Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 96586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96586 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Thank you,” I coo at my brother-in-law who then helps his younger, shy daughter lift her tiny hand to wave.
“Akiko, can you say happy birthday, Auntie Presley?”
“You know she can’t,” Gabe grumpily states upon his entering the room behind them.
“I know someone needs a drink,” Antonio gestures his head towards the kitchen. “And it ain’t me, honey.”
My big brother rolls his chocolate brown eyes, adjusts his round black Harry Potter style glasses, and defeatedly sighs, “Happy birthday, jellybean. Gift’s still in the car.”
There isn’t time to respond due to my boyfriend heading back towards us with my glass. The words I had planned to say transpose to words I know I need to stay, yet my mouth doesn’t move nearly as fast as my brother’s body.
In one impressively flawless motion, he’s got Ry by the collar of his polo and is swinging him into the nearest wall, my freshly filled glass shattering to the ground in the process. “What the fuck are you doing in our goddamn house?!”
There are gasps from my mom and grumbles from my dad and scoffs from his husband; however, I’m the only one that coherently objects. “Gabe!”
He slams my boyfriend against the wall a second time, rattling the family pictures hanging nearby. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
Scrambling to my feet is done in tandem with me screeching again. “Gabe! Let him go!”
“Give me one motherfucking reason why I shouldn’t beat the fuck out of you right,” Gabe chucks him into the wall once more, “now!”
“How about because your daughter is watching?” Antonio pipes in causing my brother to look over his shoulder.
“Get her out of the room.”
“Gabe-”
“Now.”
Rather than start another fight, my brother-in-law releases a heavy sigh, “Come on, Akiko. Let’s go get a juice box with grandma while Dad adds to the long list of reasons, he’s gonna sleep on the couch tonight.”
“Son,” our father cautiously states while we both approach the hostile situation, “let him go.”
“I will not let this spineless,” another slam is delivered, “dickhead,” more slamming, “go!” His face leans closer to my boyfriend who is making no effort whatsoever to fight back. “You’re nothing but a fuckboy who bailed when he couldn’t bang my sister!”
“Enough!” I squawk, heart pounding uncontrollably in my chest. “Let him go!”
“You shouldn’t be in this fucking house! You shouldn’t be in her fucking life! You should be in the nearest dumpster you useless sack of shit!”
“Gabriel Luther Morrison,” Dad’s voice booms. “You let that young man go this instant!”
“Really?” my brother barks, this time looking over his shoulder to meet my father’s stare. “You’re gonna pick this fucking prick over your own son?!”
“No,” Dad slowly insists at the same time he steps closer to them, “I’m picking your sister who now has tears in her eyes on her fucking birthday.”
For the first time since Gabe attacked Ry, his gaze swings to me.
I know there are tears waiting to fall.
I know that and I fucking wish like hell there weren’t.
And I wish like hell I didn’t see Ry’s hand casually flexing over and over again to insist I keep my distance.
To insist that he lets my brother turn him into a goddamn piñata.
“He shouldn’t fucking be here, Presley,” Gabe viciously seethes.
“I want him here,” I bite back in the same tone. “I chose to bring him here.”
“He doesn’t fucking deserve to be here! He doesn’t deserve your fucking forgiveness!”
“That is not your call, son,” Dad intervenes once more. “You may not like him, you may not like what happened between them the first time, but it is your sister’s life. Only she gets to make that call. We have to respect her choices, even if we don’t agree with them.”
I cut him a questioning gaze.
“Not saying I disagree with you giving, Ryder, a second chance, jellybean.”
“You fucking should!” Gabe shouts again. “All he did was fucking hurt her.” He whips his glare back to my boyfriend whose jaw I can see steadily ticking in displeasure. “She cried herself fucking sick over you.” He resumes the banging against the wall. “She couldn’t get out of fucking bed!” One more pound dents the space behind Ryder. “I caught her trying to commit fucking suicide!”
Ry’s crystal stare swings to me revealing shock and sadness in equal amounts. There’s the faintest twitch of his eyebrows to question the truth of my brother’s professing to which I simply press my lips together to hold in a sob.
I did.
It was just one night…one bath…one moment where I just wanted all the pain to end. I simply closed my eyes and sunk under the water with the weight of existence successfully holding me down. His knocking on the bathroom door is what stopped the attempt. Startled me back to the surface. And the minute I came out in my robe, he somehow knew.