Page 57 of Don't Leave Me

“Yeah. Pick a room and shove them in there. We should make Jax come and deal with them tomorrow.” Dad grabs an armful and throws them in Jax’s old room. “We can tell him we found some of his things we think he wants and put them on his bed.”

Dad grabs a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbles something on it, then drops it on Jax’s old bed. We start loading the bed with balloons, making sure it gets covered completely. It takes the four of us almost fifteen minutes to get my room clear.

After Mom and Dad head to bed, we go through our bathroom routine and then climb in bed. I'm wearing one of Pecker’s shirts with nothing else on. He’s wearing boxer briefs. He wanted to wear sweatpants, but I promised he was fine without them.

“Thank you for coming to visit my family,” I whisper, running my fingers over his torso.

“You have no reason to thank me, Soph. I wanted to meet them. I just didn’t expect to find a brother I didn’t know existed here too.”

“He’s so excited to have other siblings. He has two little sisters and a little brother, but I think he likes having someone he’s biologically related to too. How are you feeling about it?” I snuggle a little closer.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you thought it was just you and Sydney. Now, you have a whole other brother who has a family of his own.”

“I don’t know. I'm not sure it’s hit me yet… Is it weird that I'm dating my brother’s sister-in-law?”

“Only if it’s weird I'm dating my cousin’s husband’s brother.” I grin, even though I know he can't see me in the dark.

“Your family sure is complicated.” He chuckles.

“And yours isn't?”

“Touché.” He’s quiet for a few minutes, then he breaks the silence and I can hear the vulnerability in his voice. “I just don’t get it. My mom was the greatest. It’s so hard for me to imagine her giving up her first born.”

“Maybe she was doing what was best forhim, not her. You don’t know where she was in life. If she couldn’t take care of him, she might’ve felt it was better for her to let someone else raise him. I know for a fact, Wyatt was loved by his previous parents.”

“How could she not tell us though? Didn’t we deserve to know we had a brother?”

“Maybe it hurt for her to think about the child she’d never meet. If she told you and Sydney, you’d have questions.”

“But she did tell Sydney. She just didn’t tell me,” he whispers.

“I'm sorry. I don’t have any answers for you, I wish I did. I'm here whenever you want to talk about it. I’ll listen and offer whatever advice I can. I’ll be by your side through all of this.”

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” He murmurs as he presses his lips against mine.

“You tripped all over yourself and had no flirting skills.” I grin as he kisses down my neck, sucking on the skin gently.

“It was embarrassing. I’ve never acted like that around a woman.”

“Are you normally a smooth talker?”

“Not at all,” he chuckles against my skin. “But I'm not that bad either.”

“Plus, you fed me all the sugar on our first date.”

“I’ll feed you sugar for the rest of your life if it keeps you around.”

“Nothing could take me away from you,” I whimper as he kisses over my collarbone and slips his hand under my shirt.

“Good… How quiet do you think you can be?”

Chapter 26

Sophia

“Alright, since Sophia wasn’t here, we waited to make the gingerbread houses. Plus, it seems fitting to decorate them on your birthday. I can't believe you’re twenty-one.” Mom smiles from the head of the table as she hands out a built gingerbread house to Wyatt, Jax, and Cody. Charlie and I get an unassembled house because she knows we like to build them. “Peck, I wasn’t sure if you’d like to put one together or just decorate it, so I have one of each.”

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