“Sure thing. I’ll leave one by the door.” Ethan chuckled as Sean rolled his eyes. “Is there anything else I can do? I can give you a tour of the grounds or something.”
“Don’t feel you need to entertain us,” Sean said, slapping a hand down on Ethan’s back. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty to do to prepare for the wedding, and Lily and I are perfectly capable of taking care of one another.”
She gulped. The way he was looking at her right now—with the corner of his lips quirked up into a devastating smirk and mischief dancing in his eyes—she wasn’t exactly sure what kind of “taking care of one another” he was talking about.
Not the sexy kind. Get your mind out of the gutter.
Sean might have intentions of winding her up, but Lily was going to be on her best behaviour. Which meant that no matter how tempted she might be, Sean was as off-limits as ever.
Half an hour later, after they’d eaten breakfast and drunk enough coffee to keep themselves awake for three weeks straight, Sean followed Lily outside. The ground was covered in a thick layer of snow, and Ethan had let him borrow a pair of waterproof winter boots, along with a coat. Turned out nothing in Sean’s wardrobe was really appropriate for this kind of weather. Lily, on the other hand, was her usual organised and prepared self.
“Isn’t it glorious?” She turned to him, beaming. The sun reflected off the lengths of her dark hair, which fell in long, glossy strands from under the brim of a red beanie. Her breath made tiny dragon puffs in the air. “We look like we’re on a Christmas card.”
Sean walked slowly, marvelling at the perfect impressions their steps made in the snow. The texture was unusual—soft and almost powdery. It was looser than he expected, not as icy. For a moment, he couldn’t say anything. For all his joking ways and refusal to take anything in life—except his family—seriously, he was awestruck by being here.
Sean Hutcherson, the kid who’d learned how to make people laugh so they wouldn’t judge him for the fact that his mum always smelled like vodka at the school drop-off—was in a place with actual freaking snow.
He never thought he would be somewhere like this.
“Look how wonderful it is.” Lily kicked her boot through the snow and sent an arc of it spraying into the air. It fell silently back down to earth.
“It’s so… quiet.” It was almost like the snow created a hush in the world, dampening sound and making it feel a whole lot like he and Lily were two figurines trapped in a snow globe. “I think I get it now. Why people would put up with being this cold.”
Truthfully, with a few extra layers on and Ethan’s heavy coat, he actually didn’t feel that cold. It was surprisingly sunny, and even though the air was very crisp, something about seeing the sun made him feel warmer.
“Do you want to build a snowman?” Lily asked suddenly, whirling around to look at him.
He couldn’t help but smile at the delight in her dark eyes and the spots of pink on her cheeks. She looked… radiant. “Isn’t that a line from a movie?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve watched Frozen,” she scoffed. “You told me once that Disney movies were for deluded people.”
Had she catalogued every bad thing he’d ever said? Talk about a memory like an elephant. Sean huffed, folding his arms across his chest. “Find me a teenage guy who doesn’t feel the need to pretend like he hates Disney.”
“Ah, so you were just pretending. I knew it!” Her eyes gleamed, the teasing tone in her voice warming him up inside. “You loved The Little Mermaid, didn’t you?”
“I’m more of a Finding Nemo guy, myself.” He sniffed. “Although I still maintain The Emperor’s New Groove is one of the most underrated Disney movies of all time.”
“Of course you would relate to the story all about a bromance,” she said. “You were always a guy’s guy.”
He supposed that’s how he’d come across back then. Having a small but solid group of male friends, he spent way more time worrying about catching waves than his appearance, and he had a definite “don’t be weak” mentality. However, that hadn’t come from any screwed-up ideas about masculinity. Rather, the motto had been his driving force when dealing with his family life every day after school. His mother had often been verbally abusive when she was drunk, though it had never escalated beyond words. But it had cemented the idea that it was his duty to be strong for his little sister, Zoey. To be her protector. Her life raft. Her rock.
Until you failed her.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever get over the guilt of abandoning Zoey when she was seventeen. He’d left Patterson’s Bluff for an entire year, determined to prove he had it in him to be more than a bartender at the local dive bar. Determined to prove it to himself most of all.
All he ended up doing was blowing through his savings and almost ruining the one relationship he truly cared about. Thankfully for him, Zoey was a forgiving person and their relationship was stronger now than ever.
Even though she had forgiven him, Sean wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive himself.
“And you were always a girlie girl, putting on your lip gloss and brushing your hair and trying to look cute.”
Really, there was no trying. Lily didn’t need any effort at all to be the most captivating woman in the room.
“It’s funny how you seem to have this idea about me, that I was girlie and stylish.” Her eyes drifted down to the knitted mittens on her hands. They were white, with red snowflakes on them. “That was Evie, not me.”
“You were two peas in a pod.”
“No way. Evie was the confident one, and I was…” She shook her head. “I was an awkward little mouse.”
Was that really how she saw herself? Or at least, how she’d seen herself back then? It seemed totally divorced from his memories—especially the one where he’d pretended to inspect the timetable stuck to the inside of his locker door, when really, he’d been watching her walk down the high school hallway, ponytail bouncing with each step and her petite figure poured into the blue and white checked uniform dress all the girls had to wear. Her legs were toned from weekends spent riding her bike around town, and she’d always had a smile on her face.
“I didn’t think you were awkward,” he said. “I thought you were funny and smart and…”
Beautiful.
Lily’s warm eyes searched his face, the sunlight bouncing off the tiny, almost imperceptible flecks of gold in her irises.
“And an entertaining pain in my arse,” he finished, pasting a sly grin on his lips. Now was not the time to be vulnerable.
“Charming,” she said drily. “Well, I’m going to make a snowman.”
“Do you even know how to make one?” he asked, watching as she bent down to scoop some snow, trying to pack it into a ball.
“How hard can it be?”
He tried to hide a smile as the snow essentially disintegrated in her hands, refusing to be packed together. Frowning, she tried again with a larger handful, squeezing tight. But the snow still broke apart in her hands. Never one to be deterred, she went back for another handful and then another.