Easton goes pale.
Heads swivel from Easton to me, and back again.
“Buck ate Hanna’s sweatshirt!” Amanda’s son Noah cries. “And barfed it on Easton’s shoes! That means they have to get together! Auntie Hanna and Uncle Easton, up in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Noah chants, and his younger brother, Kieran, joins in, with relish.
“Hush,” Amanda says sharply. “Go. Heath—?!” She sends a pleading glance at her husband, who says, “Who wants to play Flyers Up?” and then descends the deck, followed by a Pied Piper wave of children.
Gabe stares at me. Then he turns to level his stony gaze at Easton.
“Now would be a good time to tell me if Lucy’s right and I’m wrong and Buck’s prognostication is bullshit,” he growls.
I look at Easton. He looks at me. I bite my lip. I can tell the color of my face is approximately strawberry.
“I’m still waiting,” Gabe says, crossing his arms.
When neither of us says anything, he throws up his hands in exasperation. “I guess that’s my answer, then? Good to know. Would have been nicer if someone had told me.” And then, “For fuck’s sake, Easton, isn’t anything sacred to you? She works for us. She’s practically your sister.”
Even under the very tense circumstances, I have to snort at that. And Easton’s eyes snap to mine, alarm flashing over to amusement for a split second.
“Gabe, calm down,” Lucy murmurs. She has appeared—thankfully, suddenly—at my side, garden hose in hand. “Don’t make a fool of yourself. You’re the only one of us who hasn’t seen this coming like a train barreling down a track on the open plains.”
“Him and me, both,” Easton says quietly, and his eyes find mine again.
“I knew it!”
That’s Brody.
“We all knew it.”
That’s Rachel, dryly.
Lucy takes that moment to turn the hose on the deck and Easton’s shoes; he curses and jumps out of the way, then kicks off his (probably very nice, but I wouldn’t know) loafers.
Gabe, still visibly wound up, starts in, “Jesus, E, I asked you to do one thing, not to draw attention away from Bear—”
But before he can go any further, Lucy grabs his arm. “Gabe,” she says. “What did you think all the sparring was about? You of all people should know what it looks like when two people don’t want to admit how they feel about each other.”
Gabe looks from me to Easton and back again, a question on his face, but I can’t answer. My stomach is tight. I know Lucy means well, but she’s going too far, she’s reading too much in, and I’m waiting for the other shoe to fall, for Easton to say, “Luce, don’t make it more than it is. This isn’t you and Gabe. This is just a summer fling, two people working off a little tension. I’m just helping Hanna with her sex drought.”
Meanwhile they’re all staring at us, wide-eyed, a murmur still moving among them, interest and speculation and delight.
The tightness in my stomach turns to churn.
And then rescue comes from a totally unexpected quarter. “Hey,” Amanda says, suddenly at my side. “Han. Help me set up the make-your-own-sundae station?”
Gratefully, I follow her into the kitchen. I know the price of this rescue will be the third degree at her hands, but to my surprise, once we’re in the kitchen, she only bustles around, handing me things and pointing me to where they need to be. She doesn’t crow or giggle or welcome me to the family. She doesn’t shoot me knowing glances.
She doesn’t ask me anything.
Best of all, when all the sundae stuff is set out and I swallow the lump in my throat and say, “Thank you,” she doesn’t ask, “for what?”
Easton walks me out to my truck.
“So, that wasn’t so bad, right?”
After Buck blew our cover and Amanda magicked me off the porch and into the kitchen, no one mentioned Buck’s sweatshirt shenanigans again. When she and I returned to the deck to announce that sundaes were ready, everyone dashed past me to their ice cream. No one gave me so much as a knowing look or a sly sideways glance. It was like it had never happened.
“It was weird,” I say.
“Weird…?”
“Your family—I mean, aside from Gabe—was so—low-key about it. Since when do they just let something drop like that?”
“What?”
“You know how they are. All the teasing, all the wink-wink-nudge-nudge. So I was just wondering why. Why they made the kids pipe down and didn’t give me the whole song and dance.”
I was wondering, if I was being totally honest with myself, if maybe it was because they knew it had to be just a fling. If, like me, they knew Easton well enough to know that nothing more could ever come of it. Maybe they didn’t make a big thing out of it because they didn’t think it could be a big thing.
“Because they love you.”
My mouth falls open.
“They know you hate being the center of attention, and they know you hate talking about your feelings. They dropped it so they wouldn’t put you on the spot.”
“They said that?”
“They didn’t have to say it, Han. It’s completely obvious. They love you so much, and they want to do whatever they need to do to show you. I know you don’t always feel like you belong, but I’m telling you, you do. At least as much as any other Wilder.”
“I’m not a Wilder.”
“Of course you’re a fucking Wilder,” Easton says, sounding a little angry. “You just can’t see it because people hurt you. Your dad. Your brothers. Your mom, even, by trying to make you fit some image of you she had, and then by—” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know he means, by dying. “It wasn’t her fault, but she hurt you.” He draws me close. “I will kill the next person who tries, though.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Easton sound that serious. That certain. My chest feels tight. His strong arms are banded around me, and it feels like they’re the only thing holding me together. Like if he lets go, I’ll fly apart.
“Please,” I beg.
I don’t know what I’m asking for, but Easton does. He lowers his mouth to mine.
Instantly, the kiss catches fire, Easton groaning into my mouth, his hands roaming my body, pulling me tight against him. His strong thighs against mine, his cock hard between us, my hips reaching, rolling, craving more.
Voices penetrate our fog—the sound of more people calling out goodbyes as they leave the party—and Easton pulls back unwillingly, his fingertips on my face. His eyes tender.
“No one else is going to hurt you,” he repeats.
Even you? I want to demand, because I’m starting to understand how big and impossible what I really want is. I’m starting to understand that I’ve made it messy and complicated and that there’s pain and disappointment on the other side.
And still, I don’t think there’s any way I’ll be able to stop.
Amanda’s whole family is tromping towards us, towards their car, calling out, “Bye Uncle Easton! Bye Hanna!!”
“Bye, you all! We love you!” Easton says.
When they’re gone, we stand there, suddenly awkward.
“Uh, yeah. I should… go?” I say.
“I’m going to follow you home.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Easton holds up a hand. “You don’t have to invite me in. This isn’t for that. It’s just because I know you had a long night and I want to make sure you get home safe.”
“You know I will.”
“I want to see it with my own eyes.”
His tone brooks no argument.
This Easton, this serious, sure man, is unfamiliar and yet someone I knew all along was inside him. I knew because of all those times he was in the right place, pressing a stone into my hand, standing beside me, making sure I had what I needed.
And what I needed was him. All those times.
I don’t want him to just follow me home, give me a kiss outside our cars, and watch me walk up the porch steps.
I want so much more.