Apply _pathless.tsx layout to index.tsx?

Hi there

I am wanting my index route to situate without a nested layout. I use a

_main.tsx

_main.tsx

layout to wrap a number of pages and these pages are split into two sub layouts which process auth status,

_protected.tsx

_protected.tsx

and

_unprotected.tsx

_unprotected.tsx

. I want the index of my route tree (

) to situate within the

_protected.tsx

_protected.tsx

layout. How can I accomplish this? Prefixing

index.tsx

index.tsx

with

_protected.index.tsx

_protected.index.tsx

does not seem to work. Any help is appreciated!