Page 39 of Just One More Night

“Anyway,”Bristol said loudly, cutting her off. “Why are you interested in finding a passion? I thought you always had all the passion a girl could need or want. I thought you liked it that way.”

“Men are a passion of mine, it’s true,” Indy said lightly, because it was expected.

But a bolt of something far more complicated than need went through her as she said it, because when was the last time she’d thought about men in a general sense? She only thought about one man now. And for the past two years, really.Only and always, something in her whispered.

Even as she thought that, she was aware that it wasn’t how she operated. She would have said she didn’t have that kind of possessiveness in her, but she held on to it anyway. As if it was something precious.

Only and alwaysdidn’t scare her.

Which, really, was the scariest thing yet.

“Your passion was always academics,” she said to her sister, trying to shake that off...whatever it was. But her hand found its way to her heart and stayed there. “I don’t really think that a meaningful life is built on an unquenchable thirst for socializing. We can both agree that I’ve tried.”

“You tell me, Indy,” Bristol said. “You’ve had a million temp jobs in the last year alone.”

That shouldn’t have stung. She told herself that the fact it did meant only that she was tired. And who wouldn’t be tired? The kind of demands Stefan liked to make could take whole nights to work out.

Especially because he liked to take it slow.

She shivered. “Yes, yes,” she said into her phone. “I can never settle down. I’m not serious. Lack of responsibility, careless and undependable, blah blah blah.”

“I didn’t mean that as a dig.” Bristol’s voice was even, and again, faintly rueful. “In a way, I’m envious. You’ve had the opportunity to try on a hundred different lives without having to commit to any of them. Did none of them appeal to you at all?”

“I guess I didn’t think of them as trying on lives,” Indy said, considering. “Maybe I should have. They were just jobs that I could leave whenever I wanted. It never occurred to me that someday, I might want... I don’t know. A career. Or at least a purpose.”

There was a long silence. Indy found herself sitting up straighter, her heart pounding. Because she’d just admitted something, hadn’t she? Whether she meant to or not.

Something she hadn’t admitted to herself before.

“And what exactly has prompted all of this fascinating speculation?” Bristol asked after a moment, sounding far more intrigued.

Bristol was stubbornly refusing to ask what exactly Indy was doing, and where, despite Indy breezily saying things likeI’m summering on the Continent, Bristol.As you do.

That meant, as a matter of sisterly principle, Indy could not tell her.

“We all come to these crossroads, Bristol,” she murmured. “One way or another.”

And though she’d meant to sound mysterious, the words landed in her as if they’d been carved in stone.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” Bristol said, and again, there was that note in her voice. Maybe it wasn’trueful, necessarily. Maybe it was a kind ofawarethat echoed a little too sharply inside Indy just at the moment. “I wouldn’t dream of trying. But I can tell you that I’ve always admired your fearlessness.”

Of all the things her older sister might have said, she hadn’t been expecting that. Indy had a sudden flashback to a particular day of playing games of make-believe with Bristol in their backyard, running around and around the old oak tree that had stood there for hundreds of years. They’d decided it was their castle.

I’m going to be the princess, Indy had announced, though really, she was looking for Bristol’s permission. As the oldest and the bossiest, it fell to Bristol to make the decisions.I’m always the princess.

Bristol had looked back at her with all the bone deep weariness a ten-year-old could muster when faced with a younger sister.

That’s actually because youdecidedto be the princess, Indy, she’d said loftily.You could decide to be a wizard instead. Or a warrior. You know it’s up to you, right?

Indy could remember that moment so clearly, which was funny, given she hadn’t thought of those games they’d played in a million years. Eight-year-old Indy had stared back at her older sister, a part of her desperate to leap out into the unknown. To take on a role she’d never played before anddecideto be whatever she wanted.

But she hadn’t.

Was it really Bristol deciding to get serious about her studies that had sent Indy down this path? Or had she been the one who’d chosen it all along?

Because she’d chosen the part of princess that day, out there playing make-believe. It had been familiar. It had required nothing of her. She could have played that role in her sleep.

In a way, she’d been playing it ever since.