Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
SIERRA
ONE LOOK AT those amber brown eyes and the smile he reserves just for me, and I’m a goner.
All the anxiety was worth it. I’d drown before I made this day about that and not Dylan.
Because when I met Dylan, he didn’t crawl into my mind and try to strangle my anxiety.
He calmed it with the gentlest touch and treated it like any other emotion in my mind, with pure kindness.
So, when Kian called to remind me about the vow renewal and how I had to show up or I’d lose the honor of being his new cat’s third godmother, I didn’t argue.
Though no part of me forgot the look on Dylan’s face after I read his mom’s letter.
I wanted to be there for him as his girlfriend, no matter if I was still irritated as hell at him for quitting hockey without telling me.
When we arrive at the outdoor venue in Manhattan, set up with clear tents and fairy lights, I give Dylan’s hand on my thigh a final squeeze. He exits the car, but before he can even shut it, Kian’s already opening my door.
“Thanks for coming,” he says as I take his hand, and he helps me out of the car.
“Thanks for the guilt trip,” I say.
Kian tenses. Probably recalling how he said if I didn’t come, I would make a pretty terrible skating partner. He was right. “I’m sorry if I made you feel—”
“No, you were right. I needed the reality check. I’m just surprised you had it in you.”
“I’ve been told I’m an expert in persuasion.”
Dylan rounds the car and aims an irritated look at his best friend. Kian pulls me into the tightest hug and then walks away, the gravel crunching under his shoes. I move to give Dylan back his tux jacket, but he shakes his head. I sigh, half-heartedly rolling my eyes.
“Sorry about him,” Dylan says, shutting my car door and locking it.
“Don’t be. I owe him. He’d do anything for you, you know? People like that don’t come around often.”
“I know.” For a moment, his hand lifts, as if to touch me, but it falters. His fingers retreat, and the hesitation hangs in the air. As if he’s remembering how we left off the last time I saw him. But his eyes betray him. Because he looks at me the way he does on the ice—awestruck.
Inside, the appetizers float around the room, and we stand by a far table.
We greet Dylan’s sister, Ada. She beams brightly when she sees me, and elbows Dylan, who only gives her a tight smile.
His parents are a few seats down with men I assume are his uncles and parents’ friends.
I can’t help but notice there isn’t anyone here who seems to know his mom.
She stands quietly by his dad like an accessory.
“You okay?” I ask Dylan, who’s been nursing the same glass of champagne.
“Look at her, she’s fucking miserable,” he spits out, his gaze fixed on his mom. She shifts closer to her husband, only to be nudged away. The look on her face pierces my chest and has a worse effect on Dylan.
Ada touches his shoulder, but he moves away. “This was a bad idea.” His hasty move makes the empty champagne glasses fall onto the table.
“Let’s just go,” says Aiden just as everyone else agrees.
Dylan shakes his head, anger radiating off him in a way I’ve only seen a glimpse of at his hockey game.
I step closer, my heartbeat hammering against my ribs.
When I reach for his hand, I hope he knows I’d stand by him just like he does for me.
I take the final step, my hand feathering over his fist, and his tightly curled fingers loosen.
His gaze is questioning, guilty, and somehow worried.
But then he unfurls his hand and intertwines his fingers with mine.
Relief loosens the tension in my body. The exhale that leaves my lips is unintentional, but he sees it for exactly what it is: a moment of vulnerability.
But then he looks over to where his mom watches him, and he pulls away. Ada catches my eye, and I give her a reassuring smile, but she doesn’t buy it.
Dylan stands abruptly. He must see the look on my face, because he kisses my forehead. “I just need a second alone, babe.”
And as much as I don’t want to, I let him go. The farther he walks, the more he pulls at the string in my chest that feels connected to his, and an anxious weight tumbles into my stomach. I watch his back until he disappears, and I don’t realize how long I stare until a warm hand touches mine.
Leyla Donovan watches me with a motherly warmth.
Her white dress drapes her body like a silhouette, and its lace sleeves flare out. She’s stunning. A little frail now, but I know if we were to rewind time, she’d be hard to look away from.
“With the way my son was looking at you, I knew I had to come say hi.” She holds my hand, palm up, her gaze tracing it, and it takes a moment before I see what she’s looking at.
“It’s not a tattoo,” I blurt. “Just something Dylan drew on my hand. It’s silly.”
“No, it’s not silly.” She smiles, touching the tiny retraced smiley face on my palm. “He used to draw the same thing on my hand.”
I blink. “He did?”
“I had a habit of clenching my fists when I’d get upset.
Sometimes, a little too hard and my nails left bloody indents on my palms. Dylan was young, and it must have hurt him to see someone he loved hurt themselves, so one day, he came to me with a pen and I watched him trace this smiley face on the center of my palm.
He’d say, ‘It’s for the next time you forget that you’re hurting yourself by digging your nails into your palms. You’ll be hurting him too. ’”
My heart feels like it’s been pierced by one of my ribs. My palm suddenly feels heavier than ever, and I have the urge to tattoo the damn thing on my palm.
I stare at her, stunned. “I had no idea.”
“You’re the figure skater, right? Sierra. I’ve seen you two on TV.”
“You watched our performance?”
She nods again, then stares into my eyes like she’s reading my soul. I don’t dare move. “Take care of him, Sierra. He’ll be good to you. I promise.”
Leyla steps away, her dress flowing behind her. She stands next to Dylan’s dad, but he doesn’t bother to acknowledge her as he talks to his guests.
When the time ticks closer to eight, everyone moves to the seating area by the altar. It’s been eighteen minutes since Dylan left, and I’m getting more anxious by the second. But when I’m about to call his phone again, he comes to sit beside me.
Dylan’s leg is shaking. When I press my palm into his, he squeezes it so tightly it kind of hurts, but I don’t have the heart to tell him. Aiden, Summer, and Kian are close behind us, and every so often, they pat his shoulder in a silent show of support.
Ada’s sitting on the other side of Dylan, and she seems about just as uncomfortable as him.
She’s been playing with the hem of her silk dress the entire time.
Then, when the piano plays, we stiffen. That’s when I fully see Darragh and notice that his blond hair and blue eyes are a stark contrast to Dylan’s, but they’re nearly identical in every other way.
The man’s got the same broad shoulders, strong jawline, and aquiline nose.
I think his dad is just an inch or two shorter.
Cold, piercing blue eyes find us, and he looks at Dylan, who’s ignoring him, then at me, and I kind of want to shrink into a speck of dust, but also give him the finger.
“You okay?” I whisper when Dylan’s grip tightens. “Because I may or may not have a working hand after this.”
As if my voice is the only thing that penetrates his thoughts, he loosens his hold immediately. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t realize.” He kisses my hand, soothing the redness. His mother’s words flutter back to me.
“I probably deserve it with how many times I’ve almost broken your hand in the kiss-and-cry.”
Dylan exhales an amused breath, like he’s trying to be present with me but can’t forget where we are right now. He soothes a hand over mine, so gentle, I feel it more than when he was squeezing it. “You could never deserve any type of pain, Sierra.”
“Neither could you.” We watch each other for so long, I almost don’t hear the piano playing again. But Dylan does, because his leg starts to shake, and when he turns to look at his mom, he freezes.
Her gaze doesn’t look for her husband. She finds Dylan first. Her lips lift into an almost elated smile, but then Dylan drops his gaze back down, and it’s like something hits her.
When Leyla reaches the end of the aisle, his dad smiles softly, taking her hands. She doesn’t even look at him. Her eyes are locked on Dylan, but he won’t meet her gaze. The seconds drag as the minister’s voice drones on.
And then, without warning, Dylan lets go of my hand. Before I can react, he’s walking—straight toward his dad. The guys curse behind me.
“Are you happy now?” Dylan says to his dad, cutting off the minister.
The whole place grows deafeningly silent, and the guests watch the scene like a daily soap. It irritates me that they stand there watching someone who’s clearly hurting, as if he’s the problem. Ada gets up from her seat to stand next to her brother.
“Dylan,” his mom scolds.
“You’re just like him. You both will do anything to keep up this act of being the perfect couple, yet you’re living in that apartment locked away while he goes and fucks whoever he wants.”
“That’s enough!” his dad shouts.
“Fuck. You,” Dylan spits out. That’s when his friends start to reach for him, and even as he pushes them off, they don’t let up. His dad starts to say things about his drinking, about his impulsiveness, but Dylan breaks out of his friends’ hold
“You think you’re better than me?” His dad continues with a sardonic chuckle. “Look at you. Look at your mom’s, your friends’, your girlfriend’s faces—the fear in their eyes. You’re just as bad as me—”
That’s when Dylan lands a punch square on his dad’s jaw.
There’s a collective gasp that resonates in the tent, the loudest coming from his mom, who falls to her knees beside her husband, who’s spitting blood from his busted lip.
But this time when the guys pull Dylan away, he lets them. Seeing his mom pulls him out of his anger, like he only just now realizes what he’s doing.
He finds my wide-eyed stare and looks away just as quickly like he can’t bear it.
I follow his friends out toward the parking lot. Ada is by his side, and he tells her he’ll take her home, but she refuses, saying she needs to stay with their mom. Dylan swallows and reluctantly pulls away from their hug to let her go back inside.
“I’ll drive his car,” says Aiden.
The drive back to the house is tossed with a heavy mixture of sympathy and tension.
As I reach over to Dylan in the passenger seat, he doesn’t acknowledge the touch.
He simply shifts so my hand slips off his shoulder.
Summer immediately places her palm over my hand, and even as I give her a reassuring smile, something shatters in my chest.
When we pull into the driveway, we exit quickly into the cold night air, but just as Kian pulls in behind us, there’s something harsh that settles in the air. When I reach out to take Dylan’s hand, he pulls away.
My heart sinks to the cement.
“You should go home, Sierra.”
An ache pries open my chest. I thought I was home.
“This isn’t what you wanted. You wanted things slow, right?” he says, jaw tight. “I swore I’d never be like him. I’m trying to be different, someone better for you. But the physical, violent guy you saw tonight and that everyone’s seen on the ice? That’s who I am. That’s your boyfriend.”
“No, it isn’t,” I argue. “You’re nothing like that.
You’re nothing like your dad. Whatever it is you think I should do, I’m saying no.
I’m not leaving you.” He thought I was scared of him?
Even now, with his hair all mussed and his reddened eyes, he looks devastatingly young.
My heart gallops, and I realize I won’t be able to bear it if he doesn’t want me here.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” he says regretfully.
“You didn’t. I came because I’ll go wherever you go. I know the real you, and I’m staying for him.” I want him to know I’m here for this version of him too. I’m here for every version.
“You want to stay?” he asks. “After you saw all that shit? My fucked-up family?”
“Last time I checked, you don’t tell me what to do, Donovan. Just let me take care of you like you take care of me for once.”
Something cracks in him at my words. His shoulders slump inward in a silent surrender. In the dark, his eyes hold none of the anger from earlier, just something achingly vulnerable.
“I never wanted you to see me like this,” he admits.
“Listen to me,” I say, holding his face in my hands. “You’re the sweetest man I know, and anyone who thinks otherwise can go fuck themselves. And trust me, if you didn’t put your dad in his place, I would have.”
Dylan gives a tired chuckle, caressing my face so gently, a shiver racks through me. “Can I kiss you now, or are we still taking things slow?”
I sigh. “Nothing has ever been slow with you, Donovan. You pretty much made sure that was going to be impossible. But this doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. Even if you did get me that Dale Thunderman autograph.”
“I’ll grovel for as long as you want.” Dylan kisses me like he’s tasting the flavors of a rainbow. I’m pretty sure my feet leave the ground. And I realize it’s true when he’s carrying me into the house.
Inside, his friends are sitting in silence in the living room, coats thrown on the couches and ties undone. Summer is the first to hug Dylan, and then the guys surround him. I watch how he has more of a family right here than he did at that party.
He looks exhausted when he pulls back, and then with his hand outstretched toward me, I take it and follow him to his room. I help Dylan unbutton his shirt, and he helps me out of my dress.
“You’re the best thing in my life,” he whispers against my temple when we’re in bed.
“And if you’re still second-guessing this, I want you to know that your dreams are as much for me as they are for you.
I want to see you win, on every podium, proving that you’re everything you imagined.
I am your biggest fan and your greatest supporter.
You’re destined for greatness, and I want you to achieve it all with me by your side.
It’s you or nothing for me. I love you more than you’ll ever know. ”
All the heaviness in my brain and body has forced me to push away love when it’s the only thing I’ve craved. It’s like the chaos in my head is where I wanted to stay, even when it gets too much to bear. But I guess I always thought it was easier to stay stuck than let someone see all the cracks.
But this time, I won’t let that happen. I don’t let that instinct take over. Because the way Dylan loves me makes me want to love myself for the first time.