Page 194 of Lucky Mother Pucker

Tears stream down her cheeks, and she wipes them away. “I guess my last straw was getting my head shoved into a wall. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

I grab her hand. “You’re not pathetic or stupid or weak or any other horrible thing you think about yourself. You were in a relationship with a guy who manipulated you and mistreated you. He knew what he was doing to you. He knew how bad he was treating you. It’s all his fault.”

She blinks at me, the look in her eyes pained. I know it’s going to take a lot more than my words to get her to believe that none of this was her fault. But that’s fine. I’ll tell her as many times as I have to. Because she’s my sister, and I’ll never give up on her.

“Thanks. I really needed to hear that.”

I hug her. “You’re gonna get through this. And I’ll be by your side the whole way.”

She squeezes me tight, then we break apart. She drinks more of her tea.

“How about you? How are you really doing?” she asks.

I’m about to tell her that I’m fine, but she shakes her head.

“I know you’re not fine, Leo. Tell me the truth.”

I rub the back of my neck. “Okay, fine. It sucks that videos are circulating on social media of me beating up Jeff with no context. It sucks that tons of strangers are making shitty comments and assumptions about me when they don’t know anything about what happened. It sucks that I’ll probably get benched or suspended for it because my coach is pissed that one of his players is going viral for being a violent maniac. But it is what it is. I can’t do anything about it.”

Worry flashes in my sister’s gaze. “Wait, you’re in trouble with your coach for defending me?”

“It’s fine. I’ll handle it.” I huff out a breath. “And I didn’t tell him about why I fought Jeff in the first place. I know you’re really private about this. You don’t want people to know what happened between you and Jeff. And that’s okay. It’s not my coach’s business. It’s not anyone’s business.”

Her gaze turns thoughtful as she looks at me. Then she hugs me.

“You’re the best little brother in the world, you know that?” Her voice shakes with emotion as she speaks.

I hold her tight, smiling through the lump in my throat.

“Thanks for having my back,” she says.

“Always.”

She finishes her tea, then gets up to leave.

“You sure you don’t want anything to eat?” I ask.

“I’m not that hungry. I’m just going to head back to Mom’s and sleep.”

I walk her to her car and watch her drive off.

As I head back into the house, my phone buzzes with a text. When I see it’s my dad, I glower at the screen.

Why is there a video of you all over social media beating up your sister’s boyfriend? What the hell is going on? Do you have any idea how this makes you look?

I grit my teeth, hot with anger. He’s got to be fucking kidding. He sees that video, and his first reaction is to text me and not check on her?

I fire off a text.

Have you even thought to check on Zoey? Do you even care about what she’s going through right now?

I stand there, my heart pounding, feeling like I want to scream. I know Zoey probably hasn’t told him what happened to her, but she shouldn’t have to. He’s our dad. He should be the one to reach out. The second he saw that video, he should have called her to make sure she was okay.

But no. All he cares about is yelling at me for jeopardizing my future as a hockey player.

Even though it was justified. Even though it was to help Zoey.

I try to imagine what he’d say if I explained that I was defending Zoey. He probably wouldn’t care.