Page 84 of When You Blush

“And you’re already halfway in love with him.”

I blink at him, and he grins.

“My kids always think I’m blind or stupid. I’m neither. The one before this was an idiot. He wasn’t near good enough for you. So what makes you think this one is?”

I pause, considering the question. “He makes me feel important. Like I’m the most interesting person in the room. And when he smiles at me, it feels like my heart opens up.”

I realize that the room is dead quiet, and when I look around, I find the others listening, too, and I know that I need to open up to them. I have to tell them everything that happened.

“Plus, he’s handsome.” I clear my throat and take a deep breath.

“The minute any of the good things stop being true, you call me,” Greg says, reaching for my hand. “You won’t go through anything like the last one by yourself again.”

“How—”

“I’m not blind or stupid, pumpkin.”

“None of us is,” Easton adds, and I look around the room again.

This is my family.

“So maybe I should tell you guys what all went down. Before.”

Tucker gestures for everyone to come sit at the table, and within seconds, we’re all seated in the chairs that we’ve claimed since we were kids, and all of the attention is on me.

Xander’s on my right, and he leans over to kiss my temple. “It’s okay, baby sis.”

“I don’t really know where to start.”

“Just start talking,” Tucker suggests. “But I have one question first.”

I lift my eyebrow.

“Do I need to kill him?”

How did I get so lucky to have all of these protective men in my life?

“No. We’ll let him be miserable.”

And so, with a fortifying breath, I dive in, telling them pretty much the same story I told Blake when we danced in the rain.

I don’t leave anything out.

“What do you mean, he’d lock you in a room and lecture you?” Easton demands. He’s leaning against the counter now because he had to stand and pace to work off the anger I could see coursing through him. His knuckles are white from gripping the edge of the countertop.

“Just that. He’d corner me somewhere, and he’d enjoy making me feel like shit.”

Ava brushes a tear off her cheek. “But you know it’s bullshit, right?”

“Now I do, sure.” I keep talking even as Greg shakes his head. “You guys, I know I’m a good nurse, a good sister and daughter. I know that in my gut. But at that very moment, in that room, when I was told over and over again that I was worthless and not deserving of anything good, I resigned myself to that lie. And he knew he could manipulate me that way because he knew about how I grew up.”

“He’s going to suffer,” Easton says, with a voice so calm that it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “I’ll find a way to make sure he never has even one day of peace. He may not know why, but I don’t really give a fuck.”

“I hope you got tested to make sure he didn’t infect you with something,” Tucker adds.

“I did. He didn’t. Once I found out about the cheating, I never had sex with him again.” I shudder at the thought.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Xander asks. “We would have come to Portland, loaded up your stuff, and brought you home where you belong. All you had to do was say the word, Harps.”