Page 25 of Guarded By Ghost
Still in her stage outfit, makeup smeared from sweat. The show went well — I could hear the crowd from the corridor, their screams and cheers carrying through the walls. She gave them everything she had.
She looks up when I enter. "What happened? You weren't side stage for the last few songs."
"Harris was here."
Her face goes pale. "He was— did he?—"
"He's gone. He won't bother you again."
She stares at me for a long moment, processing. Then: "What did you do?"
"What I had to."
She doesn't push. Doesn't ask for details. Just nods, like that's enough. Like she trusts me to handle the ugly parts so she doesn't have to look at them.
That trust hits me harder than anything Harris said.
"Ghost," she says softly. "Thank you."
I brush a strand of hair from her face. "You don't have to thank me."
"I know. But I want to." She pauses. "You saved me."
"No." I shake my head. "You trusted the right people. You let us help. All I did was make sure he couldn't hurt you anymore."
She's quiet for a moment. Then she reaches up and takes my face in her hands, pulling me down until we're eye to eye.
"I love you," she says.
The words hit me like a punch to the chest. Not because they're unexpected — I think part of me has known since the night she first slept in my bed — but because hearing them out loud makes it real.
"India—"
"You don't have to say it back. I know you're not... that's not how you work. But I needed you to know." She smiles, soft and certain. "You're it for me. Whatever happens, wherever my career takes me, you're it."
I should say something. Something meaningful, something that matches the weight of what she just gave me.
But I'm not good with words. Never have been.
So I kiss her instead. Deep and slow and full of everything I can't say. I pour it all into the way I hold her, the way I breathe her in, the way I pull her closer like I'm trying to fuse us together.
When I finally pull back, she's smiling.
"Was that your way of saying it back?"
"Yeah."
She laughs. "Good enough for me."
We stay like that for a long moment, close enough to breathe each other in. The chaos of the show still echoes outside — crew breaking down, voices calling, the machinery of her career grinding on.
But in here, it's just us.
And that's all I need.
EPILOGUE
Three Months Later
