Page 67 of Needing Her

“We’re your family; you don’t run away from us. Yeah, Dakota and Dylan are being dicks, but that isn’t anything new. And they’ll get over it.”

I quickly shook my head and blindly reached behind me for the doorknob. “You don’t understand, Sam. There’s so much going on right now that you don’t know, and I just need time to breathe and think.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” he said, not giving me the option to go alone as he grabbed the first jacket he touched on the coat rack and shrugged it on.

But I was past caring at that point, or maybe I didn’t have it in me to continue arguing, so I slipped out of the cabin with him directly behind me.

“Despite everything we’ve said and done,” he began after we’d been walking for a handful of minutes, “you can’t let us stop you from having relationships. And I don’t mean hiding them—I mean actually having them. Bringing the guy around to meet the family...that sort of thing.”

“You aren’t,” I said automatically.

He laughed, but there was no humor behind it. “I need to tell you something,” he mumbled, then glanced at the dark sky as we continued walking.

“Are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?”

“I know about Connor,” he said on a sharp exhale and turned to face me.

My heart skipped painfully hearing Connor’s name, but it still took a couple seconds to understand what Sam was saying. And then I stopped cold and slowly looked up at him, my eyes widening with dread as he went on.

“We—shit. Connor came and talked to us the day before we left for Mammoth. He wanted us to know you were together. I sided with Connor, but Dylan and Dakota said he had to leave you. When I saw you the next day, I knew he’d listened to them.”

The way Connor had acted the other night played in my head, as it had so often the past two days, and I felt sick.

Sick over losing him and over the fact that he had tried to stand up to my family, and my brothers had convinced him to leave me. I would’ve expected that from Bryce...not Connor.

“Wait, you sided with Connor?” I asked, slow to grasp everything my brother said. “Why?”

Sam shrugged as a huff left him. “Because he’s a good guy, and he...well, with everything he said, I knew you weren’t a temporary thing for him. He wanted to be with you forever.”

“Because we fucked, Maci—that’s it.”

I sniffed and rubbed at my frozen nose before crossing my arms under my chest as Connor’s cruel words played again and again.

“Well, you were wrong about that, but it doesn’t matter anyway,” I said numbly. “If he’s going to let them keep us apart, then he isn’t worth it.”

“I’m not buying that, and I can tell you don’t believe the shit you’re saying either.”

“I will one day,” I countered and watched as a sympathetic smile crossed his face.

“From what he said and what I’ve seen these last couple of days with you, I don’t think you will.” He gestured off to the side, a disbelieving laugh leaving him when he asked, “Mace, what guy has ever had the balls to talk to you after we’ve told them to back off for just looking at you? Connor confronted three of us at once and told us he was with you and wasn’t going to leave you. But Kota and Dylan...they said some pretty fucked-up shit. They hit him low, and they hit him hard. I’m pissed at what they did, but they really left Connor with no choice.”

Little puffs of clouds filled the space between us for silent moments as tears filled my eyes and eventually spilled over.

“There’s always a choice, Sam,” I choked out, repeating Connor’s words to me, then turned to head back to the cabin. “I just wasn’t enough for him, apparently.”

Sam grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Don’t let anyone make you feel like you aren’t enough. And if that’s what this is?” He gestured toward me, his head slowly shaking. “Mace, you look beautiful, but this isn’t you. This isn’t my little sister.”

“God, not you too,” I groaned and rubbed at my face. “It’s just time for a change. Why is that so difficult for everyone to comprehend?”

“If you wanna change, then change. But do it because it’s what you want, not because other people have made you feel like you need to. And from what I heard from that asshole last night, you’re not doing this for you.”

“I’m not doing it for Bryce either.”

“All right.” He nodded but didn’t look convinced. “I still think, deep down, this new look is because you’re letting everything he said—and what happened with Connor—get to you. But you don’t have to change because of them. Just be who you want to be and let the rest fall into place, okay?”

Tears continued falling down my face, but I didn’t try brushing them away anymore. I just cocked my head and looked at my brother. “Who are you, and what did you do with Sam?”

A loud laugh burst from him as he pulled me in for a hug. “Come on, let’s go back. It’s freezing, and Jessica is going to freak out because this jacket smells like a bar and women.”

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