Page 33 of Pucked and Pregnant

“Fine!”

Liv turns on her heel and bolts, slamming the door on her way out, leaving me to deal with the clingy leasing agent. She’s always been such a selfish brat. All she ever thinks about is herself.

I’m glad we took a cab because I’m in no fit state to drive home.

As soon as the elevator doors open and I stumble into my place, I half expect Liv to rush up to me with her face still red, ready to finish the argument we started at the apartment.

She isn’t there though.

The penthouse is quiet and still.

I don’t need to check her room to confirm what my gut already knows but I do it anyway.

The drawers are open, clothes littered all over the floor. I peek into the closet to find that half of her clothes are gone, and so is her big suitcase.

It’s clear now that this isn’t one of our usual arguments which are loud and messy but over just as quickly as they start. This is something far more serious.

All the breath gets sucked out of my lungs as I drop down onto her bed with my head in my hands.

What have I done?

My father’s voice thunders throughout my head.You’ve acted like an entitled child, and now she’s run off to who knows where. If something happens to her, it will be entirely your fault.

In the moment, it felt so good to tell Liv to screw off and get out. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t worrying about her safety or my father’s inevitable disappointment at my behavior. It felt incredible having no one except myself to answer to.

Well, except for my father's soul that lives in my head and only comes out to yell at me for being a shitty brother, apparently.

Unfortunately, he’s right. I do have to look out for her. She’s my sister. We’ve been connected since before we were born, and family looks out for family, no matter how irritating they are at times.

Liv is right too, though. I am being a massive hypocrite. I’ve been treating her like a child. I don’t know when I stopped being her brother and started acting like a second father to her, but I know it was a while ago.

I also know that parenting my sister was never my job in the first place. I just hate that it took getting to this point before that truly sunk in for me.

The guilt is eating me alive. All I want to do now is apologize and try to fix things, but I have no idea where she could be.

I just hope she’s okay.

10

AIDEN

I’m elbow-deep in charcoal when my phone starts buzzing.

Just work through the distraction. If it’s important they’ll leave a message or better yet, text you.

I go back to sketching the archer’s legs. I need to get the muscle tension just right before I even attempt to start the final piece.

I’m usually not this fussy, a couple rough sketches and I’m good to go. This time is different though. I need to translate her perfectly to paper before I move to canvas.

Correction, I need to translateitperfectly.

This isn’t a Pygmalion and Galatea situation. This archer is purely fictional and based on several different reference models. Maybe if I think that enough, I’ll be able to convince myself it’s true.

Max trusts me with his sister. He told me as much the day Liv came back home.

I know you’d never mess with her like that.His words keep pounding through my brain.

Yet what did I turn around and do the first chance I got? I had a foursome with her and his other two best friends.

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