The Right Move (Windy City Series Book 2)

Indy nods in agreement, offering her full attention.

Turning her waist, I open her legs around mine so she’s not only sitting in my lap, but also looking at me straight on. I’ve run away from talking about this for so long and I can’t keep it in anymore. She’s overwhelmed me, walking into my life with her chaos and kindness and between realizing how much I want her and almost losing everything today, I’m wrecked. Emotionally undone.

It’s unexpectedly liberating. For years, I’ve been emotionally numb and, in a way, refusing to feel anything— joy, sadness, love, or in this case, fear— felt like a death sentence.

I don’t want to be numb anymore.

Inhaling through my nostrils, I attempt to compose what little strength I have left.

“When I was younger and I thought about my future, I saw myself playing in the NBA, but in equal measure I saw myself having a family alongside me while I did it. And I’m not referring to Stevie and my parents, but I wanted a partner. I wanted a wife, kids, all that white picket fence shit.”

Indy’s mocha eyes widen for a moment, before she catches herself, falling back to neutral.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but I was a lot like you when I was younger. I used to trust people, love people. Stevie always gave me shit about being a hopeless romantic because I saw the best in people and when I fell, I fell hard. I had a couple of girlfriends in high school, but it wasn’t until college that I fell in love for the first time. Only time, actually.”

I check on the pretty girl in my lap, looking for any sign of discomfort on the topic, but Indy seems as locked in on this conversation as I hoped she would be.

“You know what happened, but you don’t know the full story. Her name was Marissa. We met at the end of my junior year, and I fell pretty quickly for her, but she didn’t want people to know we were together, so we kept it a secret. To be honest, I liked that. My team had just won the national championship and people were starting to see me as the star basketball player and less as a normal guy. I noticed that people around me were wanting to get a piece of me before I entered the draft. But Marissa…” I shake my head. “She wasn’t like that. She didn’t want the attention that came with being my girlfriend, and her parents were extremely religious, so for those reasons, we didn’t tell many people. But I knew that by the time we graduated I was going to propose and a lot of what she was worried about wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

“You know she was trying to get pregnant. Well, she did. During my senior season.”

Indy adjusts slightly, inhaling a quiet but sharp breath.

“I was stoked, and she was too. She was due that summer, shortly after the draft. I knew I’d be financially set to take care of them both, and this family was everything I ever wanted. The only person I could tell I was going to be a dad was Stevie. Marissa didn’t want to tell anyone, didn’t want her parents to find out until we had the baby, got engaged, and were living in whatever city I ended up playing for.

“The week of the draft, I went number one overall to Chicago. The next day I flew out here and bought this place in cash, furnished it, and got it ready for my soon to be fiancée and child to come home to. Then Marissa went into labor. I immediately caught a flight back to North Carolina and rushed to the hospital. I was too late to be allowed in the delivery room, so I was pacing in the waiting room with an engagement ring burning a hole in my pocket for what seemed like hours. Life was like a dream that week. I was going to get everything I had ever wished for in the span of five or six days.

“I remember this guy kept eyeing me in the waiting room, but I had brushed it off at the time. More and more people were starting to recognize me in my everyday life, so I chalked it up to that. I was bouncing, Ind. I was so fucking excited and nervous and happy and scared. Every emotion you could imagine feeling in that moment, I felt. A nurse came and got me once the baby came. She was healthy, Marissa was healthy, but as soon as I walked into the delivery room, something was off.

“Marissa could barely look me in the eye, but I was too overwhelmed to think much of it until she handed me her daughter, and the second I held that little girl, I knew she wasn’t mine.”

Indy sucks a sharp breath, covering her mouth with those red-painted nails.

“Marissa knew it too and I don’t know what caused her to do it, but she spilled every detail right then and there. That guy in the waiting room? Yeah, that was her real fucking boyfriend. It was his kid. He was in on the whole thing. Our so-called relationship was all a scheme. They both played me, and she was trying to get knocked up. They were just trying to get eighteen years of child support out of me.” I laugh in disbelief, hearing how absurd the words sound out loud as I recall that day four and a half years ago. “She was never afraid of the limelight and her parents weren’t religious. She didn’t want anyone to know we were in a relationship because she was playing me the whole fucking time.”

I drop my head down between my shoulders. “I wanted it so badly, Blue. That whole scenario was my dream life. I was so ready for it. I thought I was going to be this cool, young dad who got to grab his kid from the stands and carry them around the court. I wanted to come home to them every day and I got fucking played.”

Indy curves a hand around the back of my neck, soothingly rubbing the skin there. “Ryan,” she says, not having any other words to add.

I stopped crying a while ago, but Indy took over in that department.

“That’s one of the most horrible things I’ve ever heard.”

I wipe at her cheeks. “It’s why I have such a hard time trusting people. I was manipulated by the one person I thought loved me. Imagine how many normal, everyday people would try to use me if I let them close enough.”

“You bought this place to start a family.” She slaps a palm over her mouth. “Oh my God, my room is painted yellow. That room was supposed to be—”

“I fucking hate that room.”

She buries her face in her hands. “Why are you living here? This apartment is like a prison for you. You can barely go outside as it is, then you’re stuck in here. The place you bought for the life you planned.”

I stay silent as I watch her put together more and more pieces of the puzzle.

“This is why you’re…Have you not been with anyone since?”

With her hips in my hands, I run my palms over her leggings, trying to calm us both down. “I have. I tried to do the casual thing, but that’s never really been my style. The two years after everything happened, there were maybe three women in total. Random partners. No one I knew.”

I wipe at her cheeks.

“Please keep going,” she begs, those brown eyes glossed with tears.

Exhaling, I continue. “It was too weird for me as a man in his mid-twenties not to be having sex, right? So, I tried, but every time I was with someone, I’d be in my head the entire time, trying to figure out how they were going to use it against me. I was so fucked up, Blue, that the few times it happened, I would take the used fucking condom with me and dispose of it somewhere else. That’s how paranoid I was. It was to the point that none of it was worth it. I was doing it because I thought I had to, so I gave myself permission to stop trying.”

“That’s why you left the other night?”

I nod. “It scared me.”

“You don’t think I’d—”

“No,” I cut her off before she can even form that sentence. No, I don’t think she’d try to use me in any way, shape, or form. “I just haven’t allowed myself to want someone in a very long time. That’s what scared me.”

She offers me a soft smile, urging me to continue.

“But, um…” I hesitate. “Even though that day was one of the worst days of my life, it wasn’t necessarily her that messed me up. It was the wakeup call and realization of who I was to the world that fucked me up more than any of it.” I look to the side of her, unable to make eye contact. “I’ve never really suffered from mental health stuff before, but I fell into a pretty dark depression for a solid two years afterward. Everything I had ever wanted was taken that day, but I also learned that I would never be able to have it.”

She jolts back a bit. “Ryan, you can have anything you want. If you want a family, you can have that.”

“Really, Ind? I can’t even do what we did the other night without freaking out. How the hell do you think I’d ever be able to trust someone enough to have more? To have a family with them?” My head drops low. “God, this is embarrassing.”

“Why are you embarrassed? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Because I’m not allowed to do anything wrong! No one can know about this. People expect me to be perfect, to not fuck up. But no one has any idea that for two years, the only thing that got me out of bed was a contractual obligation to be at practice and games. Other than that, I was sleeping the days away, eating when I was reminded to. My apartment”—I motion around—“was a fucking mess. Why do you think I’m as much of a clean freak as I am now? There was a two-year time span I was living in filth because I didn’t have the mental capability to find the energy to clean it. I was in a never-ending loop of darkness, and not a single soul knew that after a game was over their precious golden boy of basketball was going home and living in misery.”

My eyes finally meet hers. “Fuck,” I exhale, bracketing her face and wiping the tears away with the pads of my thumbs. “Don’t cry, Blue. I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

She falls onto my shoulder, hiding her face. I take the opportunity to wrap my arms around her back as she melts into my touch.

“I wish I had known,” she whimpers. “I would’ve cleaned up after myself more. I thought you were just giving me a hard time about how messy I am. I don’t want to be a reminder of those days.”

“Oh, Ind. No, no, you’re not. I’m just teasing you about that.” I turn slightly, speaking quietly as I hold her. “I think it’s good for me, maybe. Having you here has helped me let go of some of my control.”

Indy wraps her arms around my neck, digs her face deeper into my shoulder, and tightens her thighs around mine.

“But I want to explain myself. When I say that basketball is all I have, I truly mean it. As pathetic as it might sound, it saved me even though it’s the reason everything fell apart in the first place. I was spiraling until a couple of years ago when I leaned into it. I dug myself out of that hole, I got my shit together, and put on a sparkling smile for the cameras. I stopped letting new people into my life, but at the same time, I moved my sister out to Chicago so I wasn’t alone. I started spending all my time in the gym because no one would be able to fuck with me there. I got my control back. The world expected me to be the best, so I became the best, but I wouldn’t allow anyone close enough to get a piece of it. Of me.”

Sitting up, she wipes at her face. “Why does it have to be all or nothing? Why can’t you be the best and trust that there are people out there that want nothing from you, other than a front-row seat to support you?”

“Because it doesn’t exist. I haven’t had someone come into my life who wasn’t just looking for what they could gain from me. Use me. Take advantage of me.”

Until you, I want to add. Until you walked into my apartment and flipped my world on its head, unraveling every notion I had convinced myself of. Erasing every belief I once held.

“Oh,” she chokes out, blinking rapidly. “Okay.” She nods to herself. “Well, I guess this is good news for you then. That procedure I need to have in the summer, it’s covered by insurance, so I don’t need to save up for it anymore. I can move out.”

“Wait. What?”

Clearing her throat, she tucks her hair behind her ears, composing herself. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you. God, that’s the last thing I want, Ryan, but I do want to help you. That’s why I pulled myself from my work trip. So, I’ll stay for a few days if that’s okay with you? Make sure you’re back to walking without those crutches, then I’ll find my own place.”

“No. Fuck, no. Indy, that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh shit,” Stevie says from the doorway, her eyes pinned on us. “I shouldn’t be here.”

My head snaps to her. Neither of us heard her unlock the door. Indy scurries off my lap, finding the other side of the couch.

Fuck my life. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Stevie about my feelings for her best friend, and she just walked in to find her sitting in my lap. Not only that, but my roommate is over here telling me she’s going to move out because I didn’t get to explain that those insecurities of mine don’t apply to her.

Stevie will understand. Hell, she’ll even be on board with this, but right now, I need to explain myself to Indy before she gets in her head more than she already is.

“I’m going to go,” Stevie continues, throwing a thumb over her shoulder.

“Good idea.”

“No!” Indy interrupts. “Please stay.”

She doesn’t look me in the eye when I snap my head in her direction. Indy sits at the corner of the couch, knees tucked up to her chest, evidently overwhelmed by our conversation. I’ve never dumped all that information on anyone before and now she’s sitting there with the belief that I think her living here is a form of her taking advantage of me.

It couldn’t be further from the truth.