Page 31 of Puck Right Off

Although there is so much to learn about her, tonight, I learned we have more in common than I imagined when I overheard her mention her dad’s death. It makes me long to ask her questions I have no right asking, desperately seeking a connection to someone who understands what losing a parent feels like, especially when you’re supposed to be in the prime of your life.

Sadness infiltrates me as I study her tear-stained cheeks.I did that.I inflicted pain on this beautiful woman, and she has no idea why. She believes I’m a pucking male slut rather than a twenty-year-old man terrified of love.

It pains me to be so close and unable to touch her, but I suspect she’ll raise hell if she wakes and finds me in her room after what happened earlier. Yet, I’m so relieved she’s okay, her steady breathing bringing me a peace I haven’t known since my family died, that I stand there like an idiot, feet glued to the floor.

I should leave.

Turning my head to try and get the courage to go, my gaze lands on a picture and a Strawberry Shortcake doll behind it on her bookshelf.

I move toward it, a smile curling my lips. As I lift the picture frame, I see a younger Jordyn wrapped in a man’s arms. They are laughing, and she clings to the doll on her lap.

Sadness engulfs me. Strawberry Shortcake was my sister’s favorite, too.

I grab the doll before setting the picture frame back where I found it. My finger traces over the adorable ragdoll with red hair and big green eyes, a permanent smile stitched onto her face. Memories of my sister with her doll fill my head.

My finger brushes over something on the back of her dress, and I spin the doll around. A tiny note is pinned to her back.

Jordyn,

You’ll always be my strawberry shortcake. Hug her whenever you’re hurting, and know that I’m hugging you back, even though you can’t feel or see me. I live inside your heart.

Love Always,

Dad

I look over at Jordyn’s sleeping form, my heart squeezing painfully inside my chest. I want to gather her in my arms and hold her tightly. To ease her pain.

But I can’t.

Still holding the doll, I sit on the chair by her desk. My past and present collide as the pain grips me. I’d be in agony if I weren’t sitting in her bedroom.

Sighing, my gaze slides to her. I watch her chest’s steady rise and fall, my breathing syncing with hers.

You’re being selfish. If you care about her, you’ll let her go.

Why is walking away easier said than done?

CHAPTER 18

Jordyn

Istare in disbelief at Tristan’s body, slumped in my desk chair, fast asleep. I close my eyes, counting to ten while rubbing them again. But when I open them, he’s still there.

Why the hell is he here? Did he watch me sleep all night?

It’s barely daylight, and I have no earthly idea what woke me, but here I am, wide awake at the ass crack of dawn on a Friday morning with a fucking puck boy slumped in my desk chair, fast asleep.

Tossing the covers back, I get to my feet and stomp over to him. When I see my Strawberry Shortcake doll clutched in his hands, something inside me snaps. It was a present from my dad on my fifteenth birthday.

I loved and cherished that doll as a child. When we moved into a smaller house closer to the hospital, she was lost in the move. I was devastated. Strawberry Shortcake symbolized some of the best memories of my childhood, and I clung to that doll for strength and comfort. Witnessing my dad so sick and frail from battling an aggressive form of cancer were some of the darkest days of my life.

Then she was lost, and I couldn’t breathe.

When I opened my gift from my dad on my fifteenth birthday and pulled the doll from the box, dread settled into my heart. When I met his exhausted, distraught eyes, I knew we were on borrowed time, especially when I saw the note he’d pinned to the back of her dress.

He died two days later.

Tristan is holding my world in his arms, and considering the way he acted and the things he said yesterday, it infuriates me. He doesn’t deserve to hold the doll who means everything to me. And he doesn’t deserve me, either.

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