Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(24)

Emotion thickened.

“How the guy got lucky enough to marry my Beautiful Shea, I’ll never know,” he cracked with his smirk ticking into place.

“Hey, watch it, man,” Sebastian hollered with a wide smile, holding Shea just a little tighter.

“Just speaking the truth, my friend.” Ash grinned. He held his hand out in a placating fashion. “Now, don’t worry, y’all. Sebastian made me promise if I was going to stand up here and talk to you, I had to be on my best behavior. As if I could ever be bad.”

He winked and I laughed with a shake of my head.

You had to love Ash.

He sobered and glanced around at the guests. “Me and my crew? We’ve all known Sebastian for most of our lives. We all grew up together. Suffered tragedies. Made too many mistakes to count and learned a ton of tough lessons.”

Behind me I felt that severity swell, and I had the overpowering desire to look at him. To see what expression I would find on Lyrik’s face. To know what he’d suffered.

Because I knew it was there, beneath all that bad.

“But we also got to experience some of the best times of our lives.” Ash chuckled low. “Now I was pretty sure none of us were ever gonna get hitched. I thought we had an unspoken pact that the four of us were never falling into that trap. But our boy here definitely did, and he couldn’t have fallen with someone better than Shea.”

He lifted his glass and everyone did the same. “To Shea and Sebastian, may you forever keep falling together. May all your bests be yet to come.”

“Cheers!” echoed through the night, winding with the wind.

We tipped back our glasses, and I swallowed hard and tried to find even ground.

To slow the pounding of my heart.

God, I wished I could leave while a huge part of me wanted to stay.

I felt torn in two.

Shea and Sebastian proceeded to cut the cake, joking around as they fed it to each other while my little world spun on.

Tighter and faster and denser.

So close to spinning from its axis.

And it was that magnet that pulled, pulled, pulled.

I drew in a staggered breath as I felt Lyrik rise to stand behind me.

He strode around the table. His steps were long and strong and purposed, that suit clinging perfectly to his lean, muscled body. The man was so compelling, there was no looking away as he headed for the stage.

He climbed three steps to the top, grabbed an acoustic guitar from a stand, and pulled up a stool in front of the mic before he sat down.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Lyrik and a guitar would be my demise.

Frantic, my gaze flitted around the space, desperate to find a focus.

Anywhere but on him.

He cleared his throat.

I looked back.

Enraptured.

A gust of wind arose, stirring through the trees, and the twinkle lights danced above.

With his index finger, he scratched his temple. As if in that moment this bold, arrogant man felt out of place. He scanned the crowd and let his eyes land on Shea and Sebastian.

His words were deep and wispy and I felt them in my gut. “Baz…like Ash said, I’ve known you most of my life. We’ve had some good times. Victories we never expected. We’ve celebrated and rejoiced and lived this crazy lifestyle to its fullest.”

His tone deepened. “But you were also there at my lowest.”

Sebastian stilled, like he was surprised by the admission.

Lyrik’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. He seemed to have to force out the words. “I want you to know I’m forever grateful that you gave me what you did. Because sometimes one moment…one memory is more important than all the rest combined.”

Baz ran his hand through his hair and looked to the ground. So clearly he was caught up in the rawness of Lyrik’s declaration.

In the vulnerability he showed.

My pulse spiked and my mouth felt dry.

“I can never repay you, but I can say there’s not a soul who deserves to have found what you did. That you got a girl like Shea to love you and she somehow came with an extra bonus of that sweet little girl.”

Kallie danced around, grinning up at Lyrik as if he was the sun.

As if he wasn’t dark and wicked.

As if he didn’t come as a destructive force.

“So tonight, I wanted to play something for your first dance.”

He hooked the heel of his shoe in a rung and adjusted the guitar on his lap. That shock of dark hair flopped to the side and across his forehead as he leaned forward.

Enthralled, I watched as he wrapped his big hand around the neck, tattooed fingers taking the frets. His hand with the rose strummed one echoing chord as his eyes dropped closed.

“To me, a song has always meant more than anything I could ever say, anyway. May these words always be true for the two of you.”

I felt a tug right in the center of my chest.

That thrill shimmered in the air.

The buzz before the strike.

Lyrik plucked at the strings and, in that moment, the only thing I wanted to know was what he kept hidden inside. For him to show me everything.

I stood.

I couldn’t help myself. My feet took me to the very edge of the shadows that hovered around the dance floor.

Drawn.

There wasn’t a soul who would have noticed. The rest of the guests did the same, gathering to watch as Sebastian led Shea onto the center of the floor. Where he pulled her into his arms and danced with her for the first time as husband and wife.