Page 68 of Outlier

Luckily, my stepdad came to the rescue.

Gareth joined the group and took Mike’s hand himself.

“Great to meet you, Mike,” Gareth said with a smile and a firm handshake. “You’ll have to excuse my daughter; the whole day is all a bit overwhelming. I was so glad when Vicky told me she was bringing a plus one.”

I heard giggles behind us—the bridesmaids again, no doubt.

“Vicky,” he said to me after dropping Mike’s hand. “It’s good to see you, cariad.” I stepped around Mike, and Gareth walked to me, hesitating until I gave him a nod, and then hugging me quickly, and with just the right amount of pressure.

“Daddy,” Rebecca whined from behind us. “Do you mind sorting the cars instead of fussing over her? It is actuallymywedding day.”

Gareth sighed as he released me.

“Good luck, man,” Mike said to him, clapping him on the shoulder in that manly-I-respect-you kind of way.

Gareth smiled at him. “Cheers, I’m gonna need it.”

“Daddy!”

Gareth rolled his eyes and then gave me a warm look and a wink. “I’ll see you later, Vicky,” he said before ushering his daughter, new son-in-law and wife to the waiting cars.

Darrell was eyeing Mike with annoyance as he walked away.

When he caught me looking at him, he raised one eyebrow and smirked, and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine

Mike’s hand went to my lower back, and he guided me across the graveyard to his truck. On the way there, we had to negotiate my aunt Teresa, who spoke to me like she always did—as if I was mentally challenged.

Her shock when Mike introduced himself was palpable.

“A boyfriend, dear?” she said, looking Mike up and down, her eyebrows in her hairline. “That’s a bit of a turn-up with your, er… difficulties.”

“What difficulties are those?” Mike asked with an edge to his voice. “Her wildly successful career? Her intelligence? The fact she’s the most beautiful woman in any room? How kind, funny and generous she is?”

Aunt Teresa gaped at him for a moment and then, with a vague noise intended to excuse herself, made her escape.

“What’s her deal?” Mike asked me when she was out of earshot.

“What do you mean?”

“Why does she speak to you like that?”

“All my family think I’m a bit… well, my Uncle John would call it ‘touched’ or ‘a few pennies short of a pound’. I wasn’t an easy child, and, as you know, I didn’t speak for many years.” I shrugged. “It’s what Mum told everyone to explain it.”

“Bloody hell, your family’s a bunch of dicks, and your mum is queen of the dicks.”

“Queen of the dicks?” I repeated, feeling my lips twitch, and then something happened that I wouldn’t have thought possible on my sister’s wedding day, a day I’d been dreading for weeks…

I laughed.

It started as a nervous giggle, but by the time we made it to Mike’s Land Rover, I was laughing so hard, a tear had made its way down my cheek.

Mike opened the car door for me with a huge smile on his face.

Once I was sitting in the seat, and my laughter had subsided, he swiped my tear away with his thumb and kissed my still-smiling lips.

“Think that might be my new favourite thing to do,” he told me softly.

“What?” I asked.