18. Memphis

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

memphis

W hen Utah still hadn’t made it back by the next evening, I went to Indy’s room and knocked on the door.

“Enter at your own risk,” he called.

That shit paused me right where I stood with my hand on the doorknob. I wasn’t really sure if that was a safe game to play with someone like Indy.

He opened the door a second later anyway, already laughing.

“What do you need, sweets?”

“Have you heard from Utah? He should’ve been here by now.”

“Have you checked his phone?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Good. Don’t,” he said and started to close the door. I put my hand up on it to push it back.

“What?” I asked, laughing nervously. “Where is he?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t like this game,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to play. Where is he?”

“I’m not playing.”

I sighed at him very impatiently before I pulled my phone from my pocket. I’d created an app that allowed us to keep track of one another’s phones at the simple push of a button for safety reasons. I opened that bitch as quickly as I could.

But the program was completely blank when I opened Utah’s number. I refreshed it. I went back to its home screen and tried again.

Blank.

Then I glared at Indy.

“You did not shut me out of my own program,” I accused.

He scrunched his nose up before he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. I rolled my eyes at him before I went to the contacts and just called Utah.

Well, tried calling him.

The call dropped before it ever connected.

“Indy,” I hissed.

He covered his mouth with his hand to try to keep from laughing.

“You know I can get around all of this,” I insisted. “Don’t make me be that person. We don’t need to find out who’s the better programmer.”

“Damn. Making it personal. He’s fine, Memphis. He’s almost back now, anyway. Just let it be.”

“This isn’t smart. What if he needs something?”

“I’ve watched him every step of the way,” Indy said. “Just like I’ve been doing for the last few years without you . I promise he’s fine. It’s cute, though.”

“What is?”

“The way that you worry about him.”

I huffed out a disgusted breath before I turned back for the stairs. I went right back to my own room on the first floor and sat at the little desk in there to open my laptop. I hesitated at very faint music coming from…somewhere. I stood right back up to look around, wondering instantly if this was the moment that my brain decided we were going to have a full-blown breakdown. Indy was leaning against my doorframe smiling while I spun around and looked for the source of the music.

“Tell me you hear that, too?” I asked.

He laughed and came the rest of the way into my room to pull the curtains back from one of the windows.

“Have a good time,” he said and walked right back out.

Utah had his truck parked in the yard several feet away from my window. He was sitting on the tailgate with one hilariously ancient boombox in his lap. He smiled while I struggled like a dumbass to figure out how to make my hands work to open the window.

“Hi, angel.”

“What are you doing?” I asked and laughed.

“I’ve got something for you.”

“I have no use for a boombox that belonged to the dinosaurs.”

“I don’t mean the boombox, sasshole. Get out here.”

I didn’t bother with shoes. Or a door. My room was on the main floor. Utah laughed while I awkwardly climbed right out through the window.

“You know Indy hacked my phone for whatever this is?” I asked when I got closer to his truck.

“Yeah, I kind of made him do that. Couldn’t have you blowing the surprise.”

He turned the music off and sat the boombox on the tailgate so he could jump down to raise the cover of the truck bed. He dragged a giant tote from the middle of the bed toward us and positioned it on the tailgate in front of me. He stepped back and nodded toward it.

“If this is about to be a jump-scare kind of thing, I’m warning you now that I don’t really like pranks,” I said.

“ Warning me?” he asked. “We‘ll have to revisit that later. I’d very much like to find out what it is you believe you could do to me about it if this were a prank.” He stepped around me, so his front was to my back, and he leaned down to my ear. “Open it, sugar.”

I swallowed hard before I raised the lid on the tote.

And then promptly slammed it closed when I saw several very familiar book covers that featured half-naked men.

“Textbooks,” he whispered in my other ear before he chuckled. “I think you might’ve studied some very different subjects than the ones they taught in Utah.”

It dawned on me that slamming it closed wouldn’t have done much good, seeing as he was the one who would’ve packed the books into the tote in the first place. Rather than opening it another time, my eyes shifted further into the truck bed to see four other totes. I spun to face him then and he was close enough that I was staring straight up at him.

“All my books,” I whispered, like a moron. It was obvious that was what he’d done. He didn’t need me to narrate it.

“Every last one,” he said while he sent me straight into cardiac arrest by taking my chin between his thumb and index finger. Rather than risk him kissing me, I turned around and put my palms flat on the tailgate, trying to figure out how to lift myself up into the damn thing. His hands went to my hips, and he lifted me right off the ground until I could raise my feet up to the tailgate instead. I looked in every single tote while he waited quietly.

For as happy as I was to see my books after spending all this time just believing I’d never get them back, the logical part of my brain started to work when I closed the last tote. I made my way back to the tailgate and sat next to where Utah was leaning against it.

“Utah—”

“You’re about to scold me,” he interrupted with a laugh.

“What if they were watching the hou?—”

“Okay,” he said and spun so he faced me to place his body between my legs. I watched his hands land on the tailgate on either side of my thighs and realized instantly that there was no escaping this position.

“You can still scold me,” he said. “But before you do, there’s something else I want you to see too. Indy’s probably making Kyle crazy by now making him set it up and we should probably go rescue him.”

“What if you were followed back he?—”

Utah covered my mouth with his hand and stood there and smiled.

“Nobody knew I was there. Nobody followed me here. Getting in and out with perfect accuracy is just what I do, angel.”

I was lucky his hand was still over my mouth to muffle whatever fucking noise tried to escape me over his last sentence.

But the way he smirked made me think he might’ve known what was happening in my head anyway. He pushed his forehead against mine and I was thankful again that his hand was still there to keep the distance between our mouths.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get these carried in later. Let’s go save Kyle.”

He backed away from me and held his hand out so I could hold it while I scooted off the edge of the tailgate.

Then he kept his hold on my hand while I died slowly on the walk around the house and toward the detached garage.

“Utah.”

He let go of my hand when I walked around him at the back of the detached garage. Indy was barking orders at Kyle while he tried to run extension chords from the back of the garage to the small cart he was setting up several feet away. Between that cart and the giant back wall of the garage were four separate blankets laid across the grass, each one accompanied by a little cooler.

“What is this?” I asked, turning back to Utah.

“Once the sun goes down, it’ll be The Princess Bride,” he said and nodded toward the blank wall of the garage. I looked back at the projector on the cart, and then at Indy.

“I tried to tell him to just do one blanket,” Indy said and raised his hands in defeat. “That you guys didn’t need company. That one’s on him.”

The absolute flood of relief that gave me.

Until Utah stepped against the back of my body and put his hands on my upper arms.

“I’m not going to force you to be alone with me,” he said and kissed the top of my head. “Not yet, anyway.” He let go of me just as quickly and walked toward Kyle. “But if you change your mind, I have no problem at all telling these two to get lost. So, you know, keep that in mind.”

I rushed my ass right over to Indy.

“You could’ve warned me about this,” I whispered.

“He deserved to see your actual reaction to this kind of effort, sweets. Come on. Men don’t behave like this in today’s world. Trust me.”

“Then why is he behaving like this?”

“You really are adorable, you know that?”

“That’s not helpful, Indy.”

“Not for you. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun for me,” he said and patted the top of my head twice.

“You’re the world’s worst friend.”

“Because I helped him pull off this precious gesture?” He asked and laughed.

“Did he tell you what he brought back here for me?” I asked and panicked all over again at the thought of the two of them discussing the absurd amounts of smut packed neatly into the back of Utah’s truck.

“Your books,” he said and nodded.

“That’s all he told you?”

Indy gave me the world’s meanest smile. “That sure as shit sounds like there’s more to it than what I heard. He told me books , Memphis, but I absolutely want to know what it is that you’re so embarrassed about right now.”

“Hush,” I said quickly while Utah and Kyle came back toward us. That little bitch laughed instantly.

“Kyle’s going to help me carry the totes in,” Utah said. “You just want them in your room?”

“Yeah,” I said and glared at Indy. “Lock them in there.”

As soon as they were walking away, I turned right back to Indy. “Is this a date?”

“I think the idea of forcing Kyle and I to also sit in on this was his way of letting you decide,” he laughed. Then he motioned to the blankets. “And the fact that he had me put out four blankets. Not even three, which would force two of us to sit right beside each other.”