by Ciara Cole
Indiana had no idea what she was even saying and could tell the blonde looked lost as well. At least she seemed to get the message and went slightly pale.
“Whatever,” she said doubtfully and with a shake of her head walked quickly away from them.
“Well!” Indiana spun to face Max with a grin. “I guess this is how I become your wing-woman. But no need to thank me, no need at all. It’s just me paying back for your help earlier at the store.”
He looked at her. “Wing-woman? I thought you said I was taken.”
“But not by me,” Indiana purred, wagging her finger in his face. Oh, she liked teasing him, she realized.
***
God, she was beautiful.
That’s all Max could think of. From the way her ample, curly dark hair grew around her face and shoulders, to the way her deep brown eyes shone in the artificial light. He couldn’t stop staring at her smooth, even-toned chocolate skin. Max just wanted her on his lap, kissing him with those plump, rosette lips. He wanted to feel every inch of her soft, warm skin, but she was Drew’s sister, and she didn’t seem to have an interest in Max whatsoever.
But damn. The way she spoke was so sexy he wanted to be all over her. To play with her dark curls, the tips laid over her breasts that were the perfect size, a handful. She had the body of a dancer, and maybe it had to do with the yoga she was into…her body proportionate, lithe and sloping with curves that turned Max on so much.
He’d need a special license for the things his mind wanted to do to her. But Max wasn’t fooled into thinking this was just a purely sexual interest on his part. There was something deeper, something unique to someone like him so used to giving in to the physical.
Something about Indiana drew Max in and blurred out everyone in the room. Just like the very first moment he’d seen her in that store.
Just the way she carried herself, and the aura of innocence and confidence that belied her figure that was all woman and sexy, had Max staring. God, he felt like a sappy high schooler. He couldn’t help that he was infatuated.
Max had never had a problem getting girls, as evidenced by being hit on by the blonde. He shared an apartment with his best friend Liam, who was also into fitness and gaming like Max was. Both were guilty of bringing girls to the apartment all the time, meaning that Max had no problems getting sex either. Recently however, he’d been focused on far more important stuff, and so it had been a while.
So that was Max Stafford getting through life smoothly–until he met Indiana.
***
Indiana walked away from Max with a small smile and was immediately cornered by her roommate and best friend Macy, who asked in earnest, “Who was that handsome guy? Where can I get one?”
With a shake of her head, Indiana turned and went striding off to the kitchen for more ice.
Macy followed on her heels as they wove through the crowd. “He likes you.”
“Not in the way you think.”
“It’s exactly the way I think. I saw the way he was looking at you. Like you were the only girl in the room.”
Indiana gave a nonchalant shrug. “He’s Drew’s friend, and that makes him off-limits. That’s if I was even interested. I just think he’s nice.”
“Nice? With his Chris Evans-looking self, he’s beyond nice to the stratosphere of insanely hot! I don’t know what’s wrong with you! Girl, just because you’re a virgin should not make you senseless to some hunky vanilla goodness.”
“Shut up.” Indiana spun and faced her best friend. “And I’m not a virgin. Just uptight. Enough to know that Max is way too much exploration for me.”
“Why? Because he’s white?”
Indiana wished that was all it was. But it went deeper than that to the guy himself.
Indiana was willing to see him as just a friend. For the past three years she’d been on a one-woman mission: to make it through college. Romance had never featured in her plans.
***
She would never have dreamed that over the next many months, she and Max would end up being closer than close. She did play his “wing-woman” a few more times. He’d be at the library or in a gathering on campus and would text Indiana to come bail him out from some unwanted female’s overtures. In minutes Indiana would show up, pretending to be his girlfriend again.
Max and Indiana would laugh it off later, and she’d make a show of complaining about how many times she’d had to play the role of “wing-woman.” Once, Max surprised her and suggested that one way was for her to simply become his girlfriend for real. Indiana just laughed it off, not taking him seriously.
Never would Indiana have guessed that in the end…Max would steal her heart and claim it as his forever. He would be the one to show her what it was to be a real woman.
Indiana had lied when she’d told Macy she wasn’t a virgin. She’d only shared a few kisses and tepid make-out sessions in the past. A year after she first met Max, Indiana gave him her innocence. At that point, she didn’t even know the meaning of the thrilling emotions he awoke inside her that magical night – one that would catapult her body into a new sensual orientation.
Three weeks after their night together, Indiana chose to go with Macy on a trip they’d only dreamed of since they were freshmen. They’d booked it a year ago and had been saving for it, and finally the day arrived and Indiana had to leave.
Who would have imagined that in going to find herself in the exotic menagerie of India, she would lose the heart of the one man she’d ever truly loved.
***
It was two weeks after they first met before Indiana saw Max again. She’d just finished a class and walked up the stairs to the first floor to get to her second class. A huge window ran down the hallway, and it overlooked the field where the soccer team practiced. The team was undefeated and had won games around the globe. Indiana spotted her brother with his Mohawk-style fade. He was walking over to where the water bottles were. A group of his team came from behind him to sit down. Drew tossed a bottle to a figure standing across throwing the soccer ball in the air.
It was Max. He deftly caught the bottle in his free hand. One of his team mates came up to him and then saw Indiana standing at the window. He tapped Max on the shoulder and pointed in her direction.
Max quickly turned around and grinned straight at Indiana, sending her a wave.
Oh look at him, acting all cute and innocent, thought Indiana. She knew for a fact that he was far from innocent, but no denying it, he was cute especially in that soccer jersey and those shorts.
Indiana’s smile was bigger than she’d planned, and she definitely hadn’t planned on waving back happily like a girl with a crush. Feeling dumb, she hastily spun around and headed to class.
***
Max followed Indiana with his eyes until she disappeared somewhere beyond the window. He turned back around only to see his pal Hector grinning.
“What?” Max took a drink of water, arching his eyebrow at Hector.
“Nothing. Just didn’t know you got down like that,” Hector said with a smirk.
“Get down like what?” Max asked curiously.
“With a black woman,” Hector said and laughed.
Max’s eyebrows knitted together, and he glanced quickly at Drew, who was busy talking with the others and hadn’t overheard or noticed Max’s exchange with Indiana just earlier.
“Anything wrong with that?” Max growled and saw Hector’s smile fade.
“Nothing; nothing man! It’s just the same as if I saw you with a brunette or redhead. You’re more into blondes as much as I know. Look, I’m sorry if …”
The whistle interrupted their talk, causing all of the players to get back to practice. Max thought about what Hector said and didn’t relish feeling offended. Why would it seem like a joke that he was interested in a woman of color? Indiana wasn’t his usual type, which was mostly the blonde variety as Hector pointed out. He’d be the first to admit that, but Indiana didn’t even fit any kind of mold Max coul
d think of. Her color was part of what she was made of, but he didn’t see it when he thought of how she made him feel.
Later, he was in the food court eating a burger with friends from the team and joking around. The cheerleaders came over and talked with the guys, and one of them was the blonde beauty from Drew’s party. She came over with her blonde locks in waves and light blue eyes twinkling before she grabbed his arm.
“How are you, Max?”
“Fine,” he snapped and tugged his arm from her razor-edge nails.
“Let’s just cut right to the chase. How about us going on a date Tuesday?” she asked.
“Gaby, I think you know my answer to that.”
“Oh really? Let me guess. You’ll call that black chick and make her pretend to be your girlfriend again,” Gaby said with a smirk. “I may have fallen for it the first time, but I’ve got my sources, and they tell me you two definitely aren’t dating.”
“You need to update your sources,” Max informed her, taking one last bite of his burger and dumping it. “And tell them I’m working on it.”
Gaby began to splutter, and he knew he’d shocked her yet again. He’d even shocked himself. But he didn’t care who knew his intentions or what they thought. The issue of race or whatever would never stand in the way of what he wanted, and that was Indiana.
But then they did say, be careful what you wish for…
Chapter Two
FOUR YEARS LATER
After a few heartbeats, he felt her kissing him back.
He captured her mouth hungrily, his hands tightening on her waist as he crushed her to his body. This was where she belonged. To him. With him. Indiana was his to cherish, to claim. And he would never give her up…
Max Stafford woke up in a cold sweat. The last wispy threads of his dream wouldn’t let go, just like the memory of Indiana never truly seemed to evaporate even after four years.
He swore he no longer had feelings for her, yet he’d dreamed of her every other night for months. She was never far from his thoughts from day to day. Why couldn’t he let go?
Or was it that he couldn’t forgive her for how things had ended all those years ago?
Maybe it was himself he couldn’t forgive. He shouldn’t have let his ego come between them. They’d been so inseparable in college. Both had been health and fitness freaks, and had had big dreams to go into business together when they graduated. They’d talked about a health and yoga retreat, an athleisure clothing line, and even co-authoring a book or two. Perhaps they’d have achieved success together and even been married with plans to have a baby by now.
Indiana was the only girl he’d ever truly loved. But Max knew it wasn’t healthy to dwell on the past.
Besides, it was she who’d left him to visit India right before they were meant to move to LA together. In her eyes, the trip to India was a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel for a month to see a spiritual guru with a girlfriend and have an adventure. They’d had a fight at the airport, and Indiana had told him she wasn’t sure about their relationship anymore.
Indiana was always like that–flighty and always making life decisions without him to suit her “bohemian” carefree lifestyle. It infuriated him, which was what had inevitably led them to getting into a huge fight when he’d dropped her off at the airport that fateful day.
Max had never imagined that would be the last time they’d ever see or speak to each other.
Guilt. That was all it really was, Max firmly decided as he threw off the crumpled sheets from his otherwise nude body. There was no way he could still be in love with Indiana Hart. For a long time after they met, he’d known the feelings had been one-sided and Indiana hadn’t really seen him as a lover but a friend. One night had changed everything, and finally she’d given her heart and body to him. Or so he’d believed, until she’d chosen her best friend over him and traveled to India.
Max didn’t want to think of it anymore. Or of the angry words he’d said to her…which had Indiana telling him that maybe some space between them was a good thing, as she wasn’t sure she wanted to be with him anymore after his outburst.
Subsequently, Max had told her he'd decided he wasn’t going to wait around for a month either to see if she still wanted to be with him when she returned to the States.
If only he’d seen ahead to how things would play out, would he have taken a different stance and been more reasonable and understanding? They wouldn’t have fought, and Indiana wouldn’t have cut all ties with him at the end.
It was useless recollecting things over and over. At age twenty-eight, Max Stafford had the world at his feet. He’d developed a fitness app two years ago that had gone global, turning him into a billionaire. Now he had a fitness brand, a chain of gyms, and a clothing label.
No one had better luck with women than him. Now he reveled in his playboy womanizing lifestyle. He’d even featured in several of his famous singer ex-girlfriend’s song clips and currently was seeing one of the most beautiful, young and sought after supermodels. It wasn’t going to last more than a few weeks, just like all of his past affairs with celebrity girlfriends.
They always knew the deal going in, and there was no chance of hard feelings afterwards as long as Max played his cards right. He was indeed notorious for remaining best friends with his exes and even sometimes went on trips and to events with a few of them together. Only someone like Max Stafford could get away with that.
Thoughts of settling down, finding “the one” and starting a family were still far from his mind. Incredibly, life had its own plans, and Max would come to discover that not everything lay within his control. And that even with all the money, fame and women in the world, a man could still be lacking.
Deep down, Max had a few pieces of himself still missing. He just never would have imagined what form those pieces would take, and how they would constitute the very essence of what was truly important to a man. A family, a future. What were the chances they could be waiting just around the corner?
***
“Indy, you have to go,” Indiana’s best friend Macy said.
“No I don’t. I know it’s been four years. But I’m not ready yet,” Indiana replied.
“Aw, Indiana, come on. We both know that you want to go. In fact, you need to go.”
“Oh, and why’s that?” Indiana asked.
“Because Max deserves to know.”
Indiana’s head snapped up to look at Macy. Indiana knew her best friend was right.
“In case you don’t recall, Macy, I tried to tell Max.”
It was three years ago…Indiana had just gotten back from her trip to India with the big news she’d been keeping with such excitement and fear….
It wasn’t that long since she’d found out she was pregnant during her trip to India. She remembered waking up in a Delhi hospital and wondering what she was doing there.
It had been two months of hiking and sight-seeing at the palaces, temples, shrines, waterways and trails of India. The first ten days of their trip, they’d spent in the home of a famous guru. It had been pure, beautiful and memorable to experience that simple life of spirituality with hundreds of other visitors who came from around the world to stay at the guru’s home, or ashram, for as long as they wished.
Only that morning, Indiana and Macy had wandered the streets of Bundi and were visiting the Hindu temples with the local guide. Indiana couldn’t remember a thing after that.
Macy had stood beside her hospital bed looking frantic and explained that Indiana had fainted during their tour of Ranakpur Temple.
“Don’t move too much,” Macy said with concern, leaning forward quickly to push Indiana back down on the pillows.
Then the doctor came in, and he had on a smile.
He held up his clipboard. “Looks like our sleeping princess finally woke up.” The nurse with him went around adjusting things, but Indiana’s attention was fixed on the amiable looking doctor who added, “We ran some blood tests, since you probably
don’t remember coming in and out of consciousness. Now, have you been sexually active?”
Indiana froze, her eyes straying to Macy who then offered to leave the room.
“No, it’s fine. I want you here,” Indiana said, afraid of being alone even in the bright, welcoming hospital room. She felt scared of what the doctor might be leading up to.
Finally, she mumbled, “Um, just one time, a while ago.”
The doctor bobbed his head and then glanced through the papers on his clipboard. “Have you been feeling ill, even before you fainted?”
Indiana was thoughtful for a few moments, then nodded. “I did notice I kept getting sick.”
“Nausea and vomiting?” the doctor asked.
“Yes. It was only a few times, and I just put it down to my body reacting to a foreign country’s food and water. Oh, I also got really, really tired all the time.”
The doctor bobbed his head thoughtfully. “As much as fatigue might be a factor, the reason for your present condition is due to the life growing inside you as we speak.”
Indiana stared at him and cupped a hand behind her ear in almost comic disbelief. “The what?”
The doctor chuckled and proceeded to calmly pinpoint his meaning with, “You’re pregnant.”
Once the words came out, the sound of plastic hitting the floor jarred the air, coming from Macy who, in shock, dropped the cup of water she’d been bringing to Indiana.
Indiana felt just as dazed, but nothing prepared her for what came next. The doctor suggested she do a scan, after which it was discovered she was three months pregnant with twins…
Indiana expelled a sigh as she shook out of those memories. For those few weeks in India before she’d found out she was pregnant, Indiana had enjoyed days of mystery and magic. Indiana and Macy had made sure their itinerary benefited the local traders, using accommodations maintained by local villages and purchasing fresh items locally. At the countryside accommodations where they sometimes stayed, they’d shopped at the local vegetable market.
But she’d missed Max every day.
She’d felt guilty about the last time she’d seen him and their heated conversation when he’d met her at the airport before she set off. Since then, it had been impossible to call or email due to bad reception in the remote locations they visited.
