Page 38 of Puck You Not

And now, peace filled me as I lay within the circle of his embrace as he spooned behind me.Warmth filled me, and I didn’t want to leave this intimacy anytime soon.Except, I knew he had practice in a couple hours, and I’d need to head to my campus job at midmorning.Such was the plight of a girl who only had a scholarship and a student loan to cover school and a few basics.

Beep-bee-bee-boop-bee-doo-wee.

Wrenched from my semi-sleep state, I sighed, frustrated by the R2-D2 chirp that had sounded from my phone to notify me of a message.It was across the room in my backpack, and I didn’t want to move.I closed my eyes again, determined to ignore it.

Beep-bee-bee-boop-bee-doo-wee.

Shit.

Grumbling quietly, I disentangled myself from Parrish.He slept like the dead and hadn’t stirred at the noise from my cell, which made me a little worried about his practice in a little while.After crawling off the end of the bed, I scrabbled around for my shirt.Coming up with Parrish’s first, I slipped it on then found my panties, dressing in them too before my phone sounded again.

Digging through my bag, I found it.The display lit up the room as I squinted at it to see who was texting me.

It wasn’t a text.

Huh?My lock screen said it was a tag from my sister on social media.Weird.She never tagged me.Standing, I flicked open the app then stared aghast at what I saw.My eyes started to burn as I took in the post with almost everyone she knew tagged.Pictures…of her wedding.To a guy I hadn’t known about.Hell, I hadn’t even known she was dating.My brother smiled in the background of a couple of the pictures of what appeared to be a small but fancy ceremony.

The fuck…

My ass hit the bare floor hard as I dropped onto it, unable to comprehend the level of callousness before me.I’d talked to both my siblings over the past couple days, yet they had so little disregard for me that I was learning about my sister’s wedding via a social media post.

“What’s wrong?”Parrish asked urgently from the bed.Instantly awake, he shot upright and was climbing from beneath the blankets before he’d finished speaking.He rushed to me, not noticing or seeming to care that he was naked and erect again.He scooped me up and carried me back to the bed, sitting on the edge with me cradled in his lap.

“I like how you pick me up like it’s nothing,” I whispered into his chest while I burrowed in.I wasn’t alone anymore.I had Parrish.We had each other.

“It is easy, but it’s not nothing.You’re precious to me,” he said into my hair before he pressed a kiss to my crown.

I huffed a watery laugh.

“What?”he asked.

I offered him my phone, and he looked at the screen.

“I don’t understand?Who is that?”

“That’s what woke me.The notification from the post.The woman in the wedding dress is my sister.The guy in the background, in the gray suit, is my brother.She just posted the pictures and tagged me on social media.She got married, and this is how I’m finding out.”

“Baby,” he whispered, his arms tightening around me.

“It’s… I know how they are, how they resent me.I told you about it.But God, they must actually hate me.To…exclude me so…fully.It hurts to see how far they’ve pushed me out of their lives.”I sniffled, my nose reacting to the tears burning in my eyes.“It hurts.”

“It’s an asshole thing to do,” he rasped.“Not telling you then just tagging you.I know she’s your sister, but what a bitch.There’s no excuse… I’m so sorry, Avie.”

A tear rolled down my cheek, my chest tight from the loss I hadn’t realized until that post.“I knew I was on my own, but I didn’t think I’d been disowned, that I don’t have a family.”

“You do.You do have a family.Not your blood family, but you do have the family you’ve made.You have Nash and Porter who would both kill for you…and you have me, if you’ll have me.I’m not planning to go anywhere.Then you’ll have my brother and my sisters, too.It’ll get kinda crowded, kinda fast.We’ll need a big house.”

His words were so sweet, and I shook as they loosed the sob crushing my chest.I cried, clinging to him, his hand rubbing my back while he whispered to me.I didn’t know how long it was until I started to settle, but I heard the catch in his voice, the tremble of his emotions while he told me I wasn’t alone.

“You’re not alone.You have us,” he rasped, and I knew it wasn’t the first he’d said it.

My hands clenched on his sides, my face still buried between his pecs.My breathing hitched while I tried to regain control.

“You’re not alone.You have us,” he repeated.

I nodded.“You’re right.I’m sorry.You’re right.It still…hurts.”

“I know, baby.I know.”His hand smoothed along my back.Up and down.Up and down.“I wish I could make it go away.”

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