Page 176 of Wreck Me

28

~Sebastian~

“We really don’t have to do this, Bastian.”

“Of course we do.”

“You’re missing a class because of this. If we head back now, you can still make it.”

“We’re not heading back.”

When she didn’t respond, I shot a look over at her in the passenger seat of my Lexus.

So damn beautiful. She was decked out in the exact same outfit from back when I’d first laid eyes on her in the Luxe parking lot.

The studded blue leather jacket with a silver tank underneath that had a metallic look to it, just like the butterfly chain belt looping through her bootcut pants. Her blue and silver hair was down, those gorgeous loose curls flowing down past her shoulders.

She looked sexy as all fuck and it took me a moment to move past it—and the sight of her actually being in my car with me. For the first time.

Because of all the secrecy and doing everything I could to keep her out of the spotlight, we’d never traveled together. Even when we’d been photographed getting it on down that backroad, she’d ridden on her motorcycle and I’d come in my car—in two different directions too.

Today I’d made an exception, though.

I’d picked her up a couple of blocks from Luxe, outside of the view of anybody and then where we were headed there were a load of backstreets. I’d mapped it out and I could drop her half a block from our destination, park the car, then meet her moments later through the side entrance. And once we were inside it wouldn’t matter because it would just be us. I’d seen to it. Well, with a little help from Cas.

She knew where we were headed, so I’d expected her to be stoked.

But here she was slumped in the seat and staring pensively out the window as she curled a lock of her hair around and around her finger over and over—a clear stress response.

Looking between her and the road, I reached out and rubbed her thigh. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to see the place? I thought this surprise I sprung on you earlier would be a good one? Did I… miscalculate?”

She turned from the window to look at me and smiled, but it was only half-hearted. “No, sweets. It’s a great surprise. Thank you.”

“Is this about your mom’s reaction?”

“A little,” she admitted.

“Sky,” I pushed.

Proving just how far we’d come, she didn’t get defensive or evasive to hide her vulnerability, and instead she told me, “To say she didn’t react well is an understatement. So, yeah, it’s bothering me. More than a little.”

Yeah, she’d told me all about it. It probably hadn’t helped that they’d had the conversation in the middle of the night where cooler heads weren’t exactly known for prevailing. But it had still been a bitch of a reaction even with that factored in. Not only hadn’t her mom been happy that Sky had found her way again, she’d laid a whole guilt trip on her about being flaky and just flitting from thing to thing without any direction. She’d even accused her of wasting her time and that of Maria’s peers, those involved in an apparent internship that Maria had gotten her without her knowledge, and then a bunch she’d had Sky connect with at that stupid-ass, overly stuffy convention.

Apparently, Maria’s reaction, especially the fact that she was still freezing Sky out days later, hadn’t gone over well with Frank Bennett either. The two of them weren’t talking and he was even sleeping in one of their spare rooms.

“She was wrong, baby. You’re not moving from thing to thing. You’re just moving back on the path you were previously on before all that shit with that motherfucker derailed things for you. You have clear direction, you have since you were a teenager from everything you’ve told me and, yeah, from Cas’s research on you too.”

“I appreciate you saying that, but—”

“But nothing. She’s just pissed that you’re not following in her footsteps. People like them, like our moms, they’re all about the legacy, but it doesn’t always fit, doesn’t always work like that. We’re not all carbon copies of our parents. Not all of us want to be, nor are we built to be.”

A smile spread over her face and then she was grasping my hand on her thigh. “You know just what to say, huh?”

“Well, it took me long enough to get to this point of actually saying the right thing, didn’t it? I’m glad I finally made it.”

“You have. You’ve gone beyond.”

“So, let’s focus on the positive. You’re moving forward again—in all areas. Your career path, Onyx, and us. It’s all good. Don’t let external factors fuck all over that. Believe me, I’m the leading authority on how to handle that shit. I spent so long allowing it all to get to me, to dictate my life, to rule me. All it ever brought me was pain, Sky. I don’t want that for you.”

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