Page 38 of Destined For Forever

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but seeing them is almost making me feel more homesick than usual. Through a computer screen I don’t see the details, you know? But seeing them in person, it’s like… I’m confronted with how much time has passed. The years are going by so quickly.”

“Time is funny like that,” he replied. Didn’t he know it—the year he’d spent away from Zoey had felt like mere days. But time lost meaning when you were numbing yourself with work and partying and trying to pretend you were someone else. “We spend our childhoods counting down the days to the next birthday, always wanting to be older. Then when we’re older, we wonder why it all moves so fast.”

“That’s very poignant.”

“For a salt-water-drenched slacker.”

“Exactly.” She pressed a kiss to his chest. “Don’t worry, I know you’re much smarter than you let on.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That a fact?”

“Uh, huh. You don’t like to people to have expectations of you, so you play down your skills in order to fly under the radar.”

Oof.

The assessment was painfully astute. Low expectations formed part of his protective shell—along with things like his breezy smile and laid-back attitude and his reluctance to set goals. If his own mother had never believed he would amount to anything, then there must be some truth to it. It was better not to get anyone’s hopes up and risk disappointment.

“Okay, Miss Smartypants. What skills do I downplay?” Despite knowing this was a dangerous line to walk, his curiosity got the better of him. Just how well did Lily know him?

“You always used to make out like you were bad at maths, but I saw you working at the surf club’s charity barbeque multiple years, and you added up sales in your head faster than a calculator.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“Yes, I did. I also noticed how you used to lean into the slacker stereotype by wagging school to ‘go surfing’ when really you were at the surf club, cleaning the equipment and reading all the lifesaving manuals.”

Now, how did she know about that?

“I saw you one time,” she replied, as if reading his mind. “I had a free period and Dad was at the surf club to do a service on their air-conditioning system. On the way out of school, I saw your homeroom teacher having a word with the vice principal about how you’d left school grounds again to go surfing. So, imagine my surprise when I saw you huddled in a corner of the club’s rec room, pouring over training manuals.”

Shit. He didn’t think anybody knew about that, except the people who worked at the surf club. They never ratted on him because he helped out, and they’d even encouraged him to get his Bronze Medallion so he could become a surf lifesaver.

But he never did. Again, having people believe in him felt risky.

“I always wondered why you never went into that sort of work,” she added. “You seemed so passionate about it.”

“Any excuse to get out of Mrs. Anderson’s English class.” He felt his defensive walls rebuilding. Nobody, aside from Zoey, had ever seen Sean with such truth and clarity. He wasn’t sure he liked it. “If I had to read one more depressing story about some farmer in the 1800s, I might have stabbed myself in the eye just to stay awake.”

Lily said nothing. She was an emotionally aware person and perhaps she’d sensed the barriers being put into place. Not everybody had the luxury of dreaming big, like she did. Not everybody could shoot for the moon and land among the stars.

For some people, when they shot for the moon, they attempted to enter outer space in a rocket made of doubt and duct tape. And he was more likely to crash and burn than he was to land among the stars.

It was easier to cruise about on earth, instead.

And yet, feeling Lily’s body gently relax into his and hearing her breathing become slow and even, Sean felt like he was floating on a cloud way above earth. Soaring this high didn’t feel quite as scary as he’d anticipated.

Over the next forty-eight hours, the rest of the wedding guests arrived, and the festivities began in full force. It wasn’t a huge event, by any means. Twenty-five people or so. Evie’s cousin on the other side of her family had arrived with her husband and three young sons. Two of Jasper’s work friends from Melbourne had flown in to do the photography and videography.

The inn buzzed with energy. Christmas carols played from the speakers in the lounge room and Ethan had set up fun activities to keep everyone occupied, including a gingerbread decorating competition which the resident bakers, Monroe and Katherine, both judged.

When the big day arrived, it was hard not to be swept up in the romance of it all.

“Oh Evie, I can only see the back of your dress, and it’s already so beautiful,” Lily exclaimed.

Evie was facing a wall in the bridal suite while her mum did up all the fiddly white buttons that lined her back. Amelia and Katherine stood to the side, helping one another out with errant bobby pins and necklace clasps. They wore matching dresses in a deep red silk, with thin straps and fluttery hems. A small pile of blush pink faux-fur stoles sat on a chair. They would keep the bridal party warm while taking photos out in the snow.

“Ready for the grand reveal?” Evie asked. Her mum stepped back, waving a hand at her face to stem her happy tears.

When Evie turned around, Lily gasped. This was why she would always write happily ever afters. There was no greater moment in life than seeing a bride on her wedding day.

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