Page 106 of Creeping Beautiful

Cooking was always part of my job here. I was the one who made Indie’s meals when she was growing up. But when I start hanging the curtains around the pavilion Donovan offers to make dinner tonight. Indie thinks that’s a good idea and wants to help. So they go inside and leave me to finish up.

I’m just threading the last pole through the curtain grommets when my phone dings in my pocket.

I almost fall off the fuckin’ ladder. Because the notification chime tells me it’s Adam.

I fish my phone from my pocket and stare at the screen.

His text says: Is it safe?

What do you mean?

You know what I mean.

I think about this for a moment, not really sure how to answer.

Adam must get antsy because he texts me again. Does she remember, McKay?

No. She doesn’t remember.

Then I can’t come.

I press call, because I need to have a conversation with this dude and I don’t want to waste time typing.

He picks up on the first ring this time. “What?”

“You have to come. We can’t do any of this without you, Adam.”

He sighs. And I can just picture him running his fingers through his hair in frustration. “What are you guys doing right now?”

“I’m putting the pavilion back together and Indie and Donovan are starting dinner. Where are you? Are you close? Far? Can you make it for dinner?”

“I don’t know. Let me think. I’ll get back to you soon.”

The call drops and I just stare at the screen for a moment, conflicted. I want to call him back and set him straight. But there’s no way to justify Indie’s behavior over the past few years. I didn’t tell him that Indie came back to me asking to help her hunt him down, but he has to know she blames him for whatever is going on up in her head.

She always blames him.

If she had seen Adam yesterday, she would’ve… well. I mean, I have to be honest with myself here. She probably would’ve killed him. She would’ve tried, at least.

Can Indie kill us? I mean, you know. Hand to hand type shit. Anyone can pull a trigger, I guess. But if it came down to some kind of fist fight. Some kind of mixed martial arts type shit… would she win?

Yeah. She would.

Not because she’s better at it than we are, but because I would not be able to finish her. I would pull my punches I would let her win, or, at the very least, I would let her walk away.

And somehow I don’t think I’d get that kind of reciprocal consideration from Indie. Because if she was going to kill us, it would not be her doing it.

Today though? Would she kill Adam tonight if he decides to show up? I just don’t know. I have no fuckin’ clue what’s running through that girl’s head.

Sex. Obviously.

Which I can’t pretend I don’t enjoy.

It would be a sick thing to admit I have loved Indie this way since I first laid eyes on her when she was ten. It’s wrong. On every level. And it’s not even true. I mean, I did love her immediately, but I wasn’t thinking of her sexually until well after she was eighteen.

Still. It’s fucked up. We all know it’s fucked up.

And part of the reason she lost her mind was because of us.