Chapter 12
Sia
Sia had never attended two weddings so close together before. It felt like living inside someone else’s life with all the flowers, music, and promises.
The first wedding had softened her emotions to the fairytale called love. The second had just broken her heart for all that she would never have.
Watching Pavel look at his bride as though she were some kind of miracle had stirred something tender and foolish inside Sia’s chest. Something that had no right to bloom and became obviously clear that she had lost the opportunity to find.
And then there was the dance. She had replayed it more times than she cared to admit. The warmth of Lucas's hand and the way his fingers tightened slightly at her waist. The way she had fit in his arms like they were meant for her.
The way his gaze dropped to her mouth. She had felt it and for one breathless second, she had believed he might kiss her.
And she had wanted him to. That was the most dangerous part. She wanted something that wasn’t hers. The desire had caught her off guard.
But he had pulled away because, as Sia told herself, it was appropriate. Still, the space he created between them felt colder than it should have. By the time they returned home, the house felt different. Too quiet and ordinary after all that visible love and devotion.
Her confusion just deepened as life went on. She found herself having a private dinner with Lucas while the girls were with his mother.
The first ten minutes of dinner felt like a polite hostage situation.
She sat across from Lucas at the dining table where the staff had lit candles whose flames flickered under the ceiling fan. Steam curled from dishes that sat between them as they were left alone.
Lucas cleared his throat. “Smells good.”
“It does,” she agreed. “I’m starving.”
They both reached for the wine at the same time. Their fingers bumped against the bottle, then jerked back like they’d touched something hot.
“You go,” he said.
“No, you.”
Another pause. He took the bottle and poured, and she noticed his hand was steady. That annoyed her for no good reason. She felt like the nervous one, something she didn’t want to be.
After the last few weekends of weddings, mutual friends, too many floral centerpieces, and too much family, tonight was different. There was no buffer between them and no one to interrupt.
Lucas watched her serve herself. “What delicacy do we have there?”
The small talk was annoying. “It’s just pasta.” Sia pushed the bowl closer to him.
She twirled pasta around her fork and pretended to focus very hard on not slurping. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully.
“It’s good. You said it’s just pasta in the way people say it’s just a million dollars.”
She let out a quiet laugh before she could stop herself. “It’s just pasta.”
“Disagree. There’s something in the sauce.”
“Probably the garlic?” She took a sip of wine.
“More than garlic. It tastes like, hmm…” He frowned in concentration. “Like someone who pretends not to care about things but definitely cares.”
Her fork paused halfway to her mouth. “Are you describing the sauce or me?”
Their eyes met. “Both?”
There it was again. That faint edge of something sharper beneath his dry tone. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing or being serious. Maybe it was both.
She took a gulp of wine. Her hopes for a quick dinner and faster escape to avoid conversation seemed to be disintegrating.
The first glass of wine went down fast and she quickly refilled .
They talked about nothing in particular at first but ended up agreeing on how exhausting weddings were and about how strange it felt watching people in their most vulnerable moment promise forever to each other like everything is within their control.
“Do you think they mean it?” she asked at one point.
Lucas leaned back in his chair. “I think they mean it at the moment. I did with Dian.”
Dian. Not her. She should have expected that and let the subject drop. The second glass of wine went down faster.
Somewhere between refilling their plates and arguing over whether Pavel’s wedding cake had been dry or too sweet, the air shifted.
She didn’t notice it at first but eventually realized that she had stopped thinking about her words before speaking or checking his expression after every sentence to see if she’d overstepped.
The silence between them stopped feeling like a test she was failing.
Or maybe it was because they started a second bottle of wine.
He told her about how, at Liam’s wedding, he’d almost tripped walking down the aisle because he’d been watching her instead of where he was going.
“You did not,” she said. Heat bloomed unexpectedly in her chest.
“I did. You were laughing at something Stella said.”
“I was laughing?”
“You were. You snorted.”
“I do not snort.” She was appalled.
“You absolutely snort.”
She stared at him in mock outrage, and he held her gaze. His grin was full and real, not the restrained half-smile he wore out of habit.
Realization dawned.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “You were the one who stepped on my heel during the recessional.”
“That was an accident.”
“You nearly sent me face-first into the pew.”
“I saved you from falling,” he countered. “You’re welcome.”
She laughed and it echoed around the room. It almost startled her because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like that with him.
Maybe she never had.
The third bottle of wine disappeared as they talked. She was pleasantly warm now and the tight coil in her shoulders had loosened. Lucas had rolled up his sleeves and was telling a story about his cousin’s disastrous proposal that involved a lake and an unfortunate mishap on a dock.
Sia leaned forward with her chin propped in her hand as she watched him. He became animated when he forgot himself. His hands moved and his eyebrows lifted. His voice lost his normal, careful cadence.
“You pushed him into the lake,” she said, delighted.
“I did not push him. I nudged him.”
“You nudged him into a body of water.”
“He needed perspective.”
She shook her head, smiling, and realized she wasn’t bracing for impact anymore. She wasn’t waiting for him to retreat or for the conversation to stall. It was flowing, as easy as the wine between them.
“Why are we like this?” she asked suddenly.
“Like what?”
She hesitated. The question felt fragile. “Like we’re… different all of a sudden.”
He studied her for a moment, longer than the teasing moments before. The warmth in his eyes didn’t fade. “I believe the magic of the wine has removed our inhibitions and reluctance.”
“Is that the polite way to say that we’re drunk?”
He chuckled. “I believe it is.”
They hadn’t touched at all beyond the accidental brush at the wine bottle hours ago. But the space between them felt charged in a way that had nothing to do with proximity and everything to do with understanding.
By the time the candles had burned low and the plates were empty, she realized she was reluctant for the evening to end.
She bumped into him when he helped her out of her chair. The wine had made her a bit unsteady and she grabbed his arm to catch herself. His arms went around her and she stayed there a second too long. He smiled as he stepped back.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice soft.
“For what?”
“For tonight.”
Her chest did that inconvenient flipflop thing again.
“Yeah,” she said. “Tonight was… nice.”
“It was,” he agreed. “I have some work to finish up before bed.”
Just like that, the moment was broken. When she reached their room, she washed her face and slid into bed. The room was dim and she stared at the ceiling while the night replayed on a loop.
Tomorrow they’d see each other and the old careful distance would snap back into place. Tonight had just been a fluke, the result of too much wine.
She rolled onto her side and pulled the blanket up to her chin.
But as she drifted toward sleep, she could still hear the sound of his unguarded laughter. And she couldn’t quite decide whether she’d imagined the camaraderie or if she’d gotten a glimpse of what could be.
She woke up alone with a headache and a heartache. Lucas hadn’t come to bed, and when she saw him at breakfast, he acted like their dinner had never happened.
After finding some aspirin and letting the sun evaporate the wine from her soul, she paced the patio while the girls napped and felt something tight and restless inside her chest. She was suffocating and needed space.
“I was thinking…” she began that evening as she stood near the office doorway while Lucas reviewed paperwork. “The girls haven’t seen my parents in a while. Would it be alright if I took them for a visit? Just a few days.”
Lucas didn’t look up immediately. He turned a page before he answered.
“Yes,” he said easily. “Of course. That’s fine.”
That’s fine. He glanced up at her and she saw relief flicker across his face, subtle but unmistakable.
Had she imagined it?
She waited for more from him. For questions or hesitation. For even the smallest sign that her absence would matter. None came. Rational thought told her that her parents were the girls’ grandparents so the request wasn’t anything abnormal, but that didn’t soothe the frustration.
He nodded once. “Let me know the dates so I can arrange the schedule and transportation.”
Professional and distant. It shouldn’t have hurt because their relationship wasn’t real. It couldn’t even be called a relationship. Arrangement was the proper term. She knew that, but something inside her cracked anyway.
He can’t wait for a break from you, she told herself. You were never meant to stay.
While Sia was torn on the trip for multiple reasons, the girls, however, were ecstatic.
“Grandma can make us sugar cookies!” Stella squealed.
“And Grandpa lets us feed the chickens!” Luna added.
Even Celeste was excited for the change of scenery and the opportunity to get totally spoiled. They packed small bags with excessive enthusiasm that included stuffed animals and mismatched outfits.
Sia smiled as she let Luna braid hair. She repacked suitcases and kept her voice light, but inside, something felt hollow.
Leaving felt like relief. Relief from watching him not want her and from imagining things that weren’t there. But beneath that relief was something heavier.
Grief.
Because somewhere between duty and helping with homework and dancing under wedding lights, she had started to hope. And hope, she was discovering, was far more painful than silence.
The morning they left, Lucas carried the bags to the car and kissed each girl’s forehead. He turned to Sia last.
“Be careful,” he said. His expression was neutral and controlled.
She nodded and for a split second, she thought he might say something more, but he didn’t. As the car pulled away, the girls waved wildly from the back seat.
Sia kept her eyes on the back of the driver’s head.
Relief and heartbreak, mixed with the quiet, terrible ache of realizing she had fallen for a man who had just proven to her that she meant nothing at all.