Needing Her

“You are such a little piece of shit.”

Bryce kept talking like Amber had never spoken. “I told you, Maci, no one will take you seriously when you look like this. You’re the mistress . . . remember? I need a wife. It’s time to grow up, baby.”

The air in my lungs left in one hard rush. It had hurt the first time Bryce had said that, but now, after Co

“I know,” I said as I nodded my head in his direction. Suddenly, I felt a large presence behind me.

“I suggest you leave,” Dylan said.

“Now. And if you don’t stop touching my sister, I swear to God you will spend Christmas in the hospital,” Dakota added.

Okay, make that two large presences.

Bryce actually had the balls to look up over me and say, “I’d like to speak to my future wife, if you don’t mind.”

“Nah, man. That’s not about to happen. You’ll leave; we have to talk to her. Seeing as you just dropped this on our whole family when none of us even had a clue about you, I’d say this is the wrong time for you to be here.” Dylan grabbed my arm hanging limply at my side, and pulled me back toward him, and away from Bryce.

“Maci?” Bryce looked at me.

“Let me walk you out,” I choked out, and wrangled my way out of Dylan’s grasp.

Not looking back to see if he was following me, I turned and headed toward the front door. Once I got there, I waited until Bryce was near me before jerking the door open and stepping outside with him.

“Mac—­”

“Leave, I don’t want to see you again. I thought I’d made that clear to you before, apparently I was wrong.”

“Don’t you realize how well I’ll be able to take care of you? After how much history we have, Maci, you can’t tell me you don’t want this. If it’s because I’m telling you to change your appearance, I’m only helping you. I’ve told you no one takes you seriously looking like this, you aren’t going to find a man that wants to make you his wife when—­”

“Stop,” I cried out and slapped a hand over my mouth as I tried to collect myself a little bit. “You need. To leave. Don’t call me, don’t come back here . . . and don’t come to my apartment when we’re back in Mission Viejo. You need to find someone who would be happy in your life, but I’m not her. God when did you even turn into this person?” I asked and waved my hand at him. “You’re turning into your dad!”

“Maci,” he said as he reached toward me, but I stepped back.

“No. Go. We’re done. Good-­bye, Bryce.”

Walking back inside, I shut and locked the door behind me before turning to face my family. My mom and sisters-­in-­law looked confused, Amber looked a

All at once, my brothers started yelling at me about keeping something like that from them, how much they couldn’t stand him, and how I wasn’t supposed to see him again.

I looked to my mom and dad for help as Amber came and stood by my side. She grabbed my hand, and waited out the screaming with me as my parents tried to get my brothers to stop talking. Tears were steadily falling down my face from having heard those words from Bryce again, having my heart broken and wishing Co

I was so used to turning off these kinds of emotions around them, but I couldn’t anymore. I was too close to breaking from everything. My tough exterior I showed my family was cracking, and I knew I only needed one of them to poke me before I shattered into a million pieces. The moment they saw the tears, each one of my big brothers froze and looked like they were going to lock me away somewhere safe before going on a killing spree for whomever had made me cry.

Sam and Dakota were the first ones to start toward me, but I held my hand up at the same time a sob burst from my chest, and they both stopped their advance. Their gray eyes wildly searched my face, and it looked like Dakota was struggling to find something to say to me, but I didn’t wait to find out what. I turned and headed toward the stairs with Amber.

Once we were in our room with the door locked, Amber grabbed me in a hug and let me cry against her shoulder. She didn’t say anything, she just stood there and slowly ran a hand through my long hair, trying to soothe me as we listened to my family flipping out upstairs.

Four different times, ­people came to the door and spoke through it. Sometimes it was my brothers and the last was my parents. My brothers were freaking out over seeing me cry, but were still pissed off over Bryce; and my parents just told me they loved me and would talk to me about Bryce tomorrow.

“Did you think it would be Co

I nodded against her shoulder and released my death grip on her. Turning around, I headed toward our bathroom and wasn’t even shocked when I saw how horrible I looked. I felt even worse; the streaked makeup was just the cherry on top. Grabbing my makeup remover and face wash, I turned on the water and went about cleaning up.

Looking at myself in the mirror when I was done, I let everything Bryce and Co

“I do look like the mistress,” I whispered to my reflection.

Amber did a double take from where she’d been standing at the entrance of the bathroom. “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

I took out the hoop in my nose and set it on the counter as I continued staring at myself in the mirror. “Bryce is right, I need to stop being like this.” A short, pained laugh burst from my chest. “Both he and Co

“No, Maci . . . don’t do that because of what that douche said.”

“The only two guys I’ve been with have both told me to grow up within a short time. There has to be truth to that, and if this is part of the process of growing up . . . then it’s what I’m going to do. I know it won’t bring Co

Amber slid onto my bed instead of going to her own and wrapped an arm around me, holding me tight. “They’re both assholes if they couldn’t see how amazing you are. You’re going to make some guy ridiculously happy just the way you are, Maci. Don’t change because of two guys.”

But I’d already made up my mind. I knew what had to be done. I was just hoping that my physical makeover could somehow help with the heartache I wasn’t sure I could get over.

Co