Afterglow

rapture

I was suddenly down the steps and my hand was in Lachlan's firm grip, his hand on my waist while we posed for pictures, and the entire time, his hand seared my skin wherever he touched me.

I sucked in a breath of air, only to be confronted with his thick cologne and mint scent that made my knees weak. His hands on my hips were doing things to my brain and I couldn't believe that I had to withstand the torture of having him so close without actually getting to keep him.

"Alright, let's head out," my mother said, and I was glad that we were allowed to ride in a separate town car, able to talk freely with everyone without the parental watchful eyes.

I didn't miss the evil glare my dad threw Lachlan's way as he helped me into the car, and smirked to myself at the sight, shaking my head as I laughed silently to myself.

My dad thought I'd forgiven him, and I supposed in a way I had. I understood why he had done it, to protect his little sister, but that didn't mean that I had to like it.

Once settled in the car, all eyes turned to me, and I realized it was explanation time.

"Well?  What finally changed your mind?  Don't tell me Lachlan did in one day what I was trying to do for an entire month, just because he has a dick that you like?"

I spluttered at Sloane's words while Lachlan draped his arm across my shoulder with a cocky smirk on his mouth, but at my raised eyebrow no-bullshit look, he quickly retracted his arm, no matter how much I missed the feeling of the weight on me. 

"No.  I just figured...it's time to stop hiding."

Not necessarily a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth, either.  I was planning to do something so stupid that if it didn't kill me, everyone else would if I survived it, but that was on me and not them, and it was a way to keep everyone else that I loved safe. 

"Well finally!  I have to call Vera and Blythe, they told me to tell them the second you finally came to your senses," my sister said while pushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear that had escaped her intricate braid crown on the top of her head, thumbing through her contacts on her phone while doing so. 

I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn't told Vera myself, but that was all forgotten the second I heard the screeching through the other end of the phone. 

Vera and Blythe weren't coming to the gala because with the animosity that both of their parents felt about their choice of who they wanted to love, they had been properly disinvited by their elders.  It made me sick to my stomach that they wouldn't be there and the reason why, but it wasn't like I could have stomped up to their parents and forced them to allow their daughters to come, especially not when Blythe's father repeatedly abused her and her siblings...

No, Lachlan, Blythe and Brandon's father was a menace, no better than my own monster of a birth father, and he needed to be dealt with too, just like how I planned to deal with mine, I just needed a solid plan to execute in order to keep him from hurting any more of his children. 

I wished I could have said that I knew Lachlan would handle it, but thus far, his track record with keeping his father in check was spotty, not like I could say I was doing any better, but at least Lachlan knew where his father lived, could trap him in a confession with his cell phone or something.  I could hardly do anything similar with mine.  

"All it took was Lachlan talking to her?!  Why didn't you talk to her a month ago??!"

Vera's screeching voice came through the speaker phone and I cringed, knowing that she made me seem like some kind of love struck girl.