But Indy was waiting for me when I stepped out of the shower, sitting in the chair by my desk with her legs crossed and arms folded. She cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrow. Her eyes rolled down my body, pausing at the towel around my hips, and then headed north again until they settled on mine.
“Put some clothes on, Cade. You and I need to talk.”
Right to the end I was going to try and avoid the inevitable. “What’s going on?”
“That is exactly what I am trying to work out.” She gave me another raised eyebrow. “So how about you put on your clothes and then you can tell me who the fuck Talia Bennett is and why you’re lying to me about knowing her.”
Fuck.
“It was just over a year after you left,” I started. “The club was having a party. I can’t even remember what for. But it was huge. Talia was there. She was an MC groupie who had a thing for Isaac. I didn’t pay her any attention. I saw her with Isaac a few times but didn’t think anything of it. Isaac told me it wasn’t serious. That they were just having fun.”
“It says she was a student at West Destiny High,” I said. “I don’t remember ever seeing her.”
“Apparently, she and her family moved to Destiny after we had graduated. So she was never at school with us.”
“But she knew Isaac.”
“He met her at the Greasy King where she worked after school flipping burgers or something.”
The Greasy King was a popular burger joint between Destiny and Humphrey. It was a bit rough. Not the kind of place you wanted your eighteen-year-old daughter flipping burgers for coin.
“She got fixated on Isaac,” I continued. “But he wasn’t really into her. He banged her a few times but he wasn’t interested in anything long term. So when I saw him drunk and kissing her, I confronted him about it. Asked him if he thought it was a good idea.”
I cleared my throat. I remembered the night all too well. Alcohol had made me morose because the sting of losing Indy from my drunken, drug-fueled partying was still fresh in my mind.
“He told me it was one last bang for the road. Joked how good she was at giving head. I told him he was playing with fire, but he wouldn’t listen. He told me to back off, and I figured he was right. I mean, who was I to go around giving advice about women? I had just lost mine because of my dick. So, why should he listen to me?” I sighed and shook my head, hating the memories seeping into my brain. “I was young and didn’t trust my instincts. But I should have because something told me this wasn’t going to end well.”
“What happened?” Indy asked.
“It was really late. The party had wound down. Isaac and I were in the bar with Tex and Irish sucking back a few more beers and talking shit. Talia wandered out from God knows where, wearing nothing but her bra and panties. We were very drunk and high, and Isaac started going on about how good she was in bed, and how good she was at giving head—”
Indy sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes. She knew where I was going with this story.
“I guess Isaac wanted to show off a little. So he encouraged her to show everyone. One by one.”
“Oh, Christ, Cade.” Indy pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
“Not me,” I added quickly. And it was the truth. “But the others, yes.”
“Not you?”
“I told Isaac it wasn’t a good idea. And I told Talia that she should just leave. Get in a cab and get as far away from the clubhouse as possible. But you know what she said? She looked me in the eye and said, ‘I want to do this, Cade. After all, isn’t that what a good old lady does?’”
I hated the memory. And I didn’t get it. Why would any girl want an old man who shared her around?
“I told her, ‘Isaac ain’t taking an old lady anytime soon.’ But she told me she was making sure he would make her his old lady. I told her I was calling her a cab.”
The years peeled away and I was that twenty-year-old boy standing in front of a scantily clad Talia Bennett.
“You should go home, little girl.”
“And unless you want me to suck your cock, Cade, you should go to bed.”
“I can’t make you leave, but if you stay, you’ll be making a huge mistake.”
It was the last thing I’d said to her.
“What happened?” Indy asked, bringing me back to the present.
“They didn’t all just get their dicks sucked. They all fucked her. Isaac, Irish, Tex, too.” I shook my head. “Or so Isaac told me later. I didn’t hang around.”