Have you met Lydia?

Scott and Audrey pulled into the parking lot of The China Duck, parked next to the old Toyota truck that he knew was Lydia’s. He got off and looked at his bike. If Doug was right and Jenn was into him this whole time, fixing up his bike not even knowing if he’d come back. . . Damn.

He pushed those thoughts down, took a deep breath and walked into the restaurant.

“Scott! Over here.”

He looked and saw her getting up, walking toward him. Lydia was gorgeous, in that super model wearing jeans and a t-shirt way. She practically walked in slow motion.

She hugged him, and he **** his arms to move, to hug her back. He had forgotten the kind of impact she had on him, and he swore she looked even better than she did 4 years ago.

“Mom said you looked good, but damn Scott.” She said holding him at arms length.

“Hey Lydia.” He said sheepishly, his brain struggling to function.

She grabbed his hand and led him to the table, her long black hair falling perfectly on her back, falling almost to her waist.

Scott stopped himself before looking farther. He was not in the best place to face the **** of nature that was his cousin Lydia.

Not that you are actually related! His brain yelled at him. He pushed that down as well.

“So how are you doing Scott? I heard your marriage didn’t work out.”

“Yeah, I’m doing alright though, it had been over for a while before we made it official. I think I was done grieving it before we signed the papers. How about you? Marry a hot doctor yet?”

“No way, not for lack of trying on their part though. I just don’t want that drama, at work or home, doctors are a hard no for me.”

Scott grunted; Lydia was hot enough to get any man she picked. She could marry rich, do what she wanted. But her taste in men ran far too similar to her mother, she was always dating some random asshole.

“So, nobody?”

“Not at the moment.” Lydia winked at him as she said it, and the warning bells started going off in his head.

Lydia, like her mother, would periodically take a break from assholes to mess around with someone “safe” for a rebound, then ditch them and go back to dating assholes. Scott had been that guy for Lydia several times before he learned that lesson. . . and a few times after too.

“How about you, you got a girl now that you are home?”

“I’ve got some possibilities, but I don’t know.”

“Yeah, mom said you weren’t looking for anything serious.”

Scott couldn’t look at her face, the last thing his mental health needed was another tryst with Lydia and the drama that went with it. But damn, it was hard to say no to her.

There was silence for a minute and then the waiter came and they went up to the buffet.

When they got back it was starting to feel awkward.

“Scott, are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

She grabbed his hand, looking him in the eye. “Seriously Scott, I can tell you aren’t, you can trust me.”

“Can I?”

“Okay that’s fair.” She said, pulling her hands back. Her face fell, like she had been wearing a mask before. “Look, I know I haven’t been the best person, but I’m trying to do better.”

“Really, what brought that about?”

“You remember Mark?”

“Yeah, the sexy doctor guy I was alluding to earlier.”

“We were engaged, I didn’t even tell Angel, I really wanted it to work, I wanted to keep him away from the drama our family always has.”

“Yeah. . .’

“But everything was going so well, and I did that thing where you don’t trust things when they are too good, and you don’t know how to handle it, so you sabotage it.”

“Yep. I know all about that.”

“I didn’t even cheat on him, I just got paranoid, pushed him away so he couldn’t hurt me when whatever I was convinced was going to happen, eventually happened.”

“So what happened?”

“He found someone else, someone who was ‘emotionally available’ and didn’t push him away and keep secrets from him.” Lydia said, fighting back tears.

If Scott was honest with himself, he had done that too, with Amanda. He would stop talking to her, be distant, try to protect himself from getting hurt when there wasn’t a threat, at least at that time. He wondered what role that played in her starting to cheat on him.

“Well at least you weren’t married when it happened.”

She laughed a sad laugh, “Honestly, I’m glad we put it off, he wanted to elope. He really dodged a bullet didn’t he.”

Scott took her hand as she wiped her eyes with the other. Lydia had been putting on a brave face, but she clearly wasn’t happy.

“Now he’s happily married and has a new baby, and I work with his wife.”

“Ouch.”

“She’s a great person, I’m happy for them, really. It just sucks that I screwed it up. Like, that life was right there, and I threw it away.”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes again.

“I’m sorry Scott, I was so excited to see you again, and now I’m just crying and dumping my problems on you.”

“It’s okay, sometimes you need to unload.”

“It was a wake-up call, losing Mark. I’ve been going to therapy, dealing with a bunch of shit from our childhood.”

Scott was surprised, his family didn’t ask for help easily, and Lydia was no exception.

“How’s it going?”

“Good, I’ve been single for four months now, taking care of myself, trying to not look to others for validation.”

Scott nodded.

“I’m really sorry Scott.” She almost blurted out.

“You’re sorry? What for?”

“I treated you poorly, you were someone who always was good to me and I’d use you when I was really bad off, then ditch you.”

“It’s not like I suffered, I have a lot of great memories of those days, Lydia.” His eyes were drawn to her lips as he spoke, “The number of guys who would have loved to be me. . .”

“Seriously Scott, I used you, it wasn’t okay. Even if you enjoyed it.”

She really meant it. Scott didn’t want Lydia to feel bad, it’s not like she chose her mother, or her crappy childhood, of course she was a messed-up teenager. He had been too.

“I forgive you Lydia. It’s not something I feel bad about.”

“Are you sure? Even the cabin?”

“That wasn’t your fault.”