Page 148 of The Shot You Missed
This is a lose-lose situation. All I can do is choose the less humiliating course of action.
Lola and Megan share a look, then both of them have their phones out, too, texting I’m-not-sure-who while they stand between Ryland and me. I inhale deeply, desperate to calmmy racing heart. The most important thing is to keep my composure.
“Come on, Indigo. You’ve made your point, okay? I shouldn’t have dated those women after you. Not when I was still in love with you. I’m sorry. You don’t need to pretend to date the hockey player anymore.” Ryland’s voice carries farther than it should, because the people around us have fallen silent.
He didnotjust say that.
“I’m not doing this,” I say as calmly as I can manage. My voice shakes, but only slightly. My hands are another matter entirely. Clenching them into fists at my side, I hope no one notices the way they tremble.
“Come home, babe. Your parents miss you, and so do I. Enough of this little show.”
The air grows thick, and time slows.
This little show?
How fucking dare he.
“You need to walk away,” I say calmly. It’s the dangerous kind of calm. The stillness that precedes the most violent of tornadoes. The silence in the eye of a hurricane.
Ryland doesn’t seem to notice the danger he’s in. “I’m not leaving without you.”
“Indie?” Lexi’s voice cuts through the tense silence as my friends come rushing down the hall toward us. They all look pissed. Lola must have texted them. “Are you okay?”
I give my friend a jerky nod. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
Mira, Isla, Blair, and even Reed flank Lexi. Ryland rolls his eyes when he looks over his shoulder and sees them. “Seriously, Indigo? I can appreciate your commitment to the bit, but you can call off the troops.”
“Bro, when a girl tells you she’s not interested, you walk away,” Reed says firmly, his chin lifted in teenage defiance. “You should do that now. Walk away.”
Ryland scoffs. “Stay out of this, kid. It doesn’t concern you.”
“It does, actually,” Blair’s little brother says. “Because we don’t take kindly to people harassing our family. And Indie’s a part of that family.”
“Damn right, she is,” Mira says, arms crossed over her chest.
My heart expands. I’ve faced down my parents’ fans, paparazzi, even creepy men who made comments about how they wondered if I inherited my famous mother’s perky tits. Ryland doesn’t scare me. He’s pissing me off, but he doesn’t scare me. I’m so grateful that, for the first time, I’m not onlynotalone, but I have a whole group of friends at my back.
No, not just friends.
Family.
“I’m not sure what you were hoping to accomplish,” I say to Ryland, sucking in a fortifying breath before I go to push past him. “But I’m done. We’re over. We’vebeenover. Please leave me alone.”
I’m not proud of the startledsqueakI let out when Ryland grabs my wrist as I try to make it past him, but he grabs me hard.
“We’re not over,” Ryland says, his eyes taking on a desperate, wild quality that makes my heart race. “We’re perfect for each other, Indigo. I always knew we were, but then when I found out you were some successful author? It was meant to be. You’re a writer, I’m a writer. We make the perfect team. I can help you, you can help me…”
A caustic laugh claws its way out of my throat. “So that’s what this is about, huh? You ditched me because you weren’t going to be able to use me to push you higher in the social stratosphere of Hollywood like you’d hoped, but now that you’ve found out I’m a successful author, you think you can use me to further your writing career?”
I look down at my wrist pointedly before lifting my eyes to meet his. “It’s not going to happen.” Ryland grips my wrist tighter until my bones creak, and I wince. “Now let go of me.”
“Is there a problem here?” a large man in a security uniform asks with a booming voice and a frown. Another security guard stands to his left. They look pointedly at Ryland’s hand around my wrist.
“No. No problem,” Ryland says with a curl of his upper lip. He drops my wrist, and the moment he does, Megan and Lola are between us, forcing him backward.
“There sure as shit is a problem,” my best friend says. “This guy just assaulted Sebastian Navarro’s girlfriend. He needs to be thrown out. Immediately.”
“Assaulted? Please. I barely touched her.” Ryland takes a subtle step back, scanning the crowd, as if noticing them for the first time. When he sees the phones pointed his way, he grimaces.
