I don’t believe in past lives. I think we have this one, and that’s it.”

She sighed, and her body visibly relaxed. When she spoke again, she sounded exhausted—and in a way, defeated. “I don’t, either, but I can’t figure out how to explain this feeling like I know you.”

I ground my jaw for a few seconds as her green eyes held mine. “Because maybe you do know me. You’re just not ready to remember why.”

Her mouth popped open and an audible huff blew past her lips. “What does that even mean?”

“You’ll understand when you think you’re ready, Indy. That’s all you need to know for now.”

Before I could say anything else, and before she could ask more questions, I got into my SUV and drove away.

Indy

I climbed the stairs up to the attic the next afternoon, enjoying and hating this time alone. I wasn’t leaving for break, but I’d been skipping my classes anyway. I wanted to be alone, needed to be alone. But being alone was also a dangerous thing for me—especially when Thanksgiving was two days away.

It didn’t matter that it was the wrong day. It didn’t matter that I’d already broken down on Saturday—the actual two-year anniversary—and that for the first time in the last two years I’d chosen to forget him rather than grieve for him. It was just that it was that damn day.

It just had to be on a holiday. One that was widely celebrated and changed dates every year—almost as if to torture us that much more. Like, hey—you have two anniversaries for this fucked-up day. Not just one. Congratulations, you. But, at the same time, I feared the year that Thanksgiving fell on the twenty-second again. I would view that day like a bad omen. Only bad would come on that day; I was sure of it.

As I climbed onto the dozens of multisized and colored pillows and blankets that covered the entire floor of our attic, I fought with the knowledge that I needed to be around people. That I should go to a Starbucks at the very least.

Both Chloe and Courtney worked so much that they weren’t going home this break—and I doubted they would go home over winter break. But even though they were still at the house, they weren’t ever here. And with Misha gone, the last couple of days had been practically impossible to get through.

Urges that felt more like repulsive cravings coursed through my body, and my hands impulsively curled into fists as the muscles in my thighs tightened in anticipation for something that wouldn’t come. A soul-deep ache and longing filled my chest, echoed by a much smaller ache to have Dean here, helping me through this. This was the first time I was facing the anniversary alone, and a part of me was terrified I didn’t know how to get through it by myself.

No wonder Dean had cheated and left me. Mess was a nice way of describing my life and me.

I rolled onto my side and curled my knees up to my chest as I tried to hold myself together. I fought with myself to stay here—to not run to someone to make them fix everything. To fix me. Chanting to myself over and over that I just needed to keep breathing through the pain, through the urges, through the grief.

I loved this attic. I loved how quiet and comfortable it was. And now, when all I wanted to do was panic over being alone, I told myself this was what I needed. Quiet. Alone. Peace. No one could fix what had happened. No one could fix me. I needed to do this by myself.

I’d finally been able to stop my damaging form of grief, and hadn’t realized that I’d just replaced it with Dean until we were over. The pride of stopping hadn’t lasted long when I’d started drowning out memories of Dean with drinking.

One form of fucked-up coping to another.

One helping me feel like I could take some of his pain away.

The other making me forget that everyone had given up on me.

But not once in the last two years had I tried to forget him. Not once until this past Saturday . . . and I hated that I’d spit on his memory that way. Two years without him—and instead of drinking to forget about Dean and my parents like I had been doing, I drank to forget my own twin brother.

I was a mess. I was drowning. I felt so fucking lost and was tired of pretending that everything was okay. And for the first time in two years, I was trying to pull myself up without using someone else, and I knew I was failing.

But I wouldn’t go back to where I’d been. I couldn’t. No matter the amount of pain and craving to make it go away, Ian would hate me if he knew what I’d done after his death.

So until I was sure I was okay, I wasn’t leaving this attic. I couldn’t put myself near any temptation. No one was home; no one would hear my anguished cries. The pillows, blankets, and memories of Ian were all I needed right now.

My eyes cracked open sometime later. The room around me was dark except for the glow of the streetlights filtering in through the attic’s window. My bladder was full, my eyes hurt from crying for hours, and my body was sore from the tension of restraining myself from giving in to my cravings. I licked at my dry lips and reached around me for another blanket before pulling it on top of the other two already surrounding me. It was freezing up here.

Just as my eyes started shutting again, I heard a deep voice call my name. I held my breath and didn’t move as I heard muted voices talking back and forth, and then the sound of quick feet climbing. Before I knew what was happening, the door to the attic opened.

“Where’s the li—”

“Don’t turn it on,” I pled.

“Oh!” Courtney gasped. “God, you scared me! I was coming up to see if you were in here, but still.”

“I’m here.” Obviously. That was stupid, Indy.

“I have to go back to work, but that quiet guy from next door is here looking for you,” she said in a singsong voice.

My heart pounded as I thought about my embarrassing conversation with Kier yesterday. “Did he say why?”

“No,” she said, drawing out the word.

“Uh, can you tell him I’m not here?”

“I guess. If you really want me to.”

“I really want you to.”

She sighed and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Okay. Well, I’ll be back late. Text me if you need anything.”

“Bye,” I mumbled into the pillow.

I tried going back to sleep after she left and I heard the front door shut, but I couldn’t. I had to pee, and now that I’d been awake for more than a few minutes, my stomach was letting me know how neglected it felt. With a groan, I pushed myself awkwardly off the pillows, letting the blankets fall off me, and stumbled my way over to the door and down the stairs. After using the bathroom, I had begun walking toward the main stairs leading to the first floor when something caught my eye, and I paused.

Turning to look on my left, I noticed a light coming through my cracked-open door and raised an eyebrow. I had a bad habit of leaving my door wide-open, and I hated having lights on.

Trying to remain as quiet as possible in the old house, I tiptoed toward my room and held my breath as I reached my door, trying to listen for signs of anyone in there. When I didn’t hear any, I pushed the door open, ready to scream, or run, or turn full-on ninja.

My shoulders sagged and all the air left my chest in a depressed huff when I found nothing in my room out of place. It was super anticlimactic.

I walked out of my room and turned toward the stairs, and a scream tore through my chest as I stumbled back before tripping over myself and falling hard on my butt.

“Are you okay?”

“Why are you here?” I yelled, my breathing ragged as I stared at Kier’s worried face, his arm outstretched like he’d been about to catch me.

“I was waiting for you.” He leaned closer to help me up.

“So you wait for people by popping up out of nowhere and scaring the shit out of them?”

“Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just coming back upstairs.”

I sighed heavily and pressed a hand to my chest. “Christ, you about gave me a heart attack. Have you been in my bedroom?”

He glanced at my door and shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Do you have a habit of inviting yourself to wait for people in their rooms?”

His lips tilted up on one side in a charming, lopsided smirk. “Uh, not exactly. Your housemate told me she didn’t think you’d be upstairs much longer and to wait in your room. I’d been in there, but I realized I left my phone in my car, so I went to get it and was coming back.”

“Traitor,” I hissed.

“Excuse me?”

“She was supposed to tell you I wasn’t here.”

Kier didn’t look hurt or shocked by this. His smirk just turned into a full-on grin. Ass. “She told me that, too.”

I crossed my arms under my chest and glared at him. “What all did she tell you?”

“First, are you okay? That looked like it hurt.”

“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

His golden eyes danced. “All right. She came downstairs, said you’d told her to tell me you were gone even though you were hiding out upstairs in the pillow room—whatever the fuck a pillow room is—and she thought you’d been up there for a while and probably wouldn’t last in there much longer, so to wait for you in your room.”

“Lovely,” I groaned.

“What’s a pillow room?”

“It’s a room full of pillows.”

His expression went deadpan for a few seconds before he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Anyway. I wanted to check on you.”

I’d started turning away from him, but at his admission, my head snapped back to look at him. “Why?”

“Because of yesterday.”

My cheeks burned and I took a self-conscious step back. “What about it?”

“You were obviously freaking out, and I don’t think I made it easier for you. So I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I’m fine.”

He studied my face for a few seconds. “Are you sure about that?”

I broke down most of yesterday and today. No, I’m not fine. “Positive.”

“Indy . . . ,” he mumbled, his tone conveying his disbelief.

I had humiliated myself in front of this guy yesterday, and after the days I’d been having, I didn’t need him bringing that humiliation back up. “Did you need something else? As much as I appreciate you checking up on me, I’m fine, and I’m kind of busy.”

Kier’s head jerked back and his eyebrows rose. “Look, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you yest—”

“For a guy who doesn’t talk a lot, you’ve sure seemed to do nothing but talk the last couple days. I’m sorry, but I need you to leave.”

Even as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. I didn’t want Kier to leave. I wanted him to keep talking to me. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted this safe feeling to never go away, but I hated knowing he could see how close I was to breaking for the second time today. I hated knowing he probably thought I was some ridiculous girl. And right now . . . right now—no matter how much I wanted him here—I needed to be alone.

With a small nod, he took two steps backward before turning and walking down the stairs.

I didn’t even wait until I heard the front door shut. Ignoring the hunger pains in my stomach, I turned and bolted up the stairs and into the attic as the sadistic cravings got to be too much and a tortured sob burst from my chest.

I tripped over pillows and blankets, falling onto a mass of more of the same as hard sobs racked my body and tears streamed down my cheeks. My hands fisted, and I pressed them against the tops of my thighs as I chanted the words over and over again until sleep finally claimed me.

I won’t do it. I can’t. For Ian. For me. I won’t do it. I can’t. For Ian. For me.

chapter four

Kier

I spent the entire next day doing nothing but thinking about Indy and the way she’d looked when I saw her the day before. It wasn’t hard to miss the bloodshot eyes and blotchy cheeks, but she hadn’t even wanted to talk about our conversation from the morning before—and I know that had been my fault. But if she wouldn’t talk to me about that, I knew bringing up the fact that she looked like she’d been crying would only make everything worse.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t stop wondering what had been wrong. I couldn’t stop the need I felt to go take care of her. Just like I’d always felt with her. From the beginning there’d been something about her, something calling me to her—to protect her. Only now I was having more and more trouble staying away from her. Like today. It’d been storming all day, the temperatures borderline freezing, and the lightning and thunder constant. Obviously she wasn’t alone in her house like I was, but her housemate had mentioned something about two of them being at work all day, and I figured today would be the same. So she was alone again and I’d been thinking of a hundred different excuses to show up like I had done yesterday. Keep her safe from the storm—douche line. Bring her food—which I didn’t have any of. Take her out—which I doubted she would agree to. Ask her if she was ready to actually remember me—but I knew I couldn’t.

I was reaching, and I knew it. I needed to stop. I just didn’t know if I could.

I sat up quickly on my bed when the power went out in the house. After waiting a few seconds without it flickering back on, I fell back and raked my hands down my face.

“Fucking perfect.”

Slapping my hand around on my bed until I found my phone, I slid my thumb across the screen to light my way so I could go check the breaker in this old house. I stopped when I realized there was no light coming in my window from outside, either.

Walking over to it, I looked out the blinds to find a dark street that only lit up from the random lightning. Glancing to the left, I saw Indy’s car parked in front of their house, and fought with myself for only a minute before I was pulling on a hoodie and jacket. With a douche line or not, I was going over there and keeping her safe from the motherfucking storm.

I ran through the rain and up the stairs to the girls’ porch just as the front door opened, revealing Indy with wide eyes, like she’d just been caught.

“Kier,” she breathed.

This was such a bad idea. “Uh . . .” I’m checking on you again. I’m protecting you like the badass I’m not. “I wanted to see you.”

Her lips curved up. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah,” I said on a defeated sigh.

“Even after the way I treated you yesterday, and embarrassed myself the day before, and I could go on to the other times we’ve spoken . . .” She started to laugh, but jolted when a bolt of lightning flashed, almost immediately followed by a deafening clap of thunder.

“Yeah, still wanted to see you. But if you’re going some—”

She stepped back, holding the door wider. “I was coming to you. You just beat me to it.”

I kept my eyes trained on her as I walked into the house, not missing the way she was looking everywhere but at me as I did. I was used to the drunken Indy forgetting me, and the sober and adorable-as-sin Indy—but I wasn’t used to what I’d encountered yesterday, and I wanted to know what had made her act that way. I wanted to fix it. I wanted to make sure it never happened again.

“So you—” I started at the same time she blurted, “I’m so sorry, Kier. I—wait, what were you about to say?”

I smiled even though I doubted she could see me clearly. “I was just trying to figure out why you were coming to see me.”

There was a long pause. The only sound was our breathing, the rain against the house, and the occasional thunder. When she spoke again, her words were soft and slow. “I needed to apologize for yesterday, and . . .”

“And?” I prompted.

“And I didn’t want to be alone tonight,” she breathed.

My heart beat harder in my chest and heat flooded my veins, but I tried to stop my initial reaction. Telling myself that if her housemates had been here, she wouldn’t have come looking for me, and that it was possible she would have gone to any of the guys in my house. But it was damn hard to keep telling myself that when she’d been coming to me sober for the second time.

When I didn’t respond, she huffed. “I can’t see you very well, so I can’t try to figure out what you’re thinking and it’s bothering me.”

I bit back a smile and reached out until the tips of my fingers brushed her stomach. Her muscles contracted at the contact, but she didn’t pull away. I let my fingers trail across her stomach until I found one of her arms, and then I slid my hand down her soft skin and intertwined my fingers with hers.

“Well, then, you won’t be alone.”

Her breathing deepened and she curled her fingers around mine, and my body relaxed at the simple movement. “What is it about you?” she asked.

Even though she’d asked me before, I knew this question wasn’t meant for me. Just her tone told me she’d asked herself that question at least a hundred times, and I wondered what answer she’d started coming up with.

“I told you—”

“When I’m ready.”

I swallowed roughly and nodded in the dark room. “Yeah.”

“And you’re not going to tell me when exactly it is that I will be ready?”

“No.”

“But I still feel safe with you.”

God, I hope so.

Indy cleared her throat and took a step back, her grip on my hand tightening as she did. “The pillow room has a lot of blankets. I, uh, don’t really feel comfortable having you in my room yet—even though you were already in there yesterday. But it’s comfortable up there, and even though it’s probably colder up there than the rest of the house, we’ll be able to stay warm.”

If only she had any clue how many times I’d been in her room. My lips twitched into a smile. “Lead the way.”

After stumbling our way up one flight of stairs, down the hall, and then up more stairs, she suddenly paused in front of me.

“I wasn’t joking when I said it’s full of pillows. We didn’t turn this room into a bedroom. The carpet is covered with dozens of pillows, and there are probably another dozen blankets at least in here. You have to walk very carefully or you’ll trip and go down.”

“Okay . . .” I could see enough so I could make out the silhouette of her body, and the lumpiness of the floor, but that was about it.

She started walking painfully slowly, and after she took a few calculated steps, I took two—and immediately fell, taking her down with me.

“What the hell kind of death trap is this room?” I grunted into the mass I’d fallen into, half of which felt like a pillow, and half of which seemed to be a blanket. At least the landing was soft.

Indy was laughing so hard she didn’t respond for a few seconds. “I told you to be careful where you walked!”

“I was!”

“Obviously not.” There was a rustling noise before the blanket was yanked out from underneath me. “If you find blankets, grab them.”

“You just took mine.”

She huffed. “You’ll find more. Come on, it’s freezing up here, and it’s only going to get worse the longer the power stays out.”

Not wanting to risk standing, I crawled around on the pillows, grabbing anything that felt like a blanket as I moved toward where Indy was already waiting by the window. I could see her silhouette and breaths coming out in little white puffs.

“I think I got five?”

“I got six,” she said as she began wrapping blankets around herself.

Dropping mine, I wrapped the ones she’d collected around her until she was completely covered. “You look like a burrito.”

Her soft laugh filled the space between us. “I can’t move my arms.”

“Doesn’t matter, you don’t need to. At least you’ll be warm.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt of that.” She smiled at me in the dark room before frowning. “But now I can’t make you look like a burrito.”

“I don’t want to be a burrito. I wouldn’t be able to move my arms.”

“What the hell, Kier?”

I laughed and grabbed the blankets I’d dropped. “You’ll get over it.”

After I covered myself, we huddled closer together and talked for an hour about classes, housemates, and why she had always been afraid to say anything to me since she never saw me talking to anyone. Like I’d known it would, that topic led to her asking again why she felt safe with me, and when I couldn’t give her an answer, she stayed quiet for a few minutes.

“I haven’t felt safe in a long time,” she finally admitted softly, and then shook her head. “I don’t mean I’ve felt like I was in danger or anything. I just—I’ve felt—it’s hard to explain. . . .”

I just waited.

“I’ve felt like I was on the verge of destroying myself for so long, and I just couldn’t stop. It made me feel like I was drowning, and even when I thought I had people helping me keep it together, they weren’t. And they never made me feel as at peace as you do just by being near me. This feeling is so different—such a nice change. Like I’ve said, I don’t know how to begin to explain it, but it’s just this feeling I have around you.”

And this was it. That tone. It was the same one she’d had yesterday when I tried to talk to her and she asked me to leave. And I knew at that moment that she was ready to know about all those Saturday nights I’d been taking care of her. I didn’t know how I knew; I just knew wherever this conversation was leading this time, it would lead there. She’d told me she’d felt safe before, but never like that. Everything was different this time.

She laughed awkwardly. “I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up. I know you won’t tell me why.”

“It’s because all I want to do is take care of you,” I said before I could stop myself, and risked a glance at her wide eyes.

“Wh-what? Take care of me?” She laughed. “Kier. You don’t even know me. I’m—I’m a mess. I’m apparently a slut—”

“Don’t. Don’t say that about yourself.”

“You don’t know—”

“Yeah, Indy, I do.” I held her gaze for a minute and watched as she bit down on her bottom lip, like she was trying to stop herself from saying something. “Destroying yourself . . . ,” I mumbled, echoing her words, and let that hang in the air for a few seconds. Taking a deep breath, I looked away as I said, “Indy, you always seem so surprised that you’re hearing me talk—or you say something about how I’m quiet. And yeah, I’ll admit I don’t talk to a lot of people—and last year, we didn’t talk at all. But we’ve talked a lot over the last three months, more than you realize. That’s not the only difference in this year, though. I saw you at the parties at our house last year, and you were never like how you are now. You’re wild; you’re out of control. You’re with multiple guys, and you never remember a thing.”

“How do you know that?” she asked, her voice shocked, but just barely above a whisper. “You’re never there.”

I kept speaking like she hadn’t said anything. “You say you feel like you’re on the verge of destroying yourself, and Saturday nights are the first thing that come to mind, Indy. Because, although no one can stop you from drinking, or doing whatever you want to do . . . I know you don’t like who you are when you drink.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Same reason I know which room is yours. Same reason you stumble into my room at some point during every party. It never fails, you end up in there, and we go through the whole thing all over. You trying to remember my name, me carrying you over here to your room, you figuring out I gave you the bread and wondering why.”

“Safe room,” she mumbled to herself, her mouth forming a perfect O when it hit her. “You leave the water and pills, too, don’t you?”

It hadn’t been a question, so I didn’t answer. I just sat there as her mind worked around the information she’d just been given, and everything she was trying to piece together.

“Are you the one who locks my bedroom door?” she asked after a couple of minutes.

I nodded. “People know you live next door. They see me carrying you out of my house and returning not even ten minutes later alone. I don’t trust someone not to take advantage of that.”

“But why—why would you do that for me? I don’t remember any of—” She cut off suddenly, her face blank for a split second. “And why don’t I ever remember it? I don’t get that drunk, Kier!”

“You’re right, you don’t get that drunk. You’re definitely drunk, but not to the point where you wouldn’t remember anything from the night before. The first couple times I thought you were doing it just to be . . . I don’t know, I thought you just wanted someone to take care of you. So I did. But then I realized you really had no clue. After the last three months of it, all I’ve been able to come up with is I think you block out these nights in your mind. Like there’s already something bad about them, so the rest of it you just decide to forget as well.”

Her face went blank, and she didn’t respond for a long time, but I knew I was right. “Dean . . . I drink to forget Dean.” She sighed raggedly. “He was—”

“I know who he was to you,” I said, clenching my jaw and cutting her off.

“You do?” she asked, shock coating her words.

Of course I did. Every time I saw him on campus, I wanted to punch the bastard. “There was a party a few weeks into the school year, and it was the second night you stumbled into my room. After I got you in bed, you started sobbing, saying you were disgusted with yourself. You’d slept with some guy and said, ‘It didn’t work—my heart still hurts,’ and told me all about Dean. When the next two weeks went by with similar results, I started buying you the bread. Partly because it would absorb some of the alcohol you were drinking, and also because the first three weeks before you fell asleep you kept complaining because you didn’t understand why the world was suddenly banning garlic bread, and all you wanted was to find some. Some weeks you eat it and stay away from guys. Some weeks you stumble into my room without it, and those are the nights you cry again.”

“That’s really . . . embarrassing. Oh my God,” she groaned. “And after all that, how could you sit there and tell me I’m not acting like a slut?”

I glared at her and resisted the urge to shake her. “Did you not hear me? I know you don’t like who you are when you’re like that. You tell me you disgust yourself. I see you when you’re sober, Indy, and I know you’re not that girl. You’re trying to forget someone, and you’re wasted whenever you do something.”

“Like that makes it okay?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “But you—the way you are, the way you honestly block all of this from your mind, I think that proves you’re not a slut. You said you feel like you’re drowning, and to be honest, that’s kind of a perfect word.”

“Did you fix my car, yes or no?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly, and she laughed without humor.

“Then why did you tell me it wasn’t you? Why did Misha say it was her?”

I looked away for a second before saying, “Misha and Darryn are the only ones who have figured out what I’ve been doing every week. I don’t talk to them about it, but they’ve figured it out. And I needed help getting into your car to fix it the other morning. Misha knows you weren’t ready to know I was helping you. She was just protecting you.”

Even in the dark room I could see when her jaw started trembling and tears filled her eyes. “So all of this, this whole feeling safe with you, has just been an illusion? A product of not remembering certain nights, but for some reason, remembering to come to your room?”

“If that’s how you want to see it.”

“How else would I see it?” she nearly yelled.

“Sober, you feel safe near me, drawn to me. Drunk, you feel the same way. You came to me the first time, second time, third, and so on. Nights you don’t remember at all. But you still came to me. You knew I was safe, and that’s all I needed to know to keep taking care of you.”

“God!” she cried. “Why would you keep doing that week after week?”

“Because someone had to let you know.”

Her eyebrows pinched together in confusion as a line of tears fell down one of her cheeks. “Know what?”

“That you mean a lot more than you think you do. You don’t seem to think very highly of yourself—and I don’t know why—but you’re wrong. Whatever it is, you’re wrong . . . and Dean was an idiot to let you go.”

A soft cry burst from her chest, and when I started moving toward her, her voice stopped me. “Don’t! Please don’t.”

I sat back and watched helplessly as she tried to pull herself together underneath all those blankets.

“I want that to be true . . . but it’s just not,” she whispered. She didn’t say it like she was searching for more compliments. Every word had so much truth and pain behind it, the admission had me rubbing at my chest as I shook my head in confusion.

“Indy . . .”

“Thank you for taking care of me, and trying to protect me from myself, but I told you, I’m a mess. My life? It’s . . . God, Kier, it’s beyond complicated, and so many people have already given up on me—it’s not long before you will, too.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Because there’s no reason for you not to. The people who were supposed to be there for me through anything gave up on me. Why wouldn’t you?”

My breathing deepened as frustration pumped through me, and I had to wait until I had it under control before I responded to her. “Well, you’re not giving me much of a chance to prove myself, are you? You’ve already determined that you’ll disappoint me. That’s a new one.” My lips quirked up on one side in a sarcastic smirk. “So this time it really is ‘it’s not you, it’s me’? And we’re not even dating.”

“Kier . . . ,” she protested. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right, Indy. I don’t.” I began shrugging off all the blankets, and her eyes widened. “No matter what you think about yourself, I see differently. See, I don’t talk to people unless I want to give them my time. And, God, Indy, I want to give you my time. But I see people, and I sure as hell see you. I may not know what’s hurting you, I may not know why you’re destroying yourself, but I still fucking see you. I see that you need someone to save you from yourself.” When I had all the blankets off me, I carefully stood, never taking my eyes off her pained expression. “And I’ll still be that guy. I’m still that safe place, and I’ll still be there ready to take care of you if you find you can’t handle whatever’s going on and you start trying to destroy yourself again. But I won’t listen to you basically tell me you’re not worth being saved. Because that? I don’t believe that for a goddamn second.”

“You don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said as I turned to leave, and I looked back at her.

“No, I do. If I’m capable, I will save you every time, Indy. Believe that, if nothing else. I don’t need or expect anything in return. I’m doing this because it’s what you deserve and what I want to do for you.”

“I want you! You consume me in a way I’ve never experienced even though up until ten minutes ago it didn’t make sense! I want the feeling you give me to never end, but there’s no way—”

I dropped to my knees in front of her and cupped her cheeks in my hands and brought my mouth down onto hers. “Don’t finish that,” I growled against her lips before kissing her again.

Her mouth moved easily against mine, and when I traced my tongue against her lips, they parted on a soft inhale, allowing me access to tease her tongue with my own.

“I need to be able to touch you,” she pled before deepening the kiss, and I released her cheeks to begin quickly, and awkwardly, pulling down the blankets I’d wrapped around her.

Once her arms were free, I laid her back on the pillows and hovered over her body for a few seconds before relaxing on top of her. An annoyed groan sounded in the back of her throat when she tried to move her legs, but the six blankets wrapped—and now tangled—around her lower body prevented the movement.

Moving back enough so I could look down into her eyes, I shook my head and whispered, “Nothing is ever guaranteed, but you can’t write us off before you even give me a chance to prove that I can be good for you.”

That pained look was back in her eyes. “I have a feeling that you would be. I’ve had that feeling. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll be good for you.”

I brushed my lips against hers, everything in my body yelling to taste her again. “Let me be the judge of that.”

Fresh tears welled up in her eyes, and my body tightened as I prepared to make my case again. Instead of the resistance I was coming to expect, she choked out, “My brother died. Two years ago last Saturday. But it was Thanksgiving, so it’s also kind of tomorrow.”

“Indy,” I crooned, my hands going to cup her cheeks again.

“He was my twin, and I loved him”—she cut off on a sob—“so much. We were nothing alike, but still inseparable until college. He was my best friend, and we loved to drive my mom crazy . . . probably just because she gave us such horrible names.”

I smiled and brushed at a tear. “I love the name Indy.”

Her watery gaze drifted over to me. “My brother’s name was Ian. Indy and Ian . . . Indy-Ian. All our friends just called us Indian instead of trying to say our separate names.” She laughed softly and shook her head. “He got a scholarship to play football in Texas. It was the first time we’d ever been away from each other, but I didn’t get accepted there, and there was no way he wasn’t going. It was like a dream for him. He’d always been so focused in school and football . . . my parents had always been proud of him.”

Her eyes got a faraway look as heavy tears slipped down her cheeks.

“Our freshman year Ian said he couldn’t come home for Thanksgiving, and our parents never really liked me, so I decided to stay here with Dean.” She must have seen my skeptical expression, because she added, “Ian always had to tell my parents to back off because they were never happy with me or anything I did. My grades were never as good as his. My boyfriends never measured up to Ian’s perfect girlfriends. My dad always said I dressed like a whore, but he congratulated Ian when he lost his virginity. It was always difficult with them. They practically paid me to move away from them.”

“Are you serious?”

She choked out a depressed-sounding laugh, and even in the dark I could see her eyebrows rise in confirmation. “So apparently Ian just told my parents he couldn’t come home because he wanted to come hang out with me here so we could have time without our parents fighting over how I wasn’t making them proud the way Ian was. He called me the night before Thanksgiving to tell me he was boarding a plane with a friend who lived in the area, and would be catching a ride, and not to tell Mom and Dad. There was some crazy snowstorm, and he got stuck in Chicago.”

The tears came harder, and for long minutes Indy didn’t continue the story. After taking a few large breaths in and out, she looked up at me and gave me a depressed smile.

“I was woken up the next morning by a phone call around six. I was alone in my dorm room, my roommate had left for the break, and I remember it smelled like her perfume. I don’t know why I remember that. It’s just something that has always stood out, because I hated that fucking perfume, and it’s all I could smell as I listened to my mom sobbing on the other end of the line. Ian and his friend had decided to try to drive since there were no flights, and it was only about four hours. We’re from Chicago, so Ian called his friends all night until one of them agreed to come get them at the airport and drive them. They didn’t make it forty-five minutes before they, and another car, hit a huge patch of black ice and spun out of control. They both went off the road and into a ditch. The driver was paralyzed from the waist down, Ian’s friend broke his collarbone, and Ian’s side of the car was pinned underneath the other car. They said he lived for about ten minutes after the crash. They didn’t say the exact words, but it wasn’t hard to figure out how much he’d been suffering for those ten minutes. And he’d been coming to see me.”

“But, Indy . . . that doesn’t make it your fault.”

“I know that,” she cried. “But I’m not sure my parents do.”

“You don’t—”

“My dad said, ‘It should have been you’ when I was finally able to make it home.”

I flinched back. “What the fuck?” I breathed. “Indy, I—I don’t. God, I’m so sorry about Ian. But your parents, they’re wrong.”

She nodded absentmindedly, her jaw shaking as she did. “Through everything, all I could think about was that Ian suffered. That he was in pain for those ten minutes, and I wasn’t there for him when he’d been there for me my whole life. I—I just lost myself after that. I clung to my relationship with Dean because my parents hated me even more, but nothing took the pain away. Over and over I relived that phone call, the smell of that horrible perfume, and the fact that he suffered—and I started cutting.”

My chest felt hollow and my stomach dropped. “Indy, no. . . .”

“Somehow it made sense to me. Like if I felt pain for him, I was taking away what he had gone through. I never did it to kill myself. It was always on my legs, and I knew where not to cut, but I couldn’t stop. It became addictive. Every time I thought about him, I’d have to do it. Dean tried to get me to stop, and I tried—God, I tried so fucking hard, but I felt like I’d failed Ian,” she cried. “I know none of this makes sense, but at the time it did. My parents never even found out—I was able to stop before sophomore year ended—but when I had to go home over summer . . . it was horrible. It was like even though they didn’t know, they knew that I was refusing to cope, and they just got tired of having to deal with their disappointment. I found my bags on the driveway when I came home from the gym one morning, the locks to the house changed. So I came back to school early and found Dean and Vanessa having sex.” She took a deep breath and I could tell she was trying to steady herself.

“I hadn’t been there for Ian, I was never a good enough daughter for my parents, so much so that I can’t go home anymore, and I found out my boyfriend—the only person who knew what was happening and was trying to help me through it—had wanted to dump me and hadn’t done it yet because he was just afraid to upset me.” I started to say something, but she cut me off. “That is why I’m trying to tell you it can’t work. That is why I’m telling you you’ll leave. Everyone does. And you think you want to save me, but it’s not your job to save me, Kier. I need to save myself, and I’m trying. The drinking—it’s bad, I know. But it’s done. It has to be, just like I stopped cutting for Ian. I can’t keep drinking to forget a guy who never cared about me. But while I’m trying to save me, you shouldn’t have to get caught up in the mess that is my life. Do you understand now?” she asked, her voice breaking on the last word.

I thought for a minute before responding, and when I did, I took her face in my hands and pressed my forehead to hers. “I know what you’re saying, but you’re not scaring me away. I hurt for you, Indy. I hate what you’ve been through, and yes, I wish I could take it all away. But I know I can’t do that, and I’m sorry. That will always be hard. You’ll always miss him. Your parents—they can go to hell if they can’t see how amazing you are. I still stand firm on my opinion of Dean, even more so now. But what you’ve been through? What you did to yourself? You’re not scaring me, Indy. Everyone struggles with something. Everyone has different ways of dealing with the shit that happens in their life. Yours was destructive, yeah. But you? You realized that and stopped it and have been fighting it alone. Do I wish you hadn’t ever done it? Of course. But do I admire you? Hell yeah. You’re the strongest person I know for stopping.”

“You’re making it seem like I’m someone better than I am.”

“No, I’m not. I told you,” I whispered against her lips before placing a kiss there. “I see people, and I see you. Now I know what you’ve been hiding, and I still see the same girl I want to take care of and spend my time with. Nothing’s changed over here. I’m just waiting to see if you’re going to give me more reasons why you think I should run.”

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “I’ve given you plenty.”

“Well, not running.”

“Kier . . .”

“Tell me something. Yesterday when I was here, you’d been crying, and you didn’t want to see me. Did that have to do with me, or did that have to do with this week and Ian?”

Her eyes roamed my face in the shadows. “Ian. I was—I was struggling.”

“Understandable.” Placing a soft kiss on her throat, I moved away from her and spent a few minutes burying her under her blankets before grabbing the ones I’d been using and wrapping them around me. When I was done, I moved so I was lying next to her and she laughed at the amount of time it was taking me to do this. “Now that we’re not going to freeze, why don’t you tell me about Ian?”

Her smile fell. “What? What do you mean about him?”

“This is a hard time of year for you, and you were struggling alone yesterday. You told me tonight you didn’t want to be alone, and you’re not. So instead of struggling, why don’t you tell me all the good things you remember about him?”

Her eyes shone in the dark as she stared at me in silence for what seemed like countless seconds before whispering, “Okay.”

chapter five

Indy

Kier and I had spent the rest of the night doing just that. I’d told him stories about Ian as we lay bundled up in blankets, and eventually we fell asleep that way. The power kicked back on sometime early in the morning before we woke up, and at some point we’d shed our multiple blankets. We had woken up with two blankets covering us together and Kier’s body curled around mine.

I hadn’t woken up next to anyone since last school year with Dean, but even then it had never seemed as perfect as waking up with Kier. On the rare occasions Dean and I had spent the night with each other, it was always awkward, and when I woke I was uncomfortable—and that was if I’d been able to fall asleep at all. But my body seemed to fit perfectly against Kier’s, his head resting just above my own, one of his legs fitted between mine, the arm he wasn’t using as an additional pillow wrapped securely around my waist, his hand splayed across my upper stomach.

As I lay there enjoying my stolen moments with him, his pinky started lazily dragging back and forth against my stomach before he grumbled, “Power’s back on?”

“Must be.”

He made a tired sound in the back of his throat and rolled away from me. “Do you have anything planned today with your housemates?”

I rubbed at my face and tried to hide how unhappy I felt about him moving away from me. “No, they’ve been gone working, so we haven’t talked about doing anything.”

“Do you want to spend the day with me?”

“Maybe,” I said softly, my smile telling him my answer. “What’d you have in mind?”

His normally golden-brown eyes looked like they were shining from the light filtering in through the window as he studied me. A few moments later he said uncertainly, “A non-Thanksgiving day.”

“Now that sounds perfect.”

After I’d taken a shower and gotten dressed, I met him at the guys’ house. He’d already started to cook breakfast for us. After a non-Thanksgiving meal, we spent the rest of the day talking, watching movies, and eating food that had absolutely nothing to do with the holiday. It was weird, and it was just as I’d thought it would be—perfect.

Yesterday he’d shown up not long after I came back from my run, and we bounced back and forth between the kitchen and living room as I read and worked on two papers I had due within the next couple of weeks, and he finished homework and studied for a test. He’d fallen back into his quiet self, and while I liked that he could spend an entire day with me just doing homework—not mauling me or even touching me, considering that he was always a couple of feet from me—as I tossed and turned last night, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and it started bugging me.

He’d even kept his distance on Thanksgiving—something I hadn’t noticed until now because I’d been so busy feeling comfortable and safe in his presence. And when I thought back, I realized I couldn’t remember him actually being close enough to touch me since we’d woken up in the pillow room.

Saturday morning I knocked loudly on the door to the boys’ house until he answered, his face easily slipping into a smile when he saw me. He took a step back to let me in, shutting the door behind me.

“Good mo—” he began, but I cut him off by grabbing his hand and staring down at it. He watched me and asked, “Is my hand okay . . . ?”

“Why haven’t you touched me since Thanksgiving morning?”

His laugh ended on a sigh. “Honestly? It makes it easier for me.”

“Makes what easier?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Being near you.”

My eyes widened at his blunt honesty and I bit down on the inside of my cheek, looking at where his fingers were playing with mine before glancing back up at his face. “You haven’t kissed me since the night in the pillow room,” I murmured.

“No, I haven’t,” he said simply, his golden eyes never leaving mine.

I didn’t know what I’d been expecting—for him to grab me in his arms and kiss me right then, to try to make an excuse for not wanting to kiss me anymore, something . . . but I hadn’t expected him to just agree. I blinked quickly and dropped my gaze and hands as I felt my cheeks burn. “O—um . . . okay.”

He didn’t say anything, and my embarrassment only seemed to build. I turned and started for his door, only stopping when his hands came down around the top of my arms, his chest pressed firmly against my back. “You came over to say those two things, and then leave?”

“Uh, yeah . . . pretty much.”

His laugh was quiet and deep, the sound sending vibrations from his body to mine. “What did you want me to say?”

“Nothing, I didn’t have any expectations.”

“Liar.”

I gritted my teeth and dropped my head to stare at the floor, and my eyes fluttered shut when the faintest touch of his nose trailing up the back of my neck had a shiver going through my body.

“You didn’t ask why, so I didn’t tell you why. But I could already see your mind working in ways that are dangerous for both of us, and I’m not gonna let you leave when you’re thinking up some kind of bullshit that has you prepared for me to leave you.”

“We’re not dating—technically you can’t leave me,” I whispered, and he laughed against my skin.

“Now you’re bringing technicalities and labels into this?” His hands moved down my arms to wrap around my waist, and he leaned in to speak in my ear. “And you and I both know people don’t have to be together to leave each other. But us? No, we don’t have a label. I don’t need one, but if you do—we can talk about that on a day that isn’t today. I’m your safe place, and when you’re ready, you’ll be mine. If you ask me, that means more than a bullshit label.”

“Again with the ‘when you’re ready’?” I asked, and turned in his arms to look up at him.

Kier gently pushed me back until I was pressed against the door, and rested both his forearms against the wood, leaning in so our foreheads were resting against each other’s. “It’ll always come back to waiting for you to be ready, Indy. You weren’t ready to tell me about Ian, or face what you were doing to forget Dean—because you weren’t ready to get over him—so you weren’t ready to know what I was doing for you. I kissed you, partly because I thought I would go insane if I didn’t, but mostly because I needed you to be able to see what you were doing to me, to get a glimpse of what you’ve come to mean to me, and to see that no matter what you could possibly have told me, I wouldn’t run.”

I brought my hand up to his stomach and grabbed at his shirt, bringing his body closer to mine. “So why stop?”

“Because you told me everything. You laid yourself bare. You had to feel vulnerable after that, and I didn’t want anything I did to feel like I was taking advantage of you. So now everything’s out there, and now I’m waiting for you to be okay with that—to be okay with moving on from Dean and not keeping Ian a secret anymore. I won’t push you to get there, and I won’t kiss you until you are there. Not to speed things up, and not to make you think I don’t want you, but only because I’m waiting for you to be ready. Once you’re ready, I’m taking you and I’m not giving you back. You’re going to be mine, Indy. I’ll keep you safe from yourself. I’ll be there for you when you struggle with urges and what happened to Ian . . . but there won’t be anything between us. No Dean . . . no worries of me leaving you. Do you understand now?”

I swallowed past the tightness in my throat and nodded. My breathing was rough from having Kier this close to me, and hearing his words. That alone had me straining not to close the inches between our lips—but I knew what he was saying, and I knew I would wait.

No guy had ever talked to me the way Kier did, or said the kinds of things he said to me. No guy had ever been as considerate, and no guy had ever known me better than I’d known myself. And though I wasn’t in love with Kier yet, I loved him for what he was doing for us.

“And after I’ve barely tasted you, it’s hard not to. That’s why I haven’t been touching you. Not because I don’t want to, but because being this close makes it harder to keep reminding myself why I can’t have you yet.”

He pushed away from me, that crooked smirk crossing his face as he stepped back farther into the house, his arms crossing over his lean, muscled chest. With a slight raise of his eyebrow, his golden eyes darted to the space next to him. “So, are you leaving or staying?”

I bit back a smile and took a step toward him before pausing. “I shouldn’t stay.”

His eyebrows pinched together, but he didn’t say anything.

“Because right now I keep looking at your mouth, and I’m going to convince myself I’m ready if I don’t get some space from you for a little while.”

He automatically wet his lips before a challenging smile crossed his face, and my fingers twitched as my heart raced.

“Leaving! I’m leaving.”

I turned and bolted from the house, his deep laugh following me as I ran down the porch and away from him.

Kier

School started up again two days later, and the rest of the semester began passing quickly with the winter break approaching. The classes were the same, the work still sucked, and for the most part I kept to myself. Except now Indy was filling my days and nights.

In the last week and a half, I’d spent more of my time with her than I had alone. It was the sweetest form of torture being near her and still never touching her, but it was worth it to see her opening up to me the way she had been. Even through classes, homework, and the stress of finals around the corner, she seemed to relax more in that time than I’d ever seen her in the last year and a half. Indy was a master at faking a smile—and she looked beautiful when she did. But, God, Indy just smiling was amazing.

And as the real smiles became more frequent, and fake smiles became only a memory, I just sat back and counted down the days until she would be mine. I knew she was ready; I was just waiting for her to know, too. Judging by the tension between us, and the fact that she no longer set foot in my room, it wouldn’t be long.

Now as we walked across the campus toward my car, she wrapped her arm around mine and pressed her body close to my side. She slipped her hand into my jacket pocket to grip my hand, and her body shivered against the cold air. But even with that, she smiled up at the lightly falling snow.

Exhaling loudly, she sent her smile over to me. “Done. Finally!” she groaned. “Now all we have left is finals next week, and then nothing for almost three weeks.”

“You know, most people don’t get this excited until after finals are over.”

She rolled her eyes and looked ahead. “Well, I’m not . . . most . . .” But she didn’t finish, and her body stilled against mine.

I looked down to see her eyebrows pinched together, a curious expression on her face. As I followed her line of sight, my shoulders sagged and I swallowed roughly when I saw Dean standing not twenty feet away from us.

Maybe I was wrong about her being ready.

Her hand tightened against mine when he glanced over from the group of guys he was talking with, and his eyebrows rose when he saw us. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that it would look bad for her if I were to do it, I would have let go of her right then and continued walking—letting her follow if she wanted to.

I didn’t need to test her. I told her I’d wait until she was ready, and I would. But if she was still not over her old boyfriend, then I didn’t want her using me as a crutch when she saw him. But I didn’t let go of her as I started walking again, and she kept up without any hesitation.

“I haven’t seen him in a month,” she finally said when we got in my car.

I turned to face her before driving away, but she wasn’t looking at me. “And?”

She blinked a few times, her face still in that curious expression she’d had looking at him. “It was weird.”

Indy didn’t offer anything else, and I didn’t ask. I pulled out of the parking space and drove us back to our houses, neither of us saying anything the entire time. I didn’t know if she could sense how frustrated I felt that after going so far forward, we seemed to be right back where we’d started, but she never said anything about it. She just stared out the windshield like she was trying to figure something out, and I tried to tell myself that I needed to calm down.

It wasn’t working. My jaw felt like it was going to break by the time I pulled up in front of the houses, and my hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles were white.

When we got out, she made it halfway to her house before she realized I wasn’t following her.

“Aren’t you coming over?”

“Yeah, just let me go drop my stuff off. I’ll be over in a minute.”

Her brow furrowed, but she nodded as she backed up toward the girls’ house, and I turned to go into ours. As soon as I was in my room, I noticed I didn’t have any “stuff,” and I realized why Indy had looked so confused.

Raking my hands over my face, I fell back onto my bed and groaned. I didn’t want to deal with this; I didn’t want to deal with Dean. I wanted to be sure of where we were, like I had been ten minutes before we saw him. I wanted to ask her what she’d been thinking when she was staring at him. But I knew I couldn’t ask her, I knew I had to wait for her to tell me—and it was killing me.

She was supposed to be mine, and I’d thought she finally was until I realized she still belonged to him.

When I’d calmed down, I got off my bed and walked over to the girls’ house, letting myself in and up the stairs toward Indy’s room. When I didn’t find her in there, I didn’t hesitate; I climbed the stairs to the attic and carefully walked across the death trap of a floor until I was next to her and wrapped another blanket around her as I sat.

She didn’t look at me as I did, and she didn’t say anything for long minutes as she stared at the snow falling outside the window. “You didn’t have anything you needed to put down.”

“I know.”

Her eyes drifted away from the window and down to the pillows. Nodding a couple of times, she flickered her green eyes toward me for a second before saying, “I’d rather you not drag anything out for my benefit, Kier. If you’re done, just say it. I appreciate honesty so much more.”

“God, Indy, seriously?” I cupped her cheek and turned her head so she was looking at me. “You really thought that was what all that was about?”

She didn’t respond, but her eyebrows shot up and she made a face, like what else should she have expected?

“I needed time to calm down. You just shut down the second you saw him, and I had to watch you staring at your old boyfriend who I want nothing more than to beat the shit out of. That was hard for me to watch, but I really can’t expect anything else from you. You were with him for two years, and it’s only been a few months since you guys broke up. I was afraid I’d say something, so before I could, I gave myself time to calm down.”

“You think I still want him?” she asked, her voice cracking. “You think I’m still having a hard time dealing with what happened between Dean and me?”

I shrugged, and my fingers slipped from her cheek. “Yeah.”

“Do you not see how much you’ve helped me—changed me—in the last couple weeks? In the last month? Even before I knew how I knew you, you were all I thought about and I wanted you. Not Dean. Yes, it was still hard then, but talking with you, finally getting everything out . . . well, it’s not hard now. I told you when I saw him today that it was weird, and it was. Because for the first time it didn’t hurt, it was almost like I was looking at a completely different person and it threw me off. Every time I’ve seen him or Vanessa, I’ve been close to panicking. Today, I wanted to laugh, but I think I was too shocked by the whole thing to do anything other than just think about the differences.”

“Differences?”

Now Indy moved closer to me, her hands maneuvering out from her blankets for her fingers to wrap around the sides of my neck, her thumbs brushing my jaw. “In how you treat me, and how he treated me. In how you make me feel, how I thought I felt with him, and how I actually felt. And then it just hit me. Like, I was upset because of him? I’d gotten wasted weekend after weekend, had sex with nameless guys . . . because of him? And it just blew my mind.”

For the first time since first buying Indy a loaf of garlic bread, I felt like shit for jumping to conclusions about her.

“He never saw me as anything more than an inconvenience. He told Vanessa that I was a mess, not that he was wrong about that then. To him I was useless, needy, and frustrating . . . and I know just by the way you look at me that I’m none of those things to you. From what you’ve said, I had plenty of Saturdays to frustrate you, but you never backed down, and you never stopped trying to take care of me. You’ve helped me in a way no one has since Ian died. You look at me and I know I’ve found exactly who I need. Who I want.”

There was the slightest pressure on the back of my neck, and I didn’t wait for anything else. That statement, that small pressure, was all I needed to know she was ready. I pulled her to me and captured her mouth with mine, and she met the kiss greedily. Her lips parted on a soft sigh, and I took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Letting her hands fall from my neck, she fisted them in my jacket before she was pushing it off my shoulders and unzipping my hoodie. I only pulled away from her long enough to get them off my arms before she was grabbing the front of my shirt and tugging me back toward her as she lowered herself onto the pillows.

Moving the blankets away from her so I could press my body against hers, she hitched her knees up around my hips, and a groan formed deep in my chest when I involuntarily rolled my hips against hers. When her hands moved down my back, and her fingers played with the bottom of my shirt, I planted my palms on the pillows around us and lifted myself off her enough that she could slowly inch my shirt up my body and over my head. One arm at a time, I untangled myself from the shirt, and the tips of her fingers grazed the muscles low on my torso, causing them to tighten.

Indy smiled against my kiss, but when her fingers dropped lower, I knew I needed to stop this before it could go any further. I wanted her. I wanted her so fucking bad my head was spinning. But there was still so much between us that I couldn’t do this to her—not yet.

Reaching down, I grabbed her hand and curled my fingers around hers as I moved her arm away. “We can’t,” I grumbled when I pulled back. I saw the heat and want in her green eyes and wanted to take that back. Yes. Yes, we fucking can.

“Why? You already know I’m not a virgin,” she whispered, her cheeks filling with heat.

“I know.”

Indy rolled her eyes and shot me a look. “Let me guess, are you going to follow this up with something along the lines of you think I’m not ready and you’re going to wait until I am?”

I smirked and kissed her quickly, biting down on her bottom lip as I pulled back again. “No, actually, I’m not.” She raised an eyebrow but waited for me to continue. Only problem was it took me a solid minute to think of a good enough reason not to go back to where we’d just been. “I’m not having sex with you in this house when I just passed Misha coming in here. And I’m not having sex with you in my house, because I’m not letting any of those guys hear what you sound like when I make you come.”

Her mouth opened with an audible huff, and her eyes widened. Her breathing deepened, and I dropped my head to kiss a line up her throat.

“So after finals next week, you’re packing a bag and we’re going someplace where it’ll just be us. When we get there, I’m not letting you leave the bed for days.” I listened to her breathing hitch before asking, “Now, are you okay with that?”

She swallowed and nodded, and I smiled against her soft skin before gently biting down on it. “Good.”

chapter six

Indy

I had never hated finals week as much as I hated this one. It never seemed to end, and it was only halfway done. It had been six days since the promise of what was to come. I’d finished my second day of finals, and I still had two days left. Well, technically one and then turning in a paper on Thursday morning, but Kier still had a final Thursday afternoon, and we weren’t leaving for wherever he was taking me until after that.

Studying had been nearly impossible Wednesday and Thursday. No matter where we were, we ended up going to the pillow room, one of our rooms, or to his SUV to practically attack each other. After we realized that even being in public didn’t change anything, we started staying away from each other. I saw him once in the morning, afternoon, and right before one of us went to sleep, but only for a couple of minutes each time. Anything more than that and studying went out the window all over again.

Not that I would have minded.

“I need to go,” he whispered against my lips.

“Probably.” I slid my hands inside his shirt, grazing the tips of my fingers over his muscled V in a way I was quickly learning drove him crazy.

Kier growled and backed me up against the wall of the entryway as he deepened the kiss. “Five more minutes.”

“Thirty. Pillow room is free,” I suggested, laughing when his golden eyes flashed open before narrowing.

“Indy,” he said in warning.

Hooking two fingers inside his jeans, I pulled him closer and he put one of his hands against the wall to stop me.

Quick footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I frowned when Kier smirked. “Two more days, Indy.” Cupping my cheek with his other hand, he leaned in for a slow kiss.

Chloe cleared her throat, her eyes wide when Kier and I pulled away from each other, and I was pretty sure I looked like a kid who got caught with her hand in a cookie jar—but then Kier’s thumb brushed against my cheek and I kind of didn’t care anymore.

“Time to go. See you tonight,” he whispered. Kier nodded toward Chloe before giving me one more light kiss and walking out the door. I had a stupid, giddy smile on my face when I turned toward her again.

“When did that happen?” she asked, her face full of surprise as she pointed at the door.

I shrugged. “It’s kind of been happening since the middle of November, but Thanksgiving break is when it all changed, I guess.”

“Where have I been?”

I shot her a look. “Uh. Work?”

She glared at me for a few seconds before moving her hand so she was pointing in the direction of the guys’ house. “Don’t get me wrong, because he’s—damn—but don’t you find him . . . weird? He doesn’t ever talk to anyone.”

“He doesn’t talk to anyone else,” I said as I began walking toward the stairs, a sly grin now replacing the giddy smile. “I can’t get that boy to shut up. Have fun at work!” I called over my shoulder as I ran up the steps.

After taking a hot shower and bundling back up in multiple layers of sweats and jackets, I hopped on my bed and tried to study. Tried being the keyword there. If it weren’t for the fact that it was snowing outside, and our heater could only do so much with the drafts that came in through our house, I would have stripped back down and taken a cold shower because of the way my imagination was getting me so worked up.

I was lying back on my bed, books, study cards, and laptop forgotten as I thought about Kier’s muscled body. I wished I’d gotten more time to run my hands over the planes of his chest and the lean muscles in his arms before he put his shirt back on last week. Two days, Indy. Two. Days.

“Hey.”

I jolted at the sound of his deep voice, and looked over to find him in my doorway, a sad smirk playing on his lips.

“Looks like you’re getting a lot of studying in.”

Sitting upright, I glanced at everything scattered around my bed and tried to figure out an excuse before shrugging. “Yeah, not really. Are you okay? You can’t already be going to sleep, and you left just a couple hours ago.”

Kier shut the door behind him and walked over toward my bed, dragging the chair from my desk behind him and sitting down in it.

“I could’ve cleared off—”

“I need to talk to you.”

My body stilled and I straightened my spine when I saw the haunted look in his eyes, and realized that he wasn’t even sitting close enough to the bed for me to lean over and touch him. “Okay . . . ,” I said warily, drawing out the word. “Should I—should I be worried?”

His eyes had fallen into his lap, but at my question, they snapped back up to me. Hunching over, he clasped his hands, letting them hang between his knees as he shrugged and slowly shook his head back and forth. “Honestly, Indy, I’m the one who’s worried right now . . . because I don’t know how you’re going to react to this.”

That didn’t help relieve any type of worry at all. I scooted back so I was pressed against my wall, facing him, but didn’t say anything else as I stared at him—waiting for him to begin whatever it was he needed to talk to me about.

“I haven’t been fair to you, Indy. The last year and a half I couldn’t help noticing you. You’re beautiful, you have this smile that makes other people around you smile, and you always seemed happy. But even then I somehow knew it was an act, knew there was something you were trying to hide that was controlling your life. I wanted to save you even back then, but you were with Dean, and our paths just weren’t meant to cross then. Then this school year began, and this whole semester all I wanted to do was take care of you, help you, save you . . . be with you. Even before you finally started noticing me during times where you weren’t drunk, I was already falling for you so hard.”

There was a “but” coming; I knew there was. Because none of this sounded like a bad thing yet, and all of it I already knew. And by the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes, this was about to be bad.

“And then I kept putting everything on you, letting you make the decisions, waiting until you were ready, because—well, like I’ve said, I knew there was something you were hiding behind and needed to get out before I’d push you into any form of a relationship with me. But the thing is . . .”

There was that “but,” and now he wasn’t talking, and I had this feeling creeping through my body like ice and fire were flooding my veins at the same time. Kier swallowed roughly and sighed before looking back up at me.

“The thing is, I’ve been kind of hiding behind my own shit. Keeping things from you, things that have made me into the guy you know, and into the guy who wanted nothing more than to save you. And I knew I had to tell you, but after you told me everything about your life—I felt like I couldn’t. I was afraid if I did you wouldn’t be able to see me the same way.”

My eyebrows slammed down and my mouth popped open with a huff. “And you thought I didn’t feel the same? You thought I wasn’t terrified that you wouldn’t be like, ‘Yep, she’s not worth it,’ and just leave?”

His lips tilted up in the faintest of smiles, but he looked anything but happy. “No, I knew that was exactly how you felt. But I knew that nothing you could say would change my mind.”

“And nothing you—”

“Indy”—he cut me off—“you can say that, but you’ve barely known my name for a month. I’ve been waiting for you for a year and a half, knowing that whole time that you were going to have something in your past. It’s different. And as much as I want Thursday afternoon to be here, I’ve been dreading it,” he groaned. “Because I knew I couldn’t take you with you not knowing about me.”

When he didn’t continue for a while, I scoffed. “Well, what is it? Unless you somehow caused my brother’s death, I can’t imagine anything that would make me not want to be with you anymore. And seeing how they slid off the road, I’m positive you didn’t.”

“I didn’t kill your brother, Indy.”

“Then just tell me, Kier!”

“I killed someone else!” he shouted, and then grabbed at his hair, turning to look at the bedroom door before dropping his elbows to his knees—his hands still firmly gripping his thick black hair.

I was frozen. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink. That—that couldn’t be right. I must have misheard him. Because the Kier I’d come to know wasn’t a—I couldn’t even think it. Not because it was too terrifying a thought, but because it didn’t fit what I knew of him at all.

“What?” I finally choked out. “You—no.”

When Kier looked back up at me, his eyes were glassy and tortured. “I didn’t pull the trigger, but I made him do it.”

The fistlike vise that had been tightening on my chest slowly started letting up, and I blew out a deep breath. “What do you mean?”

“A guy from my school committed suicide because of me.”

My heart sank. “Kier, no. No, I don’t know what happened, but you can’t think that—”

“Indy, it was in his note. I was the reason he did it. Cops questioned me, they showed me the note, his parents—fuck, his dad put me in the hospital when I walked out of the police station that day.”

“But it was his decision—”

“Stop.” He raked his hands down his face and leaned forward, only to sit back in the chair again. “You know how you always told me that I was quiet? That I don’t talk?” When I nodded, he asked, “Did you think it was because I was shy, or . . .”

I shrugged. “No, you didn’t seem shy, just like you didn’t want to talk. Like what everyone was doing was bothering you in a way.”

He huffed and shook his head. “I was popular in high school. I was the quarterback of our football team. I was dating the hottest girl in school. My parents gave me anything I wanted and were never home anyway—so my house was always the party house. I don’t think anyone ever liked me. They liked what I was . . . if that makes sense. Rich, cocky, varsity QB . . . the whole bit. Everything back then was a label—it was dumb. But I was such a dick back then I wouldn’t even have liked me.”

I tried to see it, but I couldn’t. Kier was handsome in a way you only ever saw on silver screens, but he was always in the background, never letting anyone get close to him . . . except for me. And the kind of guy who was quiet and in the background was the exact opposite of who he was explaining now.

“I made fun of anyone who wasn’t ‘us’ basically, but there was this one kid, Alan Schwartz—God, I don’t know why, but I just wanted to ruin his life. He never did anything, he stayed away from me, shit, he’d run when he saw me . . . but I just had it out for him for some reason. Picked on him about everything. His weight, his looks, and the way he dressed—and it was constant. Every day, every time I saw him. I think because my buddies wanted to seem cool around me, or something, they all started picking on him, too, and soon he had half the football team after him. We’d have our girls put tampons in his locker. We’d steal his clothes during P.E. and sometimes replace them with girls’ clothes. And he wasn’t gay; we were just doing anything to embarrass the shit out of him. He started missing school, and that’s when I should have started realizing something was different about him. But I didn’t notice anything; I just kicked up embarrassing him on the days he was in school.

“Spring came, he kept wearing long sleeves . . . and now that it’s all over and I look back on that time, I remember how dead he looked. He didn’t cry anymore when we embarrassed him, he didn’t run away from me anymore, he just stared—like nothing mattered anymore. But when it was happening, I didn’t notice. I noticed the long sleeves, though, and, of course, I made fun of him for wearing those, too, when it was hot outside. Every. Day. Never. Stopping. I was on my way to my junior prom when I got a call from my parents saying that the police were looking for me, and that they would meet me at the station. Funny that I thought they were joking when they said the police were looking for me, but as soon as they told me they would meet me somewhere, I knew they were serious. My parents were never anywhere for me. They only care about themselves; there was always some party or resort they had to go to with colleagues or friends.

“I took my girlfriend to the prom, told her I would be back soon, and left. Alan had been cutting his wrists for months apparently, and that night, he shot himself. There was a letter on his bed addressed to me. Asking what he ever did to me to make me hate him, to torture him, and to make him wish he’d never been born. He said he’d tried to ignore me, then hoped I would see what I was doing to him, and then finally gave up . . . saying he couldn’t take it anymore. At the bottom, he wrote a line to his parents saying he loved them, and it wasn’t their fault—they did everything they could. It just wasn’t enough.”

“Kier,” I whispered, and had to swallow past the tightness in my throat. “I—I don’t know what to say.” The anguish in his voice as he retold the story couldn’t be faked. He hated himself for what had happened with Alan.

“I couldn’t even leave the room after that. I just lost it. Everything—everything I’d ever done came rushing back to me and I would have given anything to take it back. I wanted to die, I wanted it all to be a joke like they were just trying to give me a wake-up call for how I was ruining people’s lives, I wanted to apologize to Alan . . . I wanted to redo the previous three years all over again. But it wasn’t a joke,” he mumbled, and worked his jaw for a couple of minutes. “My dad’s attorney informed us that Alan’s parents were going to take us to court for a civil suit—since there wasn’t anything they could charge me with for picking on someone. My parents were still standing inside the building talking to their attorney when I walked outside. Alan’s parents were there and his dad attacked me, and I didn’t even try to stop him. I wanted to hurt, I wanted him to kill me, I wanted to take Alan’s place. By the time he was pulled off me, I was unconscious. I ended up in the hospital for a week because of it, and I felt like it hadn’t been anywhere near enough.

“But because of it, we never went to court because my parents could have actually pressed charges on him. While I was unconscious, they’d all agreed on no charges from either side . . . and my parents paid his parents off as way of an apology.” Kier looked up at me, his golden eyes dulled. “You can’t fucking pay someone for something like that. ‘Sorry our kid forced yours to pull the trigger. Here’s a hundred grand.’ Who the fuck does that?”

“Did Alan’s parents take it?”

“Yeah, and they started a foundation in Alan’s name. After that, I dropped out of football, stopped hanging out with my so-called friends. It wasn’t hard. Once I was off the team and stopped throwing parties, none of them talked to me again anyway. My girlfriend broke up with me because she said I was too different. No one even fucking cared about Alan. They were just pissed that they had to find a new place to get wasted every weekend. And that’s when I just stopped talking to people.” He shrugged and held my gaze.

“Because of Alan,” I said.

“Because my words had ended someone’s life. Because I was so self-absorbed that I couldn’t see when he needed someone to be there for him, when he was getting too low and was crying out for someone to bring him back up. I should have seen, and I just pushed him more.”

Kier dropped his head into his hands, and his shoulders shook as he cried silently. I stared at him for a few moments before finally crawling off the bed to stand in front of him. Lifting his head with my hands, I placed a soft kiss on his lips and dropped my forehead onto his.

“Don’t say it wasn’t my fault,” he pled.

“I won’t. I’m also not going to say it was your fault. It just . . . was,” I breathed.

He shook his head. “How can you—”

“Because if it weren’t for all that, you wouldn’t have been looking, and you wouldn’t have seen that you needed to save me.”

Kier removed my hands but kept his eyes locked on mine. “Indy, you cut to escape the pain of your brother being taken from you. I made a guy cut and then take his own life. Your parents are horrible to you and kicked you out. My parents don’t care about anyone except for themselves, and now I avoid them because as much as I hate myself for what happened, I hate them even more for not caring about him and trying to make it go away with their goddamn money. Things you struggle with, I’ve made happen. Why aren’t you asking me to leave?”

“I just told you.”

“No, Indy—”

“Because you aren’t that guy anymore, Kier. You were. You did those things, and you’re obviously still paying for them. You’ll never forget Alan, and even though I can see you aren’t there yet, I hope you forgive yourself one day. You have changed, and just like you say you can see me . . . I can see your heart. You’re not at all like the guy you described to me. You’re the quiet guy who saves me from myself, gives me bread, and locks my door so no one can get to me. You’re the guy who won’t let us go to any next step until you’re sure I’m ready for it, even though you and I both know it’s nothing I haven’t done before.”

His lips tilted up and one of his hands lifted to brush against my cheeks. “You don’t see me very clearly.”

I smiled sadly and twisted his own words back around on him. “I see you just fine.”

chapter seven

Kier

Glancing over to where Indy was sleeping in the passenger seat, I let my eyes roam over her calm features, and a strange feeling unfurled in my chest. Something close to a mix of possession, admiration, and pride. She was mine. If you had told me a year ago she would be in my SUV with me, on the way back to my house for winter break, I wouldn’t have believed you. She’d been untouchable then . . . she’d been untouchable for a long time. But she was here; even after finding out about my past, she was choosing to be with me.

I shook my head as I looked back at the road, and a smile curled at my lips. Amazing.

The smile fell quickly as I pulled off the freeway and began driving down the familiar streets of the city I’d grown up in. While it was familiar, none of it felt like home. It felt like a crushing reminder of the life I’d left behind. It felt cold—and it had absolutely nothing to do with the weather outside. But every winter and summer, I still came back. There was something I had to do.

Pulling into the parking lot, I unbuckled my seat belt and leaned over the center console to brush Indy’s cheek. Her eyes blinked open, and she sank back into her sweatshirt as her forehead scrunched together.

“The bank?” she asked hoarsely.

“I just have to pull out some money. I’ll only be a couple minutes, but I didn’t want you to wake up and find me gone.”

“Okay.” She glanced at me and smiled. “Are we almost there after this?”

“Yeah, just about ten minutes away.” I brushed my lips against hers before pulling back and stepping out of the vehicle.

Jogging up to the bank, I opened the doors and was immediately blasted by the heat as I stepped in. A banking officer smiled as she approached me.

“Welcome. What can I help you with today?”

I sent her a polite smile back. “I’m here to see Frank.”

Her eyebrows shot up and her eyes took in my appearance for a second before her face slipped back into her polite smile. “Of course, let me see if he’s available.”

Less than a minute later they were walking out together, and Uncle Frank was putting his arm around my shoulders as he led me back to his office. “I’ve been wondering when you would get here. How’ve you been?”

“Good. Things are good.”

He shot me a look. “Really? Finals go okay?”

“Yeah, they went pretty well. I left as soon as I finished my last one today.”

Nodding as he shut the door behind us, he moved to go sit behind his desk. “That’s good, then. But I haven’t had you tell me things were good . . . ever.”

I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair I’d sat in, and sighed. “Yeah, well, things were hard for a long time, Uncle Frank, but they’re getting better.” When he just continued to look at me with a suspicious glare, I added, “There’s a girl. She’s waiting for me in the car.”

“Really?” He smiled widely at me. “Do I get to meet her?”

“No, you don’t. I don’t want to scare her away just yet. Maybe at my summer visit, okay?”

He laughed and nodded as he began typing on his keyboard. “Okay.” His fingers stopped abruptly and he leveled me with another look. “But you’re treating her well.”

I fought back a smile. “I am, don’t worry. So, how much do I have left in the account after this semester?”

“Checking right now,” he mumbled, his eyes already glued to the screen again.

My parents had had their own ideas for where they wanted me to go to school. Dad’s master plan was for me to go to Dartmouth like he had done. He’d just figured football was a phase for me in high school and since he and the dean of admissions were close, I didn’t have to apply. How convenient. By my junior year of high school, I was already being scouted for USC football and had wanted nothing more than to follow that one to the other side of the country.

Obviously that hadn’t happened, and Dartmouth had never been in my sights, since all I’d wanted to do was play. When my life had changed so drastically, I applied to University of Michigan. It wasn’t much more than three hours from Columbus, but no one I knew was going there, and it was another step in getting away from my original plans. My parents had thought I was joking even after I’d moved into the dorm my freshman year. Whether they didn’t pay attention enough to care, or they were hoping I’d realize I was missing out on an opportunity in not going to Dartmouth, they continued to put the tuition for Dartmouth in my account every semester, along with “living money.” And living money, for them, was fucking ridiculous and felt like another one of their bribes—which led to me visiting my uncle at the end of every semester.

“Looks like you still have over thirty thousand.” Uncle Frank sent me a look. “How much do you want to keep for yourself? Two thousand like always?” I just nodded. “Okay, let me get everything ready for the transfer.”

“Have you seen them lately?” I asked hesitantly, and he and I both knew I wasn’t asking about my parents. He wasn’t exactly a fan of them, either.

“A few times in the last couple months when they’ve come in to handle funds for the foundation,” he responded without looking at me.

“How are they?”

Turning, he sat back in his seat and nodded. “They’re doing great, Kier, I promise. The foundation has really taken off. Mrs. Schwartz goes around the country now speaking out against bullying and little punks like you.”

My lips tilted up, and I laughed weakly. “That’s good.”

Uncle Frank smiled. “Yeah, they’re both moving on as best they can, trying to turn what happened into the only positive they could find.”

“Good.” I sat back and looked away.

“Name?” Uncle Frank asked a couple of minutes later.

“Do they still see the donations?”

“Yes.”

“Then anonymous,” I breathed. “Always anonymous.”

I looked up and stood when Uncle Frank blew out a heavy breath. “On behalf of the Alan Foundation, I thank you for your anonymous donation. I know the Schwartzes are thankful for it, too. And as your uncle, I love you, and your aunt and I are proud of who you’re becoming.”

I nodded and gave him a quick hug. “Merry Christmas, tell Aunt LeAnn I’ll stop by sometime over break.”

“Bring that girl with you!”

I huffed and winked as I backed up out of his office. “As long as you promise not to run her off.”

Indy

I pulled my legs up underneath me and leaned onto the center console as Kier played with my fingers. I was getting anxious to get wherever we were going, but we’d left the downtown buildings and we were now in a neighborhood with absurdly huge houses.

“Uh . . .” I started to ask again where he was taking me, but my jaw dropped when he pulled into a driveway, stopping in front of the gate to enter a code. “No. No, no. I, uh . . . Is this your house?”

“Parents’ house.”

“Right. Um, I’m not so sure I’m ready to meet . . . them. Yet.” I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. After the horror of my parents, and hearing about his, I didn’t really want to meet them. Our relationship was in a new phase; it definitely wasn’t in the whole bringing-the-other-home-for-Christmas phase.

“Indy, relax,” Kier crooned. “I told you, I avoid my parents. They won’t be here this entire break. They have a place in Washington where they spend a good four months out of the year. My dad’s business has a branch out there and in California, and they split the year between the three houses.”

“So that trip over Thanksgiving . . .” I trailed off.

“No, they actually took a trip to Italy.”

I sat back in the seat and looked at the house in front of us. Trips to Italy just weren’t something I ever thought could be said in a way that seemed like it wasn’t a big deal. But looking at this house, and knowing they had two others, I got it. To them it wasn’t a big deal.

Kier’s fingers curled under my chin, turning my head in his direction. “Don’t judge me based on this, or them. All this”—he gestured toward the house—“used to mean something to me, but it doesn’t anymore. I just stay here during the breaks.”

Nodding, I leaned forward and captured his lips for a few seconds. “I know it doesn’t.”

“Come on, let’s get in there. It’s gonna be cold, but I’ll turn the heat up and get a fire going.”

As I followed him out of the car and up the walkway to the door, everything about the massive house faded from my mind as I remembered what our arrival here meant. We were finally away from the houses in Ann Arbor, we were alone, and good God, Kier couldn’t open that door fast enough.

“Balls, it’s cold!” I screeched when we stepped inside.

“It will be warm in no time. Give it maybe ten minutes. It’ll be perfect. Come on, I’ll show you where our room is.”

Our room. Our room. Again everything slipped from my mind as heat rushed through my veins in anticipation.

Kier stopped twice on the way to change thermostats before we entered a room that was as big as three of mine back in the Ann Arbor house, and that wasn’t including the bathroom attached to it.

Pressing a kiss to the side of my neck, he gripped at my hips before whispering in my ear, “Get settled in. I’m gonna go check everything and start a fire.”

“’Kay,” I said breathily, swaying a little when he moved away from me.

When he was gone, I looked around the room for a couple of minutes, but there wasn’t much of Kier’s childhood in there—and I figured that had more to do with him wanting to forget it than it did his parents not being a big part of his life. I walked into the bathroom, and my eyes widened when I saw the massive garden tub and shower, and I thought I’d died right then and gone to heaven.

Looking into the bedroom, I worried my bottom lip as I eyed the shower again. Not letting myself think on it any longer, I reached in and turned it on. With how cold it was in the house, a hot shower in this shower was too good to pass up—especially when we’d been in a car for close to four hours.

I waited until steam was billowing out above the glass before stepping out of my clothes and piling my long hair on top of my head. My body shook as I tested the temperature of the water with my fingers before stepping in, and the sting of the heat against my freezing skin burned for long moments until my body got used to it—and then I was in heaven. I hadn’t even seen the closet and it didn’t matter—this shower was all I needed to decide this was my favorite room. Ever.

The door to the shower opened, and I instinctively covered myself as I turned away from where Kier was standing. My eyes widened as my gaze trailed down his long, naked body. My breathing deepened when his golden eyes heated and he stepped inside the shower, shutting the glass door behind him. I swallowed roughly as he pressed himself behind me, and looked up just in time for him to drop his head and press his mouth firmly to mine.

A moan moved up my throat, getting lost in the kiss as his tongue teased mine in unhurried strokes. His hands moved around to the front of my body, sliding over where my arms were still covering myself—and at the reminder, I shakily moved them away, bringing my hands up to fist in his hair as he deepened the kiss.

One hand made a path down my stomach as the other moved up to my breasts, and I broke away from the kiss on a huff when his fingers spread me apart, stroking me and circling my clit just as slow as his tongue had been circling mine. I widened my stance, and my back arched off him when he pressed two fingers inside me.

“Kier,” I breathed before his mouth captured mine again.

His arm was pressed against my wet breasts, trailing up my chest so his hand could lightly trace the front of my neck as he demanded more from the kiss, and I gave everything I had. My hips rocked against his hand and his thick erection pressed against my bottom as hot water pelted down on us. I felt like I was losing myself in Kier, and I loved it and the way it felt like he couldn’t get enough of me.

For the first time in a long while, I was enough for someone . . . more than enough.

My head fell back against his shoulder as the knot in my belly grew, and the hand resting on my neck slowly trailed down toward my chest as he nibbled on the soft spot behind my ear.

“Come on, Indy. Let go for me.”

His thumb pressed against my clit as his fingers moved harder, faster, and I fell apart with a cry as my body shattered. When I was limp in his arms, he reached in front of us to turn off the water before turning me around and wrapping his arms tight around me.

I looked up to see him smirking at me, his golden eyes bright as he stepped out of the shower with me still in his arms. Grabbing a towel, he dried us off through lingering kisses before dropping the towel on the floor and taking my hand in his, leading me back into the warmed-up bedroom.

He started to let go of me, his body moving in the direction of a set of dresser drawers, and I knew what he was doing. Not pushing me, but making sure I wanted this just as bad as he did. Holding tight to his hand, I pulled him back to the bed and pushed him down until he was sitting on it.

“Are you—”

“Yes,” I said, cutting him off. “I want this. I want you.”

Leaning forward, I teased his lips as I climbed onto the bed, placing a knee on either side of him. He smiled through the kiss and scooted back on the bed before lying down and bringing me closer to him. I took the tie out of my hair, letting it fall down around my shoulders and back as I curled my body over Kier’s and positioned myself above him. He ran his hands through my hair, letting them trail down my waist to my hips, his fingers flexing against the skin when he got there, and then he guided me down on top of him.

Kier groaned as I took him inch by inch, and when I was fully seated on him, he kept me there—not moving—as his eyes held mine, his chest rising and falling heavily before he quickly sat up, crushing his mouth to mine.

A surprised gasp left me and turned into a laugh, and then a moan when he gripped my hips harder and moved me off him, only to push me right back down.

“Oh God,” I whimpered against his lips as I took control and started moving on top of him.

Soon kissing became too difficult as we struggled to breathe, and I pressed my forehead to his seconds before Kier rolled us over. Dropping his head into the crook of my neck, he trailed his hand up my leg to curl around my knee, bringing it up around his hip as he moved inside me. His pace quickened and his grip on my body tightened before he stilled above me as he found his release.

As his body slowly relaxed, he placed a line of kisses across my collarbone and up my throat until he reached my lips, his body stilling when he saw the tears in my eyes. “Are you okay?”

I brushed my hands through his hair and smiled against his lips. “More than okay.”

“Indy,” he crooned, and cupped my cheeks. “Then why do you look like you’re about to cry?”

My head shook back and forth as I tried to find the right words to say, and finally I just locked my eyes with his and whispered, “Thank you for saving me.”

His body sagged in relief, and he kissed me soundly. “I’ll always save you.”