I had to set up an appointment with my publicist and my manager in order to do the damage control that good ole uncle Jesse Scott had caused. I was aware of the pop culture reference of 'Uncle Jesse', however mine wasn't as PG as the one that had garnered attention from the original namesake.

My uncle was a spineless, greedy and evil man who only cared for himself and didn't think of the people around him before he acted.

He almost ruined my relationship. Who knows what would have happened if Lydia had seen the details of my stint in juvie without me there to explain it to her...although she had been taking the news in stride.

She already wanted to be there at the joint interview with Julia that we had already set up in order to clear up any miscommunications that occurred from the news breaking. I'd then have to set up an exclusive talking about my past with a major news network, I just had to figure out who I wanted to give the exclusive to. My managers wanted me to go with someone who was unbiased but my publicist was pushing me to do the interview with the network that offered the most money.

I was just tempted to record myself and my side of the story without an interviewer and just post it on the internet and see what happened, but I was 'strongly advised against' that option.

I cursed as I checked my watch and realized that I was already late for my interview with Julia. It had been a week and a half since the entire ordeal happened and my reputation online wasn't the greatest, but everyone was hoping that this would fix things.

I'd been so busy training and taking meetings that the only time I'd gotten to actually spend quality time with Lydia when she wasn't studying or researching a case was at night where we'd spend the night wrapped in each other's arms.

She'd taken to wearing my shirt as a nightgown and the first time she'd donned my clothes, a feeling I wasn't akin to experiencing flowed through my body. She was getting more comfortable with me and I was doing the same with her. I got used to waking up next to her and falling asleep next to her. I didn't want that to end.

Ever.

I knew what that meant, but I needed to get us through these obstacles, together, and then I could focus on what those other thoughts meant. I knew what it meant to live without her in my life and I never wanted to feel that way again.

Lydia would be coming straight from her second follow up doctor's appointment where she had to undergo a stress test for her heart but the doctors were optimistic that her condition, which was something called tachycardia, could be well managed with medicine.

When I heard how common the condition was and how treatable it was, the amount of relief that surged through my body was indescribable. The thought that she could leave me permanently was more terrifying than my uncle destroying my career, more horrifying than even myself dying, because living without her would be absolute torture. I knew, because I'd experienced it firsthand, but if she were to die, that pain would be increased tenfold, because that meant she would be unreachable, gone forever.

"Mr. Scott, you're late."

I nodded to my publicist as I shouldered my way into the hotel lobby where the interview would be held off to the side in a conference room off the cafe.

"Workout took longer than I expected. Is everyone here?"

And then I spotted her and then I didn't have to hear what she said in response. Once my eyes locked on Lydia, all other sounds left my ears and it was only her.

She looked worse for wear, her eyes tired and hair slightly unkempt. She would look normal to the untrained eye, but I knew her well enough to know that her stress test was probably more taxing to her than she would let on.

I went to her side at the bar of the cafe where she was currently sipping on what I hoped wasn't coffee. The doctors told her she should cut back on her caffeine and she charged me with helping her stay accountable.

"I hope that's decaf."

She visibly shivered as I came upon her and wrapped my arm lightly around her shoulder. I kept my tone joking and light and the smile that she rewarded me with was tired but happy nonetheless.

"Of course. Doctor's orders."

I spotted the interviewer on the other side of the room and narrowed my eyes as I spotted Julia. Lydia followed my line of sight and squeezed my hand. She had hardly changed since middle school, though she was taller and sans braces.

Her light brown hair and hazel eyes still the same shade as they had been when I went to live with her family all those years ago.

"Are you ready for this?"

I looked to Lydia for strength, just as I hoped she would look to me for similar things in times like these.

"As long as you're with me."

She hopped off of the stool as the interviewer and my publicist motioned for all of us to head into the conference room. Julia's eyes found mine and dropped to my hand clasped firmly in Lydia's but I kept my expression neutral and only nodded to her, noticing the ring encircled on her left ring finger. So she'd gotten married in the gap of time that it had been since we'd seen each other.

Good for her. I hoped I would share the same good fortune soon, but that was after I got everything out of the way in order to make that happen.

We all sat down and the atmosphere was strangled by the sounds of pens clicking and papers shuffling.

"So shall we get started? I'm Amanda Rahling with KJRC Four, and we're going to be conducting the interview for Miss Julia Walters and Mr. Emmett Scott. Now tell me, how did you two meet?"

Amanda pointed her question to Julia.

"Ah, well, my family took him in when they were doing the foster care program, what, ten years ago?"

"Yeah, ten."

Everyone took turns to look at me after confirming the time frame that she had guessed. Lydia's hand rested firmly on my thigh and I took comfort in knowing that she had never once believed the worst in me.

"Great. So can we just jump into what the nature of your relationship was?"

"Well we were friends at first, then I guess I had a bit of a crush on him, and vice versa. One day I finally got up the courage and kissed him, but my little brother Mikey walked in on us and he was so young he didn't really know what he was seeing, but he told my parents that Emmett was 'eating my face in my room' and looking back if the consequences from one little innocent first kiss weren't so severe, it would be a bit of a funny story, but of course things didn't happen that way. My parents were already wary of having a teenaged boy in the house with me being around the same age as well, so when they heard what Mikey said, they immediately went on the defensive. They called the cops and, well, railroaded him.

"I tired to speak out against what they were doing but since I was a minor, I didn't get to choose to testify in the small trial they had for him. He had to do some time in juvie because of a harmless first kiss all because he was in the foster care system. That's why I've dedicated my career to being a social worker and helping kids out of situations that he was put into."

I was more than grateful for the words that Julia had said on my behalf. I could tell that Lydia was immediately relaxed by my side.

"Thank you for sharing that with us. And how old were you during this 'innocent kiss?'"

"I believe I was thirteen."

"And Mr. Scott, how old were you?"

"I was fourteen."

"Wow. Seems like a real case of overprotective parents mishandling a delicate situation to me. Mr. Scott, is there anything else that you'd like to add to the conversation? I mean, you being here was just a formality."

I eyed the interviewer, eyes hungry as if she had caught the scoop of the century, her dark skin glowing with the information that she'd just been given. I was about to say no thank you but something flared up within me.

"Yeah, I would. If it hadn't been for a court system that didn't care about the real victims, the unfortunate kids that were lost to the system instead of locking us up and throwing away the key even without any real evidence, then maybe I could have been just a little bit less messed up. This is because of the negligent actions of power hungry judges that I had to go through even more shit in my life, and I had already seen enough to make a grown man cry at just fourteen years old. I didn't need this on top of it. That's all I have to say."

"Wow. Uh, thank you for your input, Mr. Scott."

Lydia's hand gripped mine tightly and I knew she understood where I was coming from. We were two halves of the same fucked up whole, both of our pasts painted in grizzly red pain. She understood and so she didn't even have to say anything.

We left the conference room but right before I was about to take Lydia by the arm and escort her out of the hotel, she surprised me by telling me she wanted to speak with Julia.

"Just for a second."

"Okay," I said, pecking her on the cheek before she could go and have her conversation with the girl who had just stood up for me even though I'd virtually done nothing to deserve it.

They spoke for a few minutes, their heads bobbing up and down and there was smiling, but the whole time I pretended I was interested in the hot chocolate I'd ordered.

They even hugged once the conversation was over, so color me intrigued to find out just what they'd spoken about.

"Ready to go?"

"What was all that about?"

"Nothing. Just girl talk, and me thanking her profusely for her kind words. This could've gone a lot worse, you know. Apparently her parents want to apologize to you too, probably because they saw how successful you are in your career but still, its something."

"Yeah, it sure is."

We both knew I wasn't talking about that dumb situation with my ex foster parents.

Lydia was something. She really was. And I was never letting that girl go, even if it killed me.