Honor and Desire (Gold Sky #3) - Rebel Carter Page 0,54

scene in front of him. Seylah was happy, August was a good man, and Florence was practically weeping with joy. He wondered why she was dressed so fine, but knew the women of his house enough to know it would all come out soon enough.

“You don’t like much,” he reminded Will, fighting a smile at the sour look on his husband’s handsome face.

Will’s lips pursed. “I like you.”

“That’ll do just fine then.”

“Can I see your list?”

Seylah looked away from the stars in front of her and to the side where August was sitting beside her. Not wanting to test Will’s self-control, they had set out for Gold Sky proper and enjoyed dinner together. If any of the Gold Sky citizens observed a change in their demeanor, none of them commented on it and Seylah wondered if that had been the town busybodies’ intentions all along. She shook her head, thinking of the attention and how it might have all stopped years ago if they had only confessed their feelings sooner. Now they were in the town square, enjoying the evening air, the briskness of fall was giving way to the chill of winter and she knew that it was only a matter of days before snowfall would blanket the town.

The night had passed, enjoyably. Knowing that her fathers knew took a weight off her shoulders Seylah hadn’t been aware she’d been carrying. She let out a happy sigh, her shoulders drooping slightly at the thought that she and August were now publicly a couple, even if they hadn’t chosen to verbalize it quite yet to the town.

The townspeople would, as they always had, ask if they had questions. The people of Gold Sky were not known for their shyness, and Seylah was sure word of their changed relationship would soon be common knowledge. A passing couple gave them a knowing smile as they exchanged “good evenings” and Seylah wondered if maybe the reason no one had commented was for the very fact that, well, perhaps the town already knew.

She was staring after the couple and turning this thought over in her head when August touched her shoulder gently. “Seylah?”

She blinked and looked at him. “Pardon?”

“Your list,” he tried again and held up a folded piece of paper. “I have mine if you’d like to see it.”

“My list, right, right,” she murmured, hands going to pat at her coat pockets. “It’s not a long list, or a very detailed one,” she said, retrieving the piece of paper and hesitating before she held it out to him. “My sisters had ideas for it but…” her voice trailed off when he took the piece of paper and passed her his own, “it was determined it was, ah, fine as it was.” She looked away and took August’s list into her lap.

Why she was suddenly nervous to share with him, she didn’t know. It was a basic checklist of requirements that were, at their core, mundane and simple. There was nothing to worry with in sharing with him except that... except that Selyah knew there was one fear that she hadn’t quite let herself think, dreading that it would then take shape and become undeniably true.

It was true that her list was mundane and simple. It was also true that Seylah worried the same could be said for her relationship with August.

For all their bickering and banter, for all their tendency to push the other, to get beneath one another’s skin, she worried that their friendship, their fledgling romance, could and would be termed as mundane and simple. Her heart hurt at the thought. It was not mundane to her to be with August, to sit with him as she was now. It was the most exciting part of her day, the best part of it even.

But what if he came to see them, her, as simple? What if he tired of their time together after it had become expected? The uncertainty and self-conscious nature of her early years came flooding back to her so quickly that Seylah could scarcely breathe. August was like the sun to her, warm and pulling her close no matter what transpired, but what if she were not that to him?

Could she be able to go back to the way things were?

“Seylah.”

How would it be possible?

“Seylah.”

She jumped with a start, the paper in her hands wrinkling beneath her now clenched fist. “What?” She asked, blinking in confusion.

“Are you all right?”

August was looking at her with concern now, his blue