Chapter 57
MAISIE
I’m lying in my bed with Sebastian, my stomach twisted into knots from worrying about Wilder, and checking my phone for the hundredth time to see if my texts have been answered, when I hear the front door open.
Sebastian bounds off the bed and disappears through the door.
There are only three people who have a key to my apartment, and right now, only one of them is the person I need it to be.
I follow Seb down the hallway and into the living room, coming to a screeching halt when I see him.
In Wilder’s arms.
Wilder… is holding Sebastian.
Wilder’s rubbing his favorite spot behind his ear, and even from here, I can hear my cat purring like he’s the happiest cat in the world.
Why does that make me want to cry?
Shit. I am crying.
Again.
“Baby. Fuck. Don’t cry.” Wilder’s eyes go wide, panic sweeping through them, and he immediately sets Seb down onto the couch and strides toward me.
He gathers me into his arms, and they make me feel so safe, and that only makes me cry harder.
“Please don’t fucking cry. I’m sorry I left. I’m so goddamn sorry, Maisie. I—”
“It’s n-not that,” I say with a half sob, half laugh that sounds like a wail. My shoulders are shaking, and every emotion from the last few turbulent weeks comes pouring out of me at once. “I-it’s t-that you’re holding S-sebastian. You h-hate him, Wilder.”
“I don’t hate him.”
I pull back and peer up at him through tear-filled eyes. “You do.”
“I don’t. I’m just more… of a dog person,” he mutters, and a watery laugh bubbles out of me.
He totally hates him, but I guess that maybe Seb is finally starting to change his mind.
“I’m sorry that I ran out of here the way I did,” Wilder says, sincerity shining in his eyes, mixing with the hoard of emotions I know he’s trying to work through.
As strong and unwavering as he is, a physical force of a man… expressing himself and understanding and regulating emotions are not something he’s good at.
I know this about him now.
But it still hurt for him to leave like that, when I’m right here, trying to stand beside him and carry some of the heaviness, trying to be strong for him because he’s never had anyone there to do it for him.
“You scared me, Wilder. I was so worried about you. I didn’t know where you went or if you were okay, and I just…
I was so worried.” My voice cracks, and his face crumples.
He cradles my jaw in his hands and uses his thumbs to tenderly swipe away the tears falling. “Please don’t do that to me again.”
“I promise you, I won’t.”
I nod. The ball of emotion in my throat makes it feel tight.
“I’m sorry that I scared you and that I left the way that I did.
I mean it, I promise I won’t do that again.
I just… I felt like I was drowning right then, Maisie.
I felt like if I didn’t get out that I was going to fuck up even more, and so I ran.
But I quickly realized that leaving was actually the fuckup.
I just kept picturing your face and the hurt all over it, knowing I put it there, and it gutted me, baby.
” Wilder looks pained as he says it, like the wound physically exists by the way his brow furrows and his jaw tenses.
“When shit gets too much, I shut down. I was running away from it, not taking the space to breathe. I shouldn’t have done that. ”
I reach up and curl my fingers around his. “If you ever need space or room to breathe, I understand. I’ll always give you what you need, just like I know that you’ll do that for me. Just please tell me so I don’t have to worry.”
“I swear it. If it’s too much, the shit in my head, I’ll tell you.
I won’t just leave. Just the thought…” He slams his lips shut.
“That I’ve got you in her orbit, brought you into this bullshit and potentially put you in harm’s way, whether it’s her fucking henchman or her actions harming your life, it makes me lose my head.
I don’t know how to fix this, Maisie, and I just want to protect you. ”
I step closer until we’re front to front, my arms slipping around his neck. “No one’s going to hurt me. We’ll figure it out. That’s what being in a relationship is, Wilder—figuring it out together. Whatever that means.”
He nods. “I know.”
Taking his hand, I tug him over to the couch and pull him down beside me so I can crawl into his lap. Feel his skin on mine, hear his heart beating.
He came back to me. To face this.
Just having him here, present, trying to talk through it with me, it shows me yet again that he’s trying. He’s growing.
He’s trying to work through the things that drag him down.
Still giving me pieces of himself, even when it’s hard.
“All we can do is figure it out, one thing at a time.” I hold his jaw between my hands.
“So what happens if she does sell it to a tabloid? What happens even if she doesn’t?
Where do we go from here? They’re all questions we have to work through together.
How can we make decisions that feel like they are changing the trajectory of our future if we haven’t even weighed out the options? ”
His mouth twitches with a ghost of a smile. “For someone so young, I have no fucking idea how you got so wise, baby.”
“I don’t have the answers either, but we can’t just give up.”
Wilder nods and then goes quiet.
His mind is likely spinning in a hundred different directions, the same way that mine currently is.
“Before I got back here, when I was sitting in this empty parking lot, trying to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do, I thought about telling her to fuck off.
Do what you want with the pictures, sell the shit to whoever, because there’s no sacrifice that feels too much when it comes to me.
If it means that in the end, I’ve got you, then I’ll do it.
Whatever the fallout is, it would be worth it.
” He pauses, shaking his head. “But then I thought about you, Maisie. How it’s going to affect you if I just act and not think the shit through, like I always do.
Because it’s not just my life she’d harm. ”
“But you didn’t,” I stop him before he can continue. “That’s growth, Wilder. Even if it doesn’t feel like it yet, it is.”
“You’re the only reason I stopped to think, baby.
You. Fuck, Maisie, I could pay her off. I have the money, she’s right.
I’ve got a fuck ton of it put away in savings because I never touch it.
But what if I give her the money, and she turns around two weeks later doing the same shit?
Threatening to expose us.” I can feel his frustration, and I know for him, it’s even worse because not only is his mother hurting him in the present, but she’s a constant trauma from the past too.
I hate this for him.
I hate that his mother is heartless and cruel, and is still continuing to damage him.
Wilder keeps going, the words spilling out of him in a rush, like he’s working through every scenario in his head out loud.
“If I don’t pay her what she’s asking, then she could sell the story and expose us.
People might believe her, or they might not, but the school will launch an investigation regardless.
It just feels like no matter what the decision is, it’s a lose-lose situation that makes us have to continue hiding. ”
He’s not wrong. Everything that he’s currently working through are all potential outcomes.
He’s getting antsy now, his leg bouncing, my body shaking in his lap.
“Wilder. Slow down, okay?” I say, reaching for his face again, holding his eyes. “What would happen if they found out about us? Coach Taylor, the dean? Is there something in the school policies that says you can’t date a student officially, or is it just frowned upon?”
“I’d be terminated,” he says without hesitation. “Violates the fraternization policy and the ethics code.”
My brow arches. “You checked?”
He nods. “The day we saw each other again. The first thing I did when you left my office.”
It’s probably not the right time. Actually, I know it’s not, but that doesn’t stop me from laughing.
“You looked up the policy… because you were so sure you’d break, didn’t you?”
“Always was gone for you, Sunshine.”
That warms my insides and makes everything feel gooey and soft.
I sigh, then exhale. “So you’d lose your job because of me. Wilder, I can’t let that happen. We can’t let that happen.”
A ghost of concern dances across his face, and he sighs, warm breath skating over my lips. “Baby, I’m not worried about my job. I’m worried about you. What about you?”
It’s the same question I’ve tossed around in my head since I saw the message. When it became painfully real that there could be actual consequences to our relationship. Not just for me, but for him too.
It’s not that I hadn’t thought of it before now. Of course I had. I just didn’t want to think about it.
I’ve been actively avoiding thinking about all of the things that could go wrong and trying to focus on the now. Not focus on if or what could be.
Only it’s no longer any of those things. It is now, and I can’t ignore it any longer.
I think… My parents would likely be very upset that I didn’t tell them about Wilder, and also because he’s so much older than I am, and… also in a position of power over me.
I’m sure the media would spin it far more maliciously than I can even imagine, which wouldn’t help my parents’ worrying.
Which is going to suck, admittedly.
I don’t want anyone’s attention on our relationship or misrepresenting either of us, but I would deal with it.
It would eventually die down, and people would find something else to focus on.
And my parents… I think they’d come around. Maybe not at first, but eventually. They know my heart, and ultimately… this is my decision. Who I choose to love, who I choose to share my life with.
People would talk. On campus, at my father’s church, around town.
But the people who matter—my best friend, my family, friends—they’d be happy for me.