“Cupcakes. Pancakes. I’m not sure there’s much difference, McKay. Besides, I wasn’t gonna let her eat them. They’re for later.” Then she set her butter knife down, wiped her hands on her apron, and panned a hand at a tray of champagne glasses and a pitcher of what looked like orange juice. But the open bottle of champagne nearby told me it was not just orange juice. “We’re having mimosas, too.”
So then I was thinking. OK. We have Indie up early. We have cupcakes. We have boxed cereal. We have the dress. And we have mimosas.
We didn’t let Indie drink. Ever. It was a rule.
All this was settin’ off little alarms in my head. But I couldn’t place my finger on why. It was all unusual, but there was nothing bad about any of it. Still, my stomach had that feeling it gets when a job is about to go wrong.
Donovan finally joined the conversation. “We don’t drink champagne for breakfast.”
Indie aimed a smile at him now. “We do today. I am no longer a teenager and I want to celebrate.”
“You’re not old enough to drink yet, either.” That was McKay, who was only half paying attention again because he was plopping pancake batter onto a skillet.
“Jesus Christ. You are all a bunch of old men. Don’t ruin my birthday before it even gets started. Have a freaking drink.”
She started pouring up mimosas and handing them out. McKay paused his cooking, took a glass, and smiled at Indie like she was the light of his life.
And she was. I knew that. We all knew that. McKay loved Indie so fiercely hard it made my heart ache for him.
Then we all had a glass and Indie lifted hers up. “To the first day of my twenties.” She paused to huff out a laugh. “You know, I never really thought I’d make it this far.” She looked at each of us in turn, her face a little more serious now. “I would not be here without you guys. So… thank you.”
And that… that we could drink to. So we did. We drank, and McKay gave Maggie the first batch of pancakes. And he cooked some more. And Indie refilled our glasses and we drank those too. Donovan was teasing Mags, trying to steal pancakes off her plate. And I just… watched them as all this happened.
Really and truly thankful that I bought Indie at that auction ten years ago.
We had a little family here and it was good. Everything was good.
Until Nathan St. James showed up at the door.
That was when things really got weird. And I’m not specifically talking about Nathan. So. Whatever. Regardless of what Indie thought, I was not jealous of that kid. Not ever. I didn’t like him. And I didn’t think he was good enough for Indie. Especially after I caught him with that cheerleader from high school. But it wasn’t him.
It was her.
She was the weird thing that day, not Nathan.
She kissed me.
And I did kiss her back. I could lie and say I didn’t want to, or I wanted to take it back after it happened, but I did want to kiss her and I didn’t want to take it back.
I wanted to do it all again.
Because the God’s honest truth was… I loved her. I had always loved her. From the first moment I saw her in that snake-wrapped cage, I loved her.
And by this time, her twentieth birthday, I wanted her.
The only thing standing in my way was McKay.
So when he walked out after Nathan left and Indie kissed me like I was the only man in her life, I followed him. I wasn’t even thinking about Indie in that moment. I know what I said over the years.
I paid for her.
I paid for everything, come to think of it.
She is mine.
But I knew, one hundred percent knew, that Indie was not mine.
She was ours.
And if I had her, he would have her too.
That’s not McKay’s style. At all. Believe me, I have tried. If the way I feel about Indie is love, then the way I feel about McKay is… obsession.
But he’s even more traditional than I am. Donovan was always more progressive, and I wasn’t sure Donovan mattered, really. He was here, he was there, he was all over the place when it came to Indie.
But McKay. He was different. If he walked out, everything would fall apart. This house of cards we’d been building with Indie for the past ten years would cease to exist.
That was always what I loved about our life. That it was something shared. I knew better than most that having everything in life except people you love to share it with was no way to live. And when I bought Indie, I made a promise to myself. Two, actually. One, that she was not coming home with me to be my plaything like the other girls who were bought on that island. Two, that McKay was my first priority, no matter what. He was my best friend. And when he said he would do this with me, when he agreed to be on my team… I agreed to be on his.
We were a package deal. Whatever happened, we were in this together.
Some might say, Well, if you would choose McKay over Indie, then maybe you don’t really love her.
But I would disagree. I wasn’t choosing McKay over Indie.
I was choosing us.
All of us.
Outside McKay was angry. I didn’t blame him. But Indie was twenty now. And I told him that. I told him she could make up her own mind. We raised her as well as we could. We gave her everything she needed. She had a childhood, and she had Nathan as she was growing. We hadn’t forced her to love us. And if McKay wanted to walk away there was nothing I could do to stop him. But if he did, I would walk away too.
That was the deal.
I would go with him and not stay with Indie. Either we did this together, or not at all.
So if he walked away, I walked away. And Indie would be left with Donovan.
And that probably would’ve been fine. Donovan could take care of her as well as either of us. But I knew McKay would not walk away if I went with him and left her behind.
It was emotional blackmail. I get it. But I didn’t care. It worked.
McKay stayed.
And we went back inside to find Indie and Donovan sitting on the couch in the TV room. Her back was to us because she was sitting in his lap, straddling his thighs, and Donovan’s hands were caressing her ass. Lifting up that flirty skirt of her dress to reveal the skin of her hips.
I recall thinking… What the fuck is happening right now? I knew this was not in the plan. A kiss in the hallway, OK. That was the first step. I figured we’d be taking steps. Maybe even baby steps. So I was shocked to find Indie and Donovan like this. And I think McKay was too. Because we looked at each other with the same furrowed brows.
I was about to say something when my head started spinning.
Not in a bad way, either. But a soft spin. My body relaxed a little. My muscles went slack. I was looking McKay in the eyes when this change inside me was taking place.
He laughed. Like… laughed. Loudly. And said, “I feel drunk.”
That was when I remembered we drank all that champagne. And that feeling in my gut—that signal I get when the job is about to go sideways—it just floated away.
And that was when everything changed for the second time that day. But it would not be the last.
Indie and Donovan paused their kiss. And they both looked over her shoulder. Donovan looked a little confused, like he was feeling the effects of the morning mimosas too. But Indie was smiling at me. Or maybe McKay. It was hard to tell because we were standing shoulder to shoulder and her eyes were wandering between us. Almost as if they were unfocused.