Page 32 of Wrap Around (Forbidden Goals #7)

I laugh and pull off my snotty sweater, tossing it in the foyer near my shoes.

I'm actually a bit warm right now, so I hold the new hoodie over my arm while we head into the living room.

Silas grabs some glasses and a pitcher of sweet tea from the fridge and asks about Addy.

Lily brings a box of tissues and tucks herself into the corner of the sectional.

Silas sits next to her and pulls her into his side.

I sit at the opposite end in case I need to bolt.

"She's asleep. I put her down for her nap a bit late so we could have some time to talk."

The room goes silent. Lily picks at her fingernails and I fiddle with the strings of the hoodie in my lap.

Silas chuckles. "Look, I'm the only one that knows the whole story, here.

I've been keeping both your secrets because they aren't mine to tell.

I know you're both nervous, but I know, love, and trust you both enough to have no doubts that we'll all be in a better place when everything is out in the open.

So it really doesn't matter who goes first, here.

We can flip a coin if you like, or y'all can arm wrestle, but someone's gotta start. "

Lily clears her throat. "What did you think about your hoodie?" she asks me.

I feel a little bad that I'd forgotten to admire her work, but I was a bit distracted.

It doesn't feel like the most important detail right now, but if she wants to beat around the bush a little longer, that's fine by me.

I'm damn near shitting my pants trying to think of how to say two little words that I've never actually said out loud before.

Holding the sweater up to my chest, I show my teeth in a silly grin, like anyone is taking a picture of me.

Silas snorts a little laugh, and Lily looks up at him as if looking for his opinion.

He tries to hold back a smile, rolling his lips in and nodding his approval.

I guess she really cares about how her projects are turning out…

I look down at my chest, trying to read the letters upside down. My brow furrows in confusion, and I turn the hoodie around to face me so I can make sure I'm reading it right.

G-U-N-C-L- E

Guncle ? What the fuck is that?

"I kind of figured it out on my own," she says a little timidly.

"If I'm wrong or you don't think it's funny, it’s okay—" Silas squeezes her shoulder, reassuring her that whatever she's saying is right or okay, I don't know.

"I was doing something like the t-shirt we gave you at Christmas.

This one was originally supposed to say Gruncle .

Like grumpy uncle . I thought it was cute.

I wanted to finish it before you got here, so I was working on it this morning, and I was testing out where the letters would fit, and I don't know, it just kind of hit me.”

She huffs a little laugh. “I think part of me maybe already knew, but what you said the other day before you left kind of put all the pieces together," she says, talking to Silas. I wish someone would clue me in, seeing as we are talking about me. Or, at the very least, this confusing-ass hoodie.

"What did you say?" I ask, looking at Silas. Hey, y'all, remember me? I was part of this conversation about ninety seconds ago?

"Right before he left, he was telling me that it was time.

That he needed to tell you the truth, or at least part of it, and that I should tell you the rest. I was upset, because I selfishly thought I could take this to my grave, but I realize now how much keeping this secret was hurting him.

When I asked him why, he told me you needed to know because he loves you.

" She sniffs loudly and pulls out another tissue, blows her nose, then pulls out another to blot her eyes.

"I don't know how I didn't see it before, but it was always there, right in front of me.

" She doesn't seem upset about it at all, she's actually smiling. She’s still crying, but we're all emotional.

She seems almost happy about it, which I didn't expect.

I look down at the word again and cock my head to the side, like it might help me understand if I look at a different angle.

She said it was supposed to say Gruncle. Grumpy uncle. G-R-U-

Oh.

Oh.

"Gay uncle," Silas says, humor lacing his tone.

"Yeah, I got that now, asshole," I shoot back.

I look back at my sister with new hope. I'm actually trembling, but I feel weirdly… amused. Happy. Relieved.

"So, you know?"

She nods, smirking through her tears. "Yeah, I know. Honestly, the more I think about it the less surprising it is. You two have always been obsessed with each other."

"You aren't upset about it?"

"That you're gay, or that you're in love with my husband?"

I swallow hard. "Either. Both?"

"Not even a little bit," she says, but her voice gets choked and her face falls, more tears streaming down her face.

"Yeah, you seem real happy about it," I say wryly, trying and failing to hold back my own tears. They keep blurring my vision and falling down every time I blink, and my nose is starting to get drippy too, now. Damnit.

Lily coughs out a laugh and stands to come sit next to me. She hands me the box of tissues but pulls several out before she fully relinquishes it.

"I'm just sorry. That I didn't see it before.

That I kept y'all from being happy with each other.

I knew the whole thing was fucked up, that it wasn't fair that Silas was tyin' his life to mine like that.

I've always felt guilty about it, but I still let it happen because I was scared.

If I'd known, there's no way I would have allowed him to– "

"Wait. Slow down," I say, shaking the word salad from my head and trying to make sense of it. "What are you talking about?"

Silas moves to Lily's other side, hugs her close, and murmurs against the side of his head. "He still doesn't know, babe."

Her mouth forms an O and she inhales a shaky breath. Her leg begins to bounce, and she turns her body to face me, but her gaze is directed at her hands, where she's currently tearing the tissue she's holding into pieces of shredded confetti.

"Lily," I say softly, getting her attention. "I've been holding on to that secret since I was nine years old. You put all the pieces together and made it easy for me, but I'm sorry to tell you I'm still a meathead and not a brain like you. You're gonna have to spell it out for me."

Silas raises an eyebrow. "Nine?"

"Shut it."

Lily snorts a laugh and finally looks up, her green eyes locking with mine. Her green eyes that are so like my own, like our father’s, like her daughter’s. Nothing like Silas’…

Just as I'm getting an inkling, she spits it out. "Silas isn't Adaline's father."

Silas clears his throat.

"Sorry. Biological father. He didn't get me pregnant. We've never…" she trails off, looking mortified.

I snap my gaze up to Silas, who scrunches his nose and says, "Ew". Lily smacks him, but it makes her laugh a little, which allows her to take a breath.

"We aren't actually together -together. I love Silas and I always have, but it's never been romantic between us."

"Because she accepted me. "

Suddenly the words make sense.

I look back at Silas, who looks like the weight of the world has fallen off his shoulders.

"We started pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend after my dad beat the shit out of me because he thought I might be 'one of them queers'.

Lily found me out by the lake after I'd gotten away from him, helped patch me up, and sat there with me while I cried like the little girl my father accused me of being.

Even then it never occurred to me to be offended by that, because the strongest person I knew happened to be a little girl, and that day she took me by the hand and said, 'I've got you, Silas Caldwell. Don't you worry about that.'"

Lily sniffs and reaches for his hand. "And the day I found out I was pregnant, he repeated those same words back to me.

Except he said Lily Caldwell." She swallows and gives him a sad smile.

"I was so stupid. Stupider for not seeing what was right in front of my face," she says, looking back and forth between me and her husband.

"I wouldn't have made a different decision even if you did know," Silas says firmly. "I think he would have understood."

I nod, because I would have. Even if I didn't like it, I would have absolutely understood and supported them.

"If anything, it would have been a great cover," I say dryly.

Reaching for Lily's other hand, I hold it in mine.

"I'm sorry for hiding from you. If I'd been honest and trusted you, then you would have felt you could trust me with your secret, too.

And hell yes, I would have helped protect you.

I'm so sorry I hid the truth, and that I left when I found out. I thought…"

I shake my head, thinking about how different our lives could have been if we'd all just trusted in each other.

The people that we knew and loved the most were the ones we were working the hardest to hide ourselves from.

None of it makes any sense, except that we were afraid.

It's hard to trust that someone else won't judge you when you're too busy judging yourself.

"He thought that I'd betrayed both of you," Silas says, finishing the thought I'd left open when my mind went off in another direction. I dip my chin to tell him it's okay to tell her the rest.

"Don't feel bad for not seeing what was right in front of you, because neither of us saw it either.

Not until the same day that we told your parents about the pregnancy.

We'd been out swimming, I think you'd gone in to take a nap, or you were feeling sick or something.

And it just happened. We kissed, right there on the bank where everything else important happened in our lives.

I think maybe I was in shock. It didn't feel real.

A million thoughts ran through my mind, and at the same time there was nothing but empty air in there.

Everything felt muddled and confused. I questioned if it was just a curiosity thing.

I all but convinced myself that I'd forced myself on you and you just laid there and took it because you didn't want to hurt my feelings," he says, looking at me.

"A big part of me wondered if I'd made the whole thing up, because I was scared, too.

Everything was about to change, and there wasn't a thing I would have done to change it.

So I walked around in a haze for the next few hours, and then suddenly we were standing in front of your parents.

That was the moment I knew I'd made a mistake, not about claiming Addy as mine and marrying you," he says quickly to my sister.

"But I didn't find a way to warn you about what was going to happen.

I didn't give either of you a chance to bring each other into the fold.

Gideon didn't know that you knew I was gay, hell we never had the conversation or said the words, so he didn't know it for sure either.

All we had was that one kiss, and then I dropped a bomb on him without warning.

And because I couldn't tell you what had happened with Gideon without outing him, I couldn't tell you why he was so upset.

And then you were gone," he says, looking back at me again .

"I should've given you the benefit of the doubt," I say. "I was all mixed up about it."

I don't say that in the hours between the kiss and the bomb, as he called it, I'd made a whole plan for us to escape that place.

I didn't trust that we'd be safe there, that either of us wouldn't be beaten or brainwashed against the other, or at the very least we'd have to hide and look over our shoulders every moment for the next year or however long it took us to get away.

I'd researched how to get our GED's, called a friend that I knew would be safe to stay with while we looked for jobs and somewhere to live.

The entire plan I'd used to run away on my own was concocted to escape with him.

Originally the plan was to do it all over the summer, but my friend in Knoxville was willing to let me come right away when I called and said I needed help.

Even if I'd waited, the plan would have had to change, but we would have been better off, sticking together and protecting each other.

I look at Lily. "No matter what was happening with us or how mixed up I was, I should never have left you there.

We all missed something that was right in front of us when it comes to me and Silas, but I knew you didn't like it there.

That you weren't able to be yourself. That that church would wear you down, especially once you'd gotten married and had a baby. "

"I had Silas," she says. "But it really doesn't matter what we would've, should've, could've done. What matters is that we got here eventually. And we can start making all this right, starting today."