Текст книги "Needing Her"

Автор книги: Molly McAdams

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 11 страниц)

Chapter Eleven

Maci

“UP! COME ON, get up!” Amber yelled as she charged into the room we were sharing.

Glancing over at her when she jumped on my bed, I looked back up at the ceiling and suppressed a sigh. “I think I’m going to call it an early night. I’m exhausted from traveling up here.”

“Bullshit you are! You’re moping and being all stupid depressed because Connor turned out to be a dick!”

My chest ached, hearing his name. “Amber . . . please, just let me be upset about this for a while.”

“Nope, no. Not going to happen. As your best friend, it is my duty to make sure you get back to being all happy happy because it’s almost Christmas, have an awesome fucking vacation, and get laid by some random hot ski instructor.”

I actually cracked a smile. “Ski instructor? Really now . . .”

“Yes, and it will be perfect. It will take your mind off the asshole, you won’t have to see the guy again until next year—if you even see him again.”

“Ahh . . . no thanks. But, really, have at it.”

Standing up, she grabbed my ankles and started dragging me down the bed.

“Holy shit! You’re such a fucking bitch. Oh God!” I wheezed when my back hit the floor with a hard thud.

“I’m your bitch, and it’s why you love me. So let’s slut it up, hit a few bars and—”

We both looked toward the hallway when one of my brothers yelled my name.

“Why do I feel like I’m about to be in trouble?” I whispered to Amber when she helped me up off the floor.

“Maci, get the fuck up here!” one of the boys yelled seconds before I heard him pounding down the stairs.

We stood there frozen as we waited, and I jumped when my door was thrown open so hard, I was sure it left a dent in the wall.

“Jesus, Dyl—”

“Shut the fuck up and get your ass upstairs. Now.”

“Excuse me? Don’t be fucking rude! Get out of my damn room, you son of a bitch!”

“Maci!” Came another voice from upstairs. Seconds later, Craig was standing behind Dylan. “You might want to come upstairs.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command, and he sounded just as pissed as Dylan.

I looked up at my ceiling when I heard my dad yell, “Calm down, Dakota! Let the man talk.”

Connor. My heart raced and ached at the same time. My stomach started churning, and I was afraid I was about to lose what little of dinner I’d actually eaten. I didn’t want to see him, but why would he be here and upsetting my brothers if it weren’t for me?

Grabbing Amber’s hand, I pushed past my brothers and tried to ignore the way their glares made my skin crawl. Running up the stairs, my shoulders slumped and I had the ridiculous urge to start crying when I saw him standing there.

Connor hadn’t come for me. Bryce had.

The loss I’d been dealing with over the last twenty-four hours since Connor had thrown me out of his life seemed to double. That little glimmer of hope that he’d changed his mind had been crushed when I saw Bryce instead of the man I loved standing there next to my dad.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Bryce. His family vacationed here every winter, just another reason why we’d been close for so long. But when he’d texted me to see if we could talk while we were here, I’d thought my ‘Fuck off’ response had said it all.

“You lying bitch,” Dylan said under his breath as he and Craig shoved past me, pushing me into Amber.

“Hey, baby,” Bryce said, a smile lighting up his too-perfect face.

“Baby?” Amber and I said at the same time.

“Oh, hell no. I thought we were finally done with you,” Amber sneered.

Bryce sent a glare her way before looking at me again. “As always, Amber, what a pleasant surprise to see you.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

I held my hand up to keep them from going into one of their fights, and stepped forward. “Bryce . . . why are you here? I told—”

“I was just telling your father about our plans.”

Plans?

“Maci,”—my Dad began—“this young man has just informed me that you’re going to be getting married within the year . . . ?”

“What? No!”

“You don’t have to keep lying just because your brothers are here,” Bryce said as he stepped up to me. One arm went around my waist, the other cupped my cheek. His eyes roamed my face before zeroing in on my nose. When he spoke again, it was soft enough that only Amber and I could hear him. “I thought we agreed you were going to take that thing out? And please tell me your hair will be blonde again soon, I was planning on announcing our engagement at the beginning of the year.”

“You are such a little piece of shit.”

Bryce kept talking like Amber had never spoken. “I told you, Maci, no one will take you seriously when you look like this. You’re the mistress . . . remember? I need a wife. It’s time to grow up, baby.”

The air in my lungs left in one hard rush. It had hurt the first time Bryce had said that, but now, after Connor? It was killing me. He was right . . . all I was, like this, was a fuck buddy. I wasn’t relationship material, and, according to Bryce, I wasn’t marriage material either.

“I know,” I said as I nodded my head in his direction. Suddenly, I felt a large presence behind me.

“I suggest you leave,” Dylan said.

“Now. And if you don’t stop touching my sister, I swear to God you will spend Christmas in the hospital,” Dakota added.

Okay, make that two large presences.

Bryce actually had the balls to look up over me and say, “I’d like to speak to my future wife, if you don’t mind.”

“Nah, man. That’s not about to happen. You’ll leave; we have to talk to her. Seeing as you just dropped this on our whole family when none of us even had a clue about you, I’d say this is the wrong time for you to be here.” Dylan grabbed my arm hanging limply at my side, and pulled me back toward him, and away from Bryce.

“Maci?” Bryce looked at me.

“Let me walk you out,” I choked out, and wrangled my way out of Dylan’s grasp.

Not looking back to see if he was following me, I turned and headed toward the front door. Once I got there, I waited until Bryce was near me before jerking the door open and stepping outside with him.

“Mac—”

“Leave, I don’t want to see you again. I thought I’d made that clear to you before, apparently I was wrong.”

“Don’t you realize how well I’ll be able to take care of you? After how much history we have, Maci, you can’t tell me you don’t want this. If it’s because I’m telling you to change your appearance, I’m only helping you. I’ve told you no one takes you seriously looking like this, you aren’t going to find a man that wants to make you his wife when—”

“Stop,” I cried out and slapped a hand over my mouth as I tried to collect myself a little bit. “You need. To leave. Don’t call me, don’t come back here . . . and don’t come to my apartment when we’re back in Mission Viejo. You need to find someone who would be happy in your life, but I’m not her. God when did you even turn into this person?” I asked and waved my hand at him. “You’re turning into your dad!”

“Maci,” he said as he reached toward me, but I stepped back.

“No. Go. We’re done. Good-bye, Bryce.”

Walking back inside, I shut and locked the door behind me before turning to face my family. My mom and sisters-in-law looked confused, Amber looked annoyed, Dad looked disappointed, and my brothers all looked pissed beyond reason.

All at once, my brothers started yelling at me about keeping something like that from them, how much they couldn’t stand him, and how I wasn’t supposed to see him again.

I looked to my mom and dad for help as Amber came and stood by my side. She grabbed my hand, and waited out the screaming with me as my parents tried to get my brothers to stop talking. Tears were steadily falling down my face from having heard those words from Bryce again, having my heart broken and wishing Connor had been the one to come for me—and realizing he wouldn’t—and having to listen to my brothers trying to run my life again.

I was so used to turning off these kinds of emotions around them, but I couldn’t anymore. I was too close to breaking from everything. My tough exterior I showed my family was cracking, and I knew I only needed one of them to poke me before I shattered into a million pieces. The moment they saw the tears, each one of my big brothers froze and looked like they were going to lock me away somewhere safe before going on a killing spree for whomever had made me cry.

Sam and Dakota were the first ones to start toward me, but I held my hand up at the same time a sob burst from my chest, and they both stopped their advance. Their gray eyes wildly searched my face, and it looked like Dakota was struggling to find something to say to me, but I didn’t wait to find out what. I turned and headed toward the stairs with Amber.

Once we were in our room with the door locked, Amber grabbed me in a hug and let me cry against her shoulder. She didn’t say anything, she just stood there and slowly ran a hand through my long hair, trying to soothe me as we listened to my family flipping out upstairs.

Four different times, people came to the door and spoke through it. Sometimes it was my brothers and the last was my parents. My brothers were freaking out over seeing me cry, but were still pissed off over Bryce; and my parents just told me they loved me and would talk to me about Bryce tomorrow.

“Did you think it would be Connor?” she asked when my parents had left, my body had stopped shaking, and the tears had dried out.

I nodded against her shoulder and released my death grip on her. Turning around, I headed toward our bathroom and wasn’t even shocked when I saw how horrible I looked. I felt even worse; the streaked makeup was just the cherry on top. Grabbing my makeup remover and face wash, I turned on the water and went about cleaning up.

Looking at myself in the mirror when I was done, I let everything Bryce and Connor had said to me in the last day race through my mind.

“I do look like the mistress,” I whispered to my reflection.

Amber did a double take from where she’d been standing at the entrance of the bathroom. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

I took out the hoop in my nose and set it on the counter as I continued staring at myself in the mirror. “Bryce is right, I need to stop being like this.” A short, pained laugh burst from my chest. “Both he and Connor were right. I need to grow up. At my hair appointment in two weeks, I’m going to start going back to blonde.”

“No, Maci . . . don’t do that because of what that douche said.”

“The only two guys I’ve been with have both told me to grow up within a short time. There has to be truth to that, and if this is part of the process of growing up . . . then it’s what I’m going to do. I know it won’t bring Connor back to me; I never meant anything to him.” I winced saying those words out loud. “But I can mean something to someone. I just—it’s just what I need to do,” I said resolutely before walking out of the bathroom and crawling back in bed.

Amber slid onto my bed instead of going to her own and wrapped an arm around me, holding me tight. “They’re both assholes if they couldn’t see how amazing you are. You’re going to make some guy ridiculously happy just the way you are, Maci. Don’t change because of two guys.”

But I’d already made up my mind. I knew what had to be done. I was just hoping that my physical makeover could somehow help with the heartache I wasn’t sure I could get over.

Connor

MY PHONE RANG somewhere beside me, and I slapped my hand around on the bed until I found it. I didn’t know the number, but that didn’t mean much, I just hoped like hell it wasn’t work. I’d just gotten back from my parents’ house and had endured hours from them, Amy, and Kevin over what I’d done to Maci two nights ago. Like I didn’t already hate myself enough as it was. After that, it was safe to say I really didn’t want to deal with work when I was supposed to be on vacation.

“This is Detective Green.”

“I had high hopes for you. What the hell did you do to her?”

I sat up and glanced at the screen again. “Excuse me, who is this?”

“Maci’s been walking around this cabin like she belongs on The Walking Dead. Of course, I’m the only one that knew about you, so I know this has to do with you. What did you do to my best friend?”

“Amber, look there’s a lot about Maci and me that you don’t know.”

She snorted. “I know that you’re a dick, and you broke her heart! I know that she’s taking out her piercings and saying she’s going back to blonde. I know that Bryce is in Mammoth too and telling Maci’s dad that he’s going to marry her, and I’m pretty sure after the shit you pulled, she’s considering it!”

I was already off the bed and running through my apartment, looking for my keys and wallet. “Why the fuck is Bryce there?”

“Surprised you never noticed that his family has a cabin up here too.”

“She can’t marry him, he doesn’t fucking care about her! He wants to change her; he wants to make her into what he thinks a wife should be. Not who Maci is.”

“You know, for a guy who said all he did was fuck her,” she sneered, “you sound more pissed off than you have a right to be.”

“Amber, I told you, there’s a lot that you don’t know. I . . . shit.”

I slammed my fist on the frame of the door and tried to talk myself out of driving up there. She needed to find someone else. I was hearing those words repeating themselves in my mind, but I wasn’t understanding them. Because at the moment, all I could think about was the sick feeling spreading through my stomach at the thought of her with Bryce. With anyone. She was mine. Fuck her brothers.

“I’m on my way.”

“It’s about damn time! Freaking hell.”

I shook my head as I locked my door and ran down the hallway. “I thought you were mad at me.”

“I saw you and Maci together, there’s no way you can tell me you didn’t care about her. I also know you’re Dylan and Dakota’s best friend, and I saw the way they flipped out over Bryce talking to their dad last night. For Maci, I wanted to hate you and castrate you. But I knew there was something about this whole situation that just didn’t make sense. After seeing the twins’ reaction, I started piecing it together. This phone call just confirmed my suspicions.”

“It was ugly when I told them about us. I can’t imagine it’s going to go over well when I get there—just be there for her now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Chapter Twelve

Maci

MY HAIR WAS naturally straight, I usually just messed with it enough that it had that just-fucked look. But even so, I used Amber’s flat iron to make sure it was perfect, before pulling it back in a low bun and stepping back to look at myself in the full-length mirror. Even with still having red hair, I hardly recognized the person staring back at me. My makeup was a little lighter, the nose ring was still out, my hair was smooth, and I looked like I probably belonged on Bryce’s arm with the black peacoat I had on over my cream long-sleeved shirt. But it wasn’t those changes that made me unrecognizable.

I usually smiled. I usually looked happy. Right now there was nothing, no emotion, no life in my eyes. I looked like I should be going to a funeral instead of a late Christmas Eve dinner with my family.

Forcing a smile, I immediately let it fall when it came across looking pained.

I shouldn’t be this upset about Connor, but I was. I shouldn’t have let myself fall in love with him, but I had. And at the moment, I didn’t know how I was going to make it through another family meal acting like everything was fine when it wasn’t.

Amber walked into our room and stopped quickly, a fake smile immediately pulling at her lips. “Don’t you look . . . different.”

“Why thank you, why don’t you just tell me I look like shit?”

Rolling her eyes, she crossed over to my bed and sat down. “Because you don’t. You’re really pretty, Maci. Like, you have no idea how much it pisses me off how gorgeous you are. You just don’t look a thing like my friend.”

“I don’t say anything when you endlessly go back and forth from blonde to brunette other than the fact that you’re killing your hair. You change the way you look, I’m changing—”

“You. You’re changing you, not the way you look.”

I blinked slowly at her and turned toward the door. “We talked about this—it’s time for me to grow up. Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

“It’s Bryce’s version of you growing up. You don’t need to change anything about the way you look, and it’s killing me to watch you do this to yourself. You’re trying to kill off my best friend. You’re shutting her up. You’re hiding her, however you want to see it, but you and I both know you won’t be happy like this.”

I stopped at the door and turned on her, whispering in case anyone was in the hall. “You only think that because I’m not happy right now. I’m going to be fine, I’m growing up, and I’m moving on. If you have a problem with it, then get the fuck over it. I don’t need my best friend telling me that I shouldn’t be a certain way!”

Amber’s head jerked back, and her eyes got massive.

“Look, I know I’m being mean right now, but you have no idea how tired I am of everyone constantly telling me what I should or shouldn’t do. You always told me not to see Bryce, and now you’re telling me not to change the way I look. My brothers won’t let me date anyone and are incessantly bugging me about that. Bryce always told me to stop cussing and told me I had to change the way I look because I looked like a mistress instead of a wife. And for some goddamn reason, every man in my life except for my dad is telling me to grow up. Obviously, whatever I’ve been doing is wrong, so I’m changing that. The only person who is just telling me to be who I want to be is my mom, and I can’t even tell her about being in love with someone because it will get back to my brothers. Do you understand how fucking tired I am?”

She blinked quickly and looked away for a second. “Yeah, I’m sor—”

“I’m always hiding a part of me, there is only one person who has ever gotten all of me. My family gets a certain Maci, my friends get a certain Maci, and Bryce had a certain Maci. Connor had all of me . . . the good and the bad. For the first time I didn’t have to hide a part of my life or my personality, and it was so freeing. But he didn’t want me; I didn’t mean anything to him. And like everyone else, he told me to grow up. So I am. Can you please just be okay with that?” I wiped at my eyes and blinked back the wetness in them.

“Maci, I called—”

The door swung open and my mom popped her head in. “Dinner is about done, you ready? You both look beautiful.”

“Thanks, Mom, we’re coming up.”

She focused on my eyes for a few seconds, but smiled and shut the door behind her as she left.

“What were you going to say?”

Amber chewed on her bottom lip and shifted her weight. “I’m sorry for what I’ve said to you. I just didn’t want you to change because of what Bryce said, and—and I’m just sorry,” she said as she walked past me and opened the door again. “Be whoever you want, and date whomever you want; I’ll love you the same.”

My shoulders sagged when she walked out of my room, and I felt like such a bitch. Again. I really shouldn’t have said that to her, I was just so tired of everyone telling me how to live. Turning around, I walked into the hall and up the stairs. Everyone was already at the table when I got up there, and I was positive that if their wives hadn’t been there, Craig and Sam would be glaring at me just the same as Dakota and Dylan were.

Good to know we’re still not past the whole Bryce thing.

Dakota kept pulling my chair away from me every time I went to sit in it, and after a smack on the back of the head from my dad, he finally shoved it toward me hard enough that I fell into my sister-in-law Sarah’s lap.

“Dakota, that’s enough,” Dad chastised him, and I had the urge to put Dad between Kota and me.

No one said anything about Bryce, or my hidden relationship, throughout the rest of dinner. But just as I started to stand to help my mom and sisters-in-law clear the table, Dakota grabbed my arm and yanked me back down.

“Is there anyone else? Because you went a damn long time not telling us about Bryce; and that got serious enough that he’s still thinking he’s marrying you.”

“I’m not going to marry Bry—”

“I know you’re not. You think we would let you?” he hissed in my ear. “I know you think we’ve been keeping you from having a relationship to be mean, but I promise you we’re just looking out for you. All we want to do is protect you from assholes like us, okay? We can’t do that if you’re keeping them from us.”

I yanked my arm from him and grabbed my plate, but lowered my head toward him before I stood. “Well you really haven’t given me another option, have you?”

“Maci, who else.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand. But there was no point in telling them about Connor.

After grabbing his plate as well, I took a few steps past him, turned back around, and shook my head sadly. “You know the funny thing about what you just said, Dakota? You say that you all want is to protect me, and that you’re looking out for me; but I don’t feel like I can even come to you guys if I need protecting. You’re my brothers, I’m supposed to feel safe because of all of you; instead I just feel like I need to hide everything about myself from you because you won’t approve or won’t allow it. You four are the last people I would think to call if I was in trouble.”

I ignored the shocked looks everyone was giving me and rushed into the kitchen to put the dishes on the counter. I turned to leave, but my mom grabbed me in a hug from where she was standing at the sink.

“I’m sorry, my sweet girl. I’m so sorry you’re hurting.” Cupping my cheeks, she pulled back to look in my eyes, and smiled sadly. “There’s something else, Maci, I can see it. Maybe someday you’ll talk to me about what’s going on with you? It hurts me that you feel like you can’t.”

My chest started burning and my throat closed up as tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Tonight was definitely not one of my finest. Yelling at my best friend, telling my brothers that they pretty much suck at being brothers. My heart breaking for my mom because I’d kept myself so closed off and had kept everything from her. I needed to get out of there. I just needed to go.

I squeezed my mom’s hands and removed them from my face before running out of the kitchen and through the house toward the front door. Just as my hand reached it, I was turned around, and my body sagged in defeat against the door when I saw Sam.

“Where are you going?”

“I just need to go, I need to get out of here and get away from everything for a minute and just think.”

“We’re your family, don’t run away from us. Dakota and Dylan are being dicks. What’s new? They’ll get over it.”

I shook my head quickly and grabbed the knob behind me. “You don’t understand, Sam. There’s so much going on right now that you just don’t understand. I need to be alone for a while, okay?”

His mouth pulled up on one side as he thought, and then turned to look behind him where the sounds of our family could be heard. “If you’re going outside, then I’m going with you.” He grabbed the first jacket he touched on the coat rack and shrugged it on as he stepped up right next to me. Not giving me the option to go alone.

“Despite everything we’ve said and done, you can’t let us stop you from having relationships,” he said after we’d been walking for a handful of minutes. “And I don’t mean hiding them, I mean actually having them. Bringing the guy around to meet the family, that sort of thing.”

“You’re not,” I said automatically.

He laughed humorlessly and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I need to tell you something,” he mumbled and stared off at the dark sky as we continued to walk.

“Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to make me wonder what it is?”

“I know about Connor,” he said suddenly, and stopped walking, turning his body so he was facing me.

My heart skipped painful beats hearing someone else say his name, and it took a couple seconds for me to understand what he was saying. My eyes widened as I slowly turned to look up at him.

“We . . . shit. He came and talked to us the day before we left for Mammoth, he wanted us to know that you were together. Dylan and Dakota forced him to leave you. I’d sided with Connor, but when I saw you the next day, I knew he’d listened to them.”

The way Connor had been acting that night played through my mind, and I felt sick. Sick over losing him, and over the fact that he had tried to stand up to my family, and my brothers had convinced him to leave me. I would expect that from Bryce, but not Connor.

“Wait! You sided with Connor? Why?”

Sam shrugged and a huff left him. “Because he’s a good guy, and he . . . well, after all he said. I knew he wanted to be with you forever, not just to screw around with.”

“We fucked, Maci, that’s all we did.” I sniffed and rubbed at my frozen nose before crossing my arms under my chest. “Well you were wrong about that, and it doesn’t matter. If he’s going to let them keep us apart, then he’s not worth it.”

“I’m not buying that, and I can tell you don’t even believe the shit you’re saying.”

“I will one day,” I countered, and his face morphed into a sympathetic smile.

“Maci, I had no clue you were with him; but from what he said, and what I’m seeing these last couple of days from you, I don’t think you will. He is worth it: What guy has ever had the balls to talk to you after we’ve told them to back off for just looking at you, let alone actually confront three of us at once and tell us he’s with you and not leaving you? Dakota and Dylan . . . they said some pretty fucked-up shit. They hit him low, and they hit him hard. I’m still pissed off at them for what they did, but they really left Connor with no choice.”

Little puffs of clouds filled the space between us from our breath for silent minutes as tears filled my eyes, and eventually spilled over.

“There’s always a choice, Sam,” I choked out as I remembered Connor’s words the night my brothers had shown up at his apartment, and turned to head back to the cabin. “I just wasn’t enough for him, apparently.”

Sam grabbed me and pulled me back. “Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not enough. And if that’s what this is”—he gestured toward me—“Maci, you look beautiful, but this isn’t you. This isn’t my little sister.”

“God, not you too. It’s just time for a change,” I repeated mechanically. “Why is that so difficult for everyone to comprehend?”

“If you wanna change, then change. But do it because it’s what you want for you and your life, not because other people have made you feel like you need to. After what I heard from the prick that’s high on his daddy’s money last night, you’re not doing this for you.”

“I’m not doing it for Bryce either.”

“And thank Christ for that. Deep down though, I think you’re letting everything he’s said to you—and what happened to you and Connor—get to you, and you think this is what you have to do. You don’t: all you have to do is be the Maci everyone loves, and let the rest fall into place, okay?”

Tears continued to fall down my face, but I didn’t try to brush them away anymore. The corners of my mouth lifted in a shaky smile and I cocked my head to the side as I looked at my brother.

“Who are you and what did you do with Sam?”

He laughed loudly and pulled me in for a hug. “Come on, let’s go back in. It’s freezing, and whichever twin’s jacket this is, it smells like he had prostitutes hanging all over him. Jessica is going to freak when she smells me.”

I didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. You could smell the jacket from a mile away. “I’ll back you up that it isn’t your jacket as long as you do me a favor. Don’t hold me back when I go ape-shit on Dakota and Dylan’s asses when we get back.”

“Deal.”

But when we got back, Sam didn’t have to worry about holding me back. Craig and Dad were trying to moderate a yelling match that was getting closer and closer to a brawl between Dakota, Dylan, and Connor.

Connor

PARKING BEHIND THE multiple cars at the cabin, I started cursing at the icy walkway as I tried to run up to the door. Without knocking, I walked in and walked toward the living room, where I could hear voices.

“Connor!” Dakota said loudly, his voice deceivingly happy. His eyes looked dark when he noticed my mood.

“Where is she?” I huffed as I looked around the room. I heard a bunch of women talking in the kitchen and turned that way.

“We told you,” he began as he stood in front of me, stopping me from getting closer to the girls.

“I said where the fuck is she?”

“Hold on here,” Mr. Price said, standing up from one of the couches. “What the hell is going on?”

“Connor,” Dylan said in warning as he shook his head.

“Maci!” I yelled toward the kitchen, and Dakota pushed me back with a hard shove.

“We told you to stay away!”

“The fuck?” Craig said as he came to stand behind Dakota.

“And I should have never listened to you! Maci!”

The women began pouring into the living room, and I looked wildly for her.

“She’s not here,” Amber said, her face breaking out in a smile when she saw me. “She left, but Sam followed her.”

“Left? Left for where?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, because we told you to stay the hell away from her!” Dakota yelled, and started coming toward me, but Craig stopped him.

“Now everyone just shut the hell up!” Mr. Price yelled and walked into the triangle Dakota, Dylan, and I were making. “This has been the most dramatic Christmas vacation I think we’ve ever had. Now someone better explain to me what’s going on, and I mean right now.”

Dylan opened his mouth, but I spoke over him. “I’m in love with your daughter.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, not again,” Craig groaned.

“He can’t—”

“No,” I cut Dylan off, and kept talking. “Whatever that asshole told you last night, don’t listen to him. Maci doesn’t want to be with him, I’ve seen the way he treats her, all he does is order her around and belittle her.”

“Like that’s much better than what you would do to her?” Dakota sneered.

“I won’t hurt Maci!” I yelled at him, and turned back to his dad. “I’ve been seeing your daughter all month. I know that’s not a long time, but I also know that there isn’t another girl for me out there.”