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I knew why. I couldn’t stand to hear their voices or see their faces when we talked via whatever video chat we happened to use. I felt so ashamed of myself for the things I continued to do to my body. The cutting was getting out of hand. I knew it but didn’t know how to stop. I was becoming addicted to the release it gave me.
“Okay, I think I got enough pictures.” I glanced over at my mother who was thankfully putting away her camera. With a smile that looked on the wobbly side, she moved between me and Shane and wrapped me up tight in her arms. “I’m so proud of you, baby.”
I buried my face in her hair, letting the comforting scents of her lotion and shampoo calm me like nothing else could. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I need a group picture,” Kin suddenly called out.
My head shot up as my best friend left her stepfather and grabbed Jace by the arm to pull him toward me. “Come on, babe. I want a picture with us all.”
I had a sinking suspicion I knew who ‘us all’ included. Sure enough, Kin stopped long enough to grab Harris by the elbow with her free hand and tugged him in my direction. “Where’s Carolina?” Kin grumbled as she paused to glance around for her stepsister.
“I’m coming!”
It was still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Kin and her youngest stepsister had become such close friends. I—like Kin, originally—had always thought Carolina was just like her mother and older sister, Georgia. The younger girl had always been around her mother and sister and we had assumed she was just as much a bitchy airhead as they were. She’d proven she wasn’t, however, when she’d become the friend Kin had needed once I’d left for Georgetown.
“Carolina, I said no.”
No one paid any attention to Jillian Montez as she called after her youngest daughter. Carolina, who had come not just to watch Kin and me graduate but also Georgia, had been sitting as far away from my family as humanly possible. It was a toss-up who Jillian disliked more: my mom or Aunt Emmie. Jillian was the kind of person who fed off of the attention she got. Mom and Aunt Emmie didn’t play those kinds of games, so she avoided them.
“I see she’s still as much a bitch as she always has been,” I heard Mom mutter to Aunt Emmie, who was standing right beside her.
Aunt Emmie shrugged. “As long as she leaves Kin alone, she’s safe. I told that bitch on Christmas morning that if she didn’t back off of Kin, I would make sure her husband didn’t get that next directing job with Paramount. I have the CEO’s daughter on speed dial. One word out of her about Kin and Scott’s ass is grass, which means no more designer shoes for the cunt-faced bitch.”
My mouth fell open and I turned to face them both. “What?”
Aunt Emmie didn’t even blink as she shifted her gaze from Jillian to me. “Did you think I would sit by and let what happened on Christmas Eve continue? Kin is family, Lucy. We take care of family, baby.”
“I know that, but I had no idea you were behind why Jillian backed off Kin like she did. She did a complete one-eighty after that stupid Christmas gala.” I glanced over at Kin who was oblivious to the new turn in our conversation. I didn’t know if I should tell her or not. She was happy today and I didn’t want to bring up her step-monster.
“Angie and Caleb, you two stand here.” Kin was already positioning everyone to suit her. “Lucy, here.” She grabbed my hand and jerked me roughly into place just in front of Caleb. “Caro, you should stand here. Harris, behind Angie, and Jace can stand beside me in the middle.”
I heard Caleb huff and lifted my head to find him smirking down at me. Just like his twin sister, I’d liked Caleb from the first moment I’d met him. Maybe even before that when Kin had told me all about the twins who couldn’t have been more her brother and sister if they had been blood related.
“There’s no use arguing, Lu. She’s going to get her way one way or another. Best to just give in and let her do her thing.” Caleb gave me a wink and I found myself relaxing a little more.
“I can’t get you all in,” Carter, Kin’s stepfather, complained as he stood in front of us with his camera. “Caleb, put your arm around the girl and pull her in closer.”
A big arm wrapped around my waist and I was suddenly off the ground several inches as Caleb pulled me closer into the group. I couldn’t help but squeal, which caused him to chuckle. That deep sound made his chest rumble and I laughed as he tucked me under his arm like I weighed nothing at all.
“That’s better,” Carter said with a nod as he started snapping his camera. Several others did the same and we stood there for a full minute, letting them all get their pictures.
“Change it up a little,” I heard someone call and I could have throat-punched them. “Lucy looks too small with Caleb. Dude, do you bench press trucks or something for fun?”
Caleb laughed again. “Only on Sundays.”
Kin started rearranging us, but as soon as she moved me, I knew it had to have been the plan all along. I was about to rip her hair out when she positioned Carolina next to Caleb and then shifted me so I was right up against Harris. “Bitch,” I muttered and she gave me an apologetic grimace before taking her spot with Jace once more.
Glaring after her, I started to move out of the group when another arm wrapped around my waist. I wasn’t lifted off the ground, but I immediately felt like I was rooted to the spot. My entire body suddenly felt like it had caught fire as Harris’s hand settled firmly at my hip and tightened like he had every right in the world to touch me.
My brain started screaming to get away—far, far away—from the pain he could and would cause. My heart, on the other hand, was crying—fucking sobbing—that it was about damn time. My body didn’t get either memo from those two conflicting organs and it came alive for the first time since Harris Cutter had last kissed me.
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sp; I stood there, tension radiating off of me. Harris’s hand tightened and he lowered his head until I could feel his warm breath on my neck. “Relax.”
“Bite me,” I gritted out low so no one around us could hear.
“What, you can let Caleb touch you but not me?”
