Page 180 of A Little Complicated

“Oo, I’ll take it.” Finley grabs the offered cup and brings it to her lips.

Without missing a beat, Reeves rolls his eyes and nudges the outside of my thigh with his knee. “How are you holding up?”

My eyes water, and I lift a shoulder. “I’m supposed to be holding up?”

He snatches another tissue from the box on the glass coffee table behind him and offers it to me. When I take it, he asks, “You wanna take a walk?”

Dabbing at the corner of my eye, my skin raw and chafed from my tears, I let a pathetic laugh slip out of me. “Not really.”

“Yeah, me neither.” He collapses onto the chair across from mine and kicks his legs out on the table.

Rory is crying in the corner of the room, her tiny hiccups echoing off the walls as Jaxon holds her. He brought her back to the hospital after Henry called and told him about the match. Before Maverick was prepped, Rory had a chance to wish him luck and potentially say goodbye to her last living sibling as he was wheeled away.

She retreated right back to Jaxon’s embrace.

At least she has someone to hold onto.

Me?

I mean, I have my parents, but…I’m a fucking shell. Hollow. Like I’ve been carved out with a dull spoon and am too numb to really understand the repercussions or how long it’ll take to heal from them.

Who am I kidding?

There’s no healing from this.

And there never will be.

But so help me, if Maverick is ripped away from me too, I’ll…

Fuck!

I don’t know what I’ll do.

Wadding up the used tissue in my hand, I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, sending another prayer into the universe.

Please keep him safe.

Please don’t take him from me too.

Please make everything okay.

“Hey,” a familiar voice murmurs.

I open my eyes and sit up a little straighter in my seat. “Hey, Aunt Mia.”

“Hey,” she repeats. “Mind if we…”—she sniffs—“Mind if we chat for a minute?”

Dylan, Finley, Reeves, and my dad all stand without a word, and my mom smiles at her friend while doing the same.

Aunt Mia takes her spot while the clock continues ticking away on the wall, leaving me anxious and queasy. We haven’t talked since brunch. Since she found out I was hooking up with Maverick after breaking Archer’s heart. Then Maverick passed out, and his health took precedence over everything else, as it should. But it never really gave me a chance to apologize to Aunt Mia for the fallout. She was nothing but loving and welcoming when Archer told her about our relationship. And what did I do in return? I screwed his brother.

God, It feels like a lifetime ago. The reminder brings more tears to my eyes. It’s funny. I’ve cried so much, I thought they’d be all dried up by now, but my body keeps producing more, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“How are you holding up?” Aunt Mia prods.

With a pathetic laugh, I roll my watery eyes and answer, “Reeves asked me the same thing two minutes ago.”

“And what was your answer?”

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