Molly McAdams - Needing Her

“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 annoyed, Dad looked disappointed, and my brothers all looked pissed beyond reason.

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 Connor had been the one to come for me—­and realizing he wouldn’t—­and having to listen to my brothers trying to run my life again.

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 Connor?” she asked when my parents had left, my body had stopped shaking, and the tears had dried out.

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 Connor had said to me in the last day race through my mind.

“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 Connor were right. I need to grow up. At my hair appointment in two weeks, I’m going to start going back to blonde.”

“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 Connor back to me; I never meant anything to him.” I winced saying those words out loud. “But I can mean something to someone. I just—­it’s just what I need to do,” I said resolutely before walking out of the bathroom and crawling back in bed.

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.

Connor

MY PHONE RANG somewhere beside me, and I slapped my hand around on the bed until I found it. I didn’t know the number, but that didn’t mean much, I just hoped like hell it wasn’t work. I’d just gotten back from my parents’ house and had endured hours from them, Amy, and Kevin over what I’d done to Maci two nights ago. Like I didn’t already hate myself enough as it was. After that, it was safe to say I really didn’t want to deal with work when I was supposed to be on vacation.

“This is Detective Green.”

“I had high hopes for you. What the hell did you do to her?”

I sat up and glanced at the screen again. “Excuse me, who is this?”

“Maci’s been walking around this cabin like she belongs on The Walking Dead. Of course, I’m the only one that knew about you, so I know this has to do with you. What did you do to my best friend?”

“Amber, look there’s a lot about Maci and me that you don’t know.”

She snorted. “I know that you’re a dick, and you broke her heart! I know that she’s taking out her piercings and saying she’s going back to blonde. I know that Bryce is in Mammoth too and telling Maci’s dad that he’s going to marry her, and I’m pretty sure after the shit you pulled, she’s considering it!”

I was already off the bed and running through my apartment, looking for my keys and wallet. “Why the fuck is Bryce there?”

“Surprised you never noticed that his family has a cabin up here too.”

“She can’t marry him, he doesn’t fucking care about her! He wants to change her; he wants to make her into what he thinks a wife should be. Not who Maci is.”

“You know, for a guy who said all he did was fuck her,” she sneered, “you sound more pissed off than you have a right to be.”

“Amber, I told you, there’s a lot that you don’t know. I . . . shit.”

I slammed my fist on the frame of the door and tried to talk myself out of driving up there. She needed to find someone else. I was hearing those words repeating themselves in my mind, but I wasn’t understanding them. Because at the moment, all I could think about was the sick feeling spreading through my stomach at the thought of her with Bryce. With anyone. She was mine. Fuck her brothers.

“I’m on my way.”

“It’s about damn time! Freaking hell.”

I shook my head as I locked my door and ran down the hallway. “I thought you were mad at me.”

“I saw you and Maci together, there’s no way you can tell me you didn’t care about her. I also know you’re Dylan and Dakota’s best friend, and I saw the way they flipped out over Bryce talking to their dad last night. For Maci, I wanted to hate you and castrate you. But I knew there was something about this whole situation that just didn’t make sense. After seeing the twins’ reaction, I started piecing it together. This phone call just confirmed my suspicions.”

“It was ugly when I told them about us. I can’t imagine it’s going to go over well when I get there—­just be there for her now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Maci

MY HAIR WAS naturally straight, I usually just messed with it enough that it had that just-­fucked look. But even so, I used Amber’s flat iron to make sure it was perfect, before pulling it back in a low bun and stepping back to look at myself in the full-­length mirror. Even with still having red hair, I hardly recognized the person staring back at me. My makeup was a little lighter, the nose ring was still out, my hair was smooth, and I looked like I probably belonged on Bryce’s arm with the black peacoat I had on over my cream long-­sleeved shirt. But it wasn’t those changes that made me unrecognizable.

I usually smiled. I usually looked happy. Right now there was nothing, no emotion, no life in my eyes. I looked like I should be going to a funeral instead of a late Christmas Eve dinner with my family.

Forcing a smile, I immediately let it fall when it came across looking pained.