“Yeah, baby. We are.”
CHAPTER 59
MAISIE
It seemsimpossible that a month has already passed since Wilder resigned from his position at OU.
But I guess time flies when you’re floating on a literal cloud and the happiest you’ve ever been. Or… however that saying actually goes.
I’m deliriously, sickeningly out of my mind in love with Wilder Hawthorne.
So in love that it feels like sometimes my heart is actually going to burst from happiness.
Even though the last month has not been all rainbows and butterflies, I wouldn’t have done a single thing differently.
I would choose Wilder no matter what the outcome would be.
He chose to resign from OU the following day after our conversation, and it wasn’t easy for him. Even if he felt like the decision was. Wilder respects Coach Taylor.
But ultimately, he did violate school policies, and they had to report it to HR and document everything. Thankfully, the school chose to accept his quiet resignation without pursuing any formal discipline.
His mother, on the other hand, didn’t go away quietly, as much as we both wished that she would. She sold the story ofour relationship to the tabloids. And it did spread like wildfire through campus. Everyone connected the dots that it was actually true and not just gossip, because Wilder had recently resigned.
It made my stomach hurt, reading the headlines and articles from the media. Not only for me, but for Wilder. I hated the way they labeled him and the vile things they said about him.
Like they know the kind of man he is.
All they know is what they see: a past that doesn’t define him, one they will never understand, and a situation that’s not anyone’s business but ours.
The same thing I toldanyonewho had anything to say about our relationship.
Including… my parents.
In a much nicer, more thoughtful way, of course.
I didn’t blame them for being disappointed that I hid something of this magnitude from them, not at all. But this was between Wilder and me. It’s our life, our relationship, and I don’t owe anything to anyone.
Not my parents, not the congregation, not the people at OU.
This was ours, and no one could take it from us.
Not even the media, despite how hard they tried to spin it.
Thankfully, after a couple of weeks, the story died down when they found something more exciting to latch onto.
The one thing that didn’t work against us is the fact that his mother was arrested on a slew of charges shortly after, not only from the ones that Wilder pressed against her for blackmailing and extorting him for money and for stalking us, proof of which she so graciously provided us with her threats, but also for drug trafficking due to the amount of drugs they discovered in her possession when the police went to arrest her.
I’m calling it karma, but maybe it’s just coincidence this time. Either way, she’s gone for good.
Louisiana’s three-strike law is what ultimately sealed her fate and saved Wilder from more heartache.
This being her fourth drug felony meant that her sentence was life with the possibility of parole.
The justice system here, as flawed as it may be, finally did the right thing as far as she’s concerned.
“Baby, please show me how to work this fucking thing before I throw it outside,” Wilder calls from the kitchen, and I grin, shaking my head when I hear the low curse that follows.
He wanted to figure out the Crock-Pot by himself, so…
