“Sheila and Josie are helping us coordinate everything. Sheila’s good friends with the owners of the hall, so when they had a cancellation, they called her, and we were able to snag it.”
“Good for you,” Wes said. “Took you long enough.”
“Not all of us move as fast as these two,” Wyatt joked, pointing at Reid and Claire.
Reid’s brows furrowed in offense. “Hey, we were together for almost a year before we got married.”
“Well, technically, we weren’t officially together until I came back from Detroit in May, so it was more like seven months,” Claire said.
“Whose side are you on?” Reid laughed. Turning back to Wyatt, he asked, “Who’s going to be your best man? I think it should be me.”
“Why should it be you?” Luke yelled. “I’m his closest brother.”
“I was the first one who met Maeve,” Reid said, pride lighting up his face.
“I was the first one who met Jane,” Luke countered. Reid’s pride deflated like a balloon right before our eyes.
“Fuck,” he grumbled.
Luke had a point. Jane was the light of Wyatt’s light afterhe found her abandoned and alone at two months old. As it turned out, she was also the catalyst that brought Wyatt and Maeve together.
“Shut up, the both of you, or I’ll pick fucking Jackson,” Wyatt said, referencing Maeve’s little brother and Wyatt’s extra mechanic at his shop. “We are too guy-heavy as it is, apparently. Something about the numbers being off. I told her that Lydia can walk down with Wes, and Seb can pick a girl up off the street the day of, just have a dressed prepared for her.”
My chest suddenly felt tight as my pulse kicked up a notch. I looked over at Wes from the side of my eye to find him watching me too. Images of Lydia, all five foot two of her, walking down the aisle with Wes-the-fucking-giant came to my mind. She would look so delicate and small next to his towering frame. He wasn’t an ugly guy. I was sure women found his gruff, solitary ways attractive. It added a level of mystery that someone as outgoing as me certainly didn’t have.
“Turns out Maeve wasn’t a fan of that idea, go figure,” Wyatt smirked.
My lungs expanded like it was my first breath above water rather than the fifteen seconds it took for my brain to run rampant down some weird-ass rabbit hole. I changed the topic before Wyatt could come up with any other ideas that involved his sister walking down the aisle with someone else.
“How’s things coming along at the house?” I asked.
What the fuck was wrong with me? In my panic to change the topic, I picked the one thing that I didn’t want to discuss… Lydia leaving.
“Not great,” Luke answered. “We actually just came from there before we got here. Whit found a bunch of rusted pipes.I guess there had been a slow leak that corroded the metal. Now he wants to rip it all out and do a full replacement job with PVC.”
My gaze bounced to Lydia, but she was looking at the floor, a mixture of irritation and apprehension on her face.
“Sorry about that. My house is fucking old. I didn’t even know it had metal pipes.” Wyatt shrugged.
“So, what’s the plan now?” Claire asked. She turned on Reid’s lap to look at him. “We can get some furniture for one of the other spare rooms, can’t we?”
“Of course. Lyds, you’re welcome to come stay at my house since it’s going to be more long term. We’ll figure it out.”
“Actually, Letty and I put an offer in on a house the other day too,” Luke said. “If it goes well, we should be out of your hair soon. You can take over the room we’re in. Letty, would you mind if we stayed at my dad’s for a few weeks if our offer gets accepted?”
This conversation was getting out of hand. At no point did any of them ask Lydia what she wanted to do or where she wanted to stay. I opened my mouth to speak up, but she beat me to it.
“If anyone is staying at Dad’s, it’s going to be me. I’m the one who’s essentially homeless and broke, no one else.”
All three of the Wilder brothers started talking over each other, letting her know that there was no fucking way they would let her be homeless.
“I don’t give a shit if I have to sleep in a cot in the girls’ room. You can move in with me tonight,” Wyatt bellowed.
“You are not homeless, Lyds. You’re without a permanent residence because you decided to move back to town on a whim with no money to your name, but you have multiplehouses to call home. Any one of ours, plus Dad’s,” Reid added.
Including mine, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. This was between the siblings, so I just sat back and watched.
“Lydia, if you really have nowhere to stay, you can stay here.” Even fucking Wes was getting in on it, as much as it clearly pained him to do so.
