Page 58 of Fame & Chaos

I want to take all that pain away from her. I want to pull her into my arms and tell her I’ve loved her every single day since she left. That I never stopped. Not once.

She turns toward the door, while frustration tears through me, and I am not above begging right now. “Indi, please—”

“Take her home, Caleb. She needs to recover,” she says firmly before walking out of the room and taking another piece of my already shattered heart with her.

“You okay, cuz?” Annie asks quietly.

“Yeah,” I lie, dragging a hand through my hair. “Just wasn’t expecting to see Indi today, that’s all.”

“Who is she?” Annie asks.

I stare at the doorway she disappeared through, my chest still aching from the look in her eyes. “No one,” I murmur. “She’s no one.”

But even as the lie leaves my mouth, I know the truth.

Indica Malone was never no one.

She is the girl who completely, utterly, and irrevocably destroyed me.

Chapter Nine

Caleb

I didn’t see Indi again after she walked out.

Every instinct in me screamed to chase after her, but first I had to call Colt and tell him I had Annie and was bringing her home.

That phone call was about as pleasant as getting punched in the throat. Colt demanded to know why I’d taken Annie away from her party, but I thought Annie needed to own what she’d done. She needed to understand that actions have consequences, so I made her tell Colt herself, even if she ended up hating me for it.

The drive back to Oxfordshire took an hour and a half, and Annie slept through most of it. I did feel bad for her, though. Before she passed out again, she admitted Aston tried to kiss her, and that was why she spiraled. That shocked the hell out of me because I genuinely thought she wanted Aston to kiss her. Clearly, I was wrong.

I made a mental note to text Aston later and check in on him once I got home. Tonight was a complete train wreck for everyone involved.

Well… mostly.

I couldn’t exactly say seeing Indi had been shit. Seeing her again was the complete opposite of shit. Leaving her behind was the part that nearly destroyed me. It took every ounce of strength I had to walk out of that hospital, but I didn’t want Annie asking questions about Indi and me. If I’d caused a scene trying to get Indi to stay, Annie would have wanted answers I wasn’t prepared to give.

So I let Indi walk away.

And somehow that hurt almost as much as the first time she left without saying goodbye.

The entire drive home, I replayed that kiss over and over in my head. It had been brief, but she was there with me in that moment. I know she felt it. I know she wanted it, even if she pulled away afterward.

Honestly, it might have been the best kiss of my life.

We finally got back to the manor where Colt and Dee were waiting for us. Neither of Annie’s parents was happy once she explained what happened, though thankfully, she left out the part about Aston. Smart move. If I know Colt even half as well as I think I do, he’d gut Aston like a fish if he found out.

Colt sent Annie straight to bed, but once she disappeared upstairs, he completely broke down. I’d seen him cry before when he found out he wasn’t my biological father, but this was different. This wasn’t shock or grief. This was a man genuinely terrified that he was failing his daughter.

Even though Dee and I both tried reassuring him that none of this was his fault, he carried the blame hard. I could see it crushing him right in front of me, and there wasn’t much I could do to help. But Dee… she could. Colt always needed Dee when things got bad.

Eventually, Colt asked me to stay in the guest room because it was too late to drive back to London. He’d been pissed at me initially, but once he understood why I hadn’t called him from the hospital, he calmed down pretty quickly.

And to be honest? We all knew exactly what would have happened if Colt stormed into that emergency room while furious. Someone would have recorded it, uploaded it online, and our band would be dealing with headlines about the guitarist’s underage cousin getting blackout drunk before we’d even had the chance to launch ourselves properly.

Maybe I should have called him anyway, but I couldn’t risk that kind of publicity. Not yet.

Which leaves me exactly where I am now… lying awake in the guest room staring at photographs of Indi on my phone like some obsessed idiot. She looks different now. Older. Softer in some ways, stronger in others. Her hair is shorter, and her body has filled out in all the right places. Just looking at her gorgeous face makes my chest ache and my cock twitch at the same damn time.