“What way did you expect it to go, Lydia?” Trihn asked.
Lydia took a step back and looked out across the water. “I don’t know. I thought…I guess I didn’t think it was as big of a deal as you made it out to be. I thought, with you gone, you’d come to see that I love Preston even though we all had a falling-out.”
“Lydia, it’s not a falling-out. It was you choosing him over me, betraying your sister for a guy. That’s not something reparable by just hoping it will go away.”
“I guess I just never realized that. I’ve had a lot of time to think since the engagement, and I wish I could change some things, like have you know that I didn’t mean for it to be a choice between you and him. I think I was just emotional and irrational at the time. I thought you would come around, and we’d all figure it out. But…well, I’m sorry, Trihn,” Lydia said. She wiped a stray tear from her eye.
Trihn sighed. “It’s okay. I have Damon now, and I’m doing better emotionally. Plus, it would be nice to have a sister again…but I still can’t come to that wedding.”
“On principle,” Renée agreed.
“Okay,” Lydia said meekly. “I wish the wedding were tomorrow though, so I could just get it over with.”
“What? Why?” Trihn asked. That didn’t sound like Lydia.
“I did something really dumb. I told Preston that I didn’t want to have sex until we got married.”
Trihn’s mouth dropped open.
“Isn’t it a little late for that?” Renée asked.
“Have you ever gone that long?” Trihn added.
“No,” Lydia admitted. “I mean, it’s just for the month up to the wedding. But, damn, it’s awful.”
Trihn laughed. No wonder Preston was in such a bitch mood. He was probably dying for some action. He wasn’t the type to wait.
“Well, good luck with that,” Trihn said, unable to conceal her laughter. “I’m having none of those issues.”
“Me either,” Renée said.
“Yeah. I just thought it would be good for us.”
Trihn shook her head. “You’re a nutjob.”
She turned back to face the beach and realized that Ian was standing between Preston and Damon. Preston looked to be fuming, and if Trihn was seeing correctly, Damon looked like he was…laughing.
“Oh, Jesus,” Trihn whispered.
She was running through the water as fast as she could and hurtled up onto the beach. She could hear splashing behind her and knew the girls were following.
“What the hell is going on?” Trihn asked the guys.
Damon was, in fact, laughing in Preston’s face. “Nothing, love. Just having a much-needed conversation with your sister’s fiancé.”
Preston looked pissed off. Trihn could practically see the steam coming out of his ears.
“Fuck you,” Preston said to Damon.
“I’ll really pass,” Damon said.
“Well, I’ve already fucked her, so have fun with my sloppy seconds.”
Trihn gasped.
Just then, Lydia ran up beside them. “What’s going on?”
Damon’s eyes turned stone-cold, and he shoved forward until he was right up in Preston’s face. Trihn thought he was going to start swinging at any second.
“I’m going to let that slide, but if you call my girlfriend a name again, I will beat the shit out of you,” he said, his voice like ice. “It’s actually pretty entertaining to see how pathetic you really are.”
“What the hell did you say?” Lydia asked, turning her eyes on Preston.
“Nothing, babe.”
“Don’t nothing, babe, me, Preston.” She turned to Damon. “What the hell did he say?”
Damon stepped back and shrugged. “You’ll have to ask your fiancé.” Then, he looped his arm with Trihn’s and started walking with her, away from the beach.
“What the hell just happened?” Trihn asked when they were out of earshot.
“He was trying to press my buttons. It just turns out that he’s the total douche bag I envisioned him to be.”
“Yeah. God, I’m sorry. What did he say anyway?”
Damon glanced over at her. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“He accused me of sleeping with Chloe.”
“What?” Trihn asked. “How the hell did she even come up?”
“He feigned interest in her health.”
“Of course he did.”
“Then, he tried to tell me that he and I were the same. And that was the wrong fucking thing to say. He got pissed when I told him I could never be as much of an asshole as him, and then I started laughing at him because we couldn’t be more different, and I told him as much. Ian tried to defuse the tension, but by then, Preston was pretty pissed.”
Trihn tilted her head back in frustration. “Jesus, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with his shit. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“Love, I can handle myself. And to be honest, it was good to see him get pissed off,” Damon said with a laugh. “I’ve been worried about meeting this guy for months, and now that I’ve met him, I’ve realized there was never any reason to worry.”
“I love you.”
He smiled. “I love you, too.”
“Do you want to hear something funny though?” Trihn asked.
“Sure.”