Donovan and Adam… they were the ones who protected her. Not me.
“That’s enough.” Donovan is walking towards me now, reaching for the bottle. He swipes it away and throws it into the sink. It clatters around the cheap metal and the dark amber liquid spills out and runs down the drain. “I was counting on you driving, you asshole. I’ve been up for thirty-six hours and it’s a two-hour goddamned drive home.”
I drag the back of my hand across the sticky, bitter alcohol on my lips and glare at him.
“What? Did I interrupt something?”
I don’t answer him. Just look at Indie. Glare at her.
Why am I so mad? I don’t know. I’m just fucking angry. At her. At Donovan. At Adam.
At myself.
I walk into the bedroom, pull a clean t-shirt from a hanger in my closet, and slip it over my head. Then grab some socks from a drawer and sit down on the mattress and pull them on. Head cocked towards the open door, listening as they whisper to each other in the living room.
I know what he’s saying. Did he do anything to you? Was he inappropriate?
Old questions. Familiar questions.
They started right after Indie turned sixteen and things were getting serious with Nate.
I knew that was inevitable. And I wasn’t jealous. Not the way Adam was. I wanted her to have a good life. I did. I wanted her to have all the things I never had. I took care of her for that reason. Not because Adam told me to. Not even because I had to or she wouldn’t live to see eighteen, let alone twenty-four.
But she did live. And I still feel like a fucking failure.
Donovan appears in the doorway. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.” I reach for a boot and pull it on my foot, then the other one. Stand and adjust my cock in my jeans.
Donovan looks down at my hand as I do this, then back up at me, furious. “Asshole.” He turns away and goes into the living room.
Whatever Indie was whispering to him out there, it wasn’t about my inappropriate behavior. But Donovan has never needed to be told things to know things. And what just happened with Indie and me was just… inevitable. Just like that first hug she gave him was.
I walk to the door, then stop and lean against the wall for a moment. Run my fingers through my hair as they leave the apartment and start going down the stairs.
Indie is only wearing the sweats and t-shirt I gave her earlier, but when I get down into the shop, she’s struggling with her still-wet brown boots, her leather jacket already on.
She stands up straight and looks at me. “I’m ready. Let’s go home.”
I close my eyes. Take a moment to think about yesterday. Before she came back. Before Donovan got here.
And wonder, much the way I did that very first day she came home with us fourteen years ago, if anything will ever be the same again.
Donovan drives.
Stupid prissy fucker.
My truck, too. Since he came in a ‘car’, which means he had a driver, whom he did not ask to stay and take him back to Old Home. So. My truck.
Indie sits in the back and I take shotgun. I probably managed to down six or seven shots in those thirty seconds I was holding that Jack bottle. And I did have sex. So I’m sleepy as I look out the window and watch the landscape go by.
There was very little traffic getting out of New Orleans and once we get on the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, there’s a long boring stretch until we get up north and finally head west towards the Old Pearl River.
Every now and then I glance over my shoulder to look at Indie, who is sitting behind Donovan for just this reason.
She wants me to look at her. And every time I do, I catch her staring at me.
I don’t know what the fuck came over me back at my apartment. I should’ve just… pushed her away. Kept her at a distance. Because now she fills up my head and I can’t make sense of things.
It’s nothing but a swirling mess. And I wish I could say it was regret. I would fucking love to feel some regret when it comes to Indie.
But I don’t.
And it’s not.
It’s just… conflict. And apprehension about what comes next with Adam.
“So how’s…” Indie stops mid-sentence.
“How’s what?” Donovan glances at her in the rearview.
“I was gonna say school.” She laughs. “But obviously you’re not in school anymore. I knew that. How’s work?”
“I just finished my second residency, actually. And it’s all… fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Great. It’s great. I can’t complain.”
“Did you ever get that Malibu house?”
I glance over at Donovan and find him smiling. “Nah. That dream faded a while back now, Indie. I’m… considering my options at this point.”
“What options?” I’m still staring out the window when I ask.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this, actually.”
I turn my head to look at him. He keeps his eyes on the road. Fucking hands at two and ten o’clock like he takes his goddamned driving seriously. “Talk to me about what?”
He side-eyes me. “Later, McKay. It’s not a good time.”
Indie is quiet in the back, but I know she’s listening intently. When neither Donovan or I say anything else, she pulls herself together and asks another question. “Are you married, Donovan?”
“Married? No, Indie. I’m not married.”
I glance back at Indie again. She’s looking out the window this time. Studying the Louisiana darkness all around us like there’s anything to see out there.
We’re all quiet after that, our pathetic attempt at small talk a complete failure. And then before we know it, we’re driving down the long, empty lane that leads to Old Home.
The gate is open when we pull up to it and each one of us sucks in a long breath and lets it out, afraid of what we’ll find at the end of this journey that started out long, but now seems way too short.
Donovan gives the truck some gas and we slowly ease our way down the long, winding driveway until we see the front porch of the white semi-Victorian mansion come into view.
Half of it is lit up with moonlight, the other side dark.
Perfect analogy, if you ask me. That’s been my experience in life since the beginning.
You can’t ever see everything at once.
It’s gotten to a point now that I don’t even expect it.
Old Home is in better shape than I thought it would be. There are hedges that line the driveway along the main portion of the house. And the gardens have been kept up. I can’t see much in the dark, and it’s winter, so there’s not much to see anyway. But the short hedges trimming the edges of the geometrically-shaped beds all appear sharp in the moonlight, like people are trimming them regularly.
There are two massive pecan trees that flank either side of the porch and their boughs grow together across the front walkway, making a canopy that only adds to the charm of this old home.
“Is Adam even here?” I ask, looking around for his truck. Not that I know what he drives these days. We’ve talked a few times, but I literally have not seen him since the day of Indie’s twentieth birthday.
Right over there. I track to the spot where I last saw him getting into his truck.