I closed my eyes and scrubbed my hand down my face, a deep, resigned sigh pushing from my lungs. Shit, shit, shit. Lydia must have said something to him. I knew I sure as shit hadn’t. And there was no way he could have found out from anyone else since no one else knew. What did she tell him, exactly? That it started as a stupid fucking dare? That she was a virgin until that night? Until me.
I opened my eyes to find everyone’s eyes on me.
“Yeah, she told me,” he said, accurately guessing my thoughts. “Did you guys know that? That Seb hooked up with Lydia when she was only eighteen, and he’s the reason she left.”
Wyatt pulled himself up to his full height, his arms crossed over his chest. Reid scowled at me over Claire’s shoulder, looking like he wanted to rip my head off. Wes, standing beside me, put his drink down on the table behind us. Did he feel like he needed his hands free for any particular reason? I wasn’t a small guy by any stretch of imagination. I felt good about my odds against any of the Wilder men… but all of them, plus Wes, yeah, not so much.
“Listen. That was a long time ago. She was going off to New York City regardless. I wasn’t the reason she left. There was a misunderstanding that went unresolved for a long time…”
Wyatt cut me off, a quiet fury building behind his eyes. “What kind of misunderstanding?”
“Nobody misunderstood consent. That wasn’t the issue,” I said.
“You didn’t answer his question,” Luke said.
“Christ. It’s a wedding. Your wedding,” I said, pointing at Wyatt. “Why don’t we all agree to have this conversation another time. Like I said, that was all a long time ago.”
Wyatt’s gaze found Maeve on the dance floor, Veda in her arms while she bounced to the DJ’s hit tracks with Sheila and Jane. His face softened instantly as he watched his family enjoying the party. Then he turned back to me. “Just answer me this. Are you going to hurt her? Because I like you, Seb. You’re like family to me. But Lydia…”
“I’m not going to hurt her. I’m serious about her. All in, white picket fence kind of serious. I get it, you have to see it to believe it. I don’t exactly have the track record to back it up, but it’s the truth.”
“What’s going on here?” Lydia stepped up to the group, her eyes darting around from person to person before landing on me. With a tick of her brow, she seemed to get that this conversation was about her. About us. She stepped into my side, and my arm cradled her close to me on instinct. She tilted her face up to me, a challenge in her eyes. A dare for me to claim her right here in front of her family.
I lowered my mouth to hers, tasting the salty sweat from her dancing, and I wanted so much more. Instead, I pulled myself back after a chaste kiss. Already, I felt calmer, more steady, with her in my arms. I didn’t even realize I was staring at her until a voice caught my attention.
“Oh, yay! This is exciting. Are you two together now?” Maeve beamed at Lydia and me, nestling into Wyatt’s chest much like Lydia was nestling into mine.
Luke huffed and stomped away.
I let out a heavy breath. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Lydia,placing a kiss to the top of her head.
“He’ll come around,” Reid said. “He’s afraid that any wrong move is going to send Lydia packing, but if you are serious and this is a thing, then he’ll get over his issues. He’ll have to.”
“Yeah. We’ll see,” I said.
Luke was sitting at the head dining table with Scarlett and Charlie. I sat beside him while he pointedly ignored me.
“You all seem like you need to talk,” Charlie said, moving to get up from the table.
“You can stay, Charlie. It’s about Lydia,” I said.
He chuckled softly under his breath. “And Luke here doesn’t like that he can’t control other people’s lives?”
Luke shot his father a side-eyed glare.
“He has every right to be concerned. My history with women doesn’t lend itself to trusting me with someone as special as Lydia. But that’s just it. I know how special she is,” I told him, resting my arms on the table to look around Luke and Scarlett to Charlie. “Truth be told, I’ve known that for a very long time.”
“You’re a good man, Sebastian. I never knew what happened between you and Lydia back in the day that made her turn on you whenever she was in town…”
I opened my mouth, but I had no idea how I should respond to that. Charlie was cool; he was never “Mr. Wilder,” even growing up. He ran a wild house with wild kids that he struggled to keep out of trouble. But that didn’t mean he needed to hear about the details of his kid’s sex lives, even if it was eleven years ago.
“And I don’t want to know,” he said, raising his hand in front of him to stop me from talking. Good call. “She’s a strong, independent person who knows what she wants. Shealways has. If she’s happy, I’m happy. And I have to say, she’s been a lot happier lately than she was when she got back to Calla Bay.”
“I do my best,” I told him. The chair creaked under my weight as I sat back, silently waiting for Luke to say something.
Luke dropped his fork to his plate, turning to glare at me. “If you’re just fucking with her Seb, I swear to God…”
“I’m not. I’ve never felt like this, Luke. She does something to me. I can’t explain it.”
