After grabbing his plate as well, I took a few steps past him, turned back around, and shook my head sadly. “You know the funny thing about what you just said, Dakota? You say that you all want is to protect me, and that you’re looking out for me; but I don’t feel like I can even come to you guys if I need protecting. You’re my brothers, I’m supposed to feel safe because of all of you; instead I just feel like I need to hide everything about myself from you because you won’t approve or won’t allow it. You four are the last people I would think to call if I was in trouble.”

I ignored the shocked looks everyone was giving me and rushed into the kitchen to put the dishes on the counter. I turned to leave, but my mom grabbed me in a hug from where she was standing at the sink.

“I’m sorry, my sweet girl. I’m so sorry you’re hurting.” Cupping my cheeks, she pulled back to look in my eyes, and smiled sadly. “There’s something else, Maci, I can see it. Maybe someday you’ll talk to me about what’s going on with you? It hurts me that you feel like you can’t.”

My chest started burning and my throat closed up as tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Tonight was definitely not one of my finest. Yelling at my best friend, telling my brothers that they pretty much suck at being brothers. My heart breaking for my mom because I’d kept myself so closed off and had kept everything from her. I needed to get out of there. I just needed to go.

I squeezed my mom’s hands and removed them from my face before running out of the kitchen and through the house toward the front door. Just as my hand reached it, I was turned around, and my body sagged in defeat against the door when I saw Sam.

“Where are you going?”

“I just need to go, I need to get out of here and get away from everything for a minute and just think.”

“We’re your family, don’t run away from us. Dakota and Dylan are being dicks. What’s new? They’ll get over it.”

I shook my head quickly and grabbed the knob behind me. “You don’t understand, Sam. There’s so much going on right now that you just don’t understand. I need to be alone for a while, okay?”

His mouth pulled up on one side as he thought, and then turned to look behind him where the sounds of our family could be heard. “If you’re going outside, then I’m going with you.” He grabbed the first jacket he touched on the coat rack and shrugged it on as he stepped up right next to me. Not giving me the option to go alone.

“Despite everything we’ve said and done, you can’t let us stop you from having relationships,” he said after we’d been walking for a handful of minutes. “And I don’t mean hiding them, I mean actually having them. Bringing the guy around to meet the family, that sort of thing.”

“You’re not,” I said automatically.

He laughed humorlessly and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I need to tell you something,” he mumbled and stared off at the dark sky as we continued to walk.

“Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to make me wonder what it is?”

“I know about Connor,” he said suddenly, and stopped walking, turning his body so he was facing me.

My heart skipped painful beats hearing someone else say his name, and it took a couple seconds for me to understand what he was saying. My eyes widened as I slowly turned to look up at him.

“We . . . shit. He came and talked to us the day before we left for Mammoth, he wanted us to know that you were together. Dylan and Dakota forced him to leave you. I’d sided with Connor, but when I saw you the next day, I knew he’d listened to them.”

The way Connor had been acting that night played through my mind, and I felt sick. Sick over losing him, and over the fact that he had tried to stand up to my family, and my brothers had convinced him to leave me. I would expect that from Bryce, but not Connor.

“Wait! You sided with Connor? Why?”

Sam shrugged and a huff left him. “Because he’s a good guy, and he . . . well, after all he said. I knew he wanted to be with you forever, not just to screw around with.”

“We fucked, Maci, that’s all we did.” I sniffed and rubbed at my frozen nose before crossing my arms under my chest. “Well you were wrong about that, and it doesn’t matter. If he’s going to let them keep us apart, then he’s not worth it.”

“I’m not buying that, and I can tell you don’t even believe the shit you’re saying.”

“I will one day,” I countered, and his face morphed into a sympathetic smile.

“Maci, I had no clue you were with him; but from what he said, and what I’m seeing these last couple of days from you, I don’t think you will. He is worth it: What guy has ever had the balls to talk to you after we’ve told them to back off for just looking at you, let alone actually confront three of us at once and tell us he’s with you and not leaving you? Dakota and Dylan . . . they said some pretty fucked-up shit. They hit him low, and they hit him hard. I’m still pissed off at them for what they did, but they really left Connor with no choice.”

Little puffs of clouds filled the space between us from our breath for silent minutes as tears filled my eyes, and eventually spilled over.

“There’s always a choice, Sam,” I choked out as I remembered Connor’s words the night my brothers had shown up at his apartment, and turned to head back to the cabin. “I just wasn’t enough for him, apparently.”

Sam grabbed me and pulled me back. “Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not enough. And if that’s what this is”—he gestured toward me—“Maci, you look beautiful, but this isn’t you. This isn’t my little sister.”

“God, not you too. It’s just time for a change,” I repeated mechanically. “Why is that so difficult for everyone to comprehend?”

“If you wanna change, then change. But do it because it’s what you want for you and your life, not because other people have made you feel like you need to. After what I heard from the prick that’s high on his daddy’s money last night, you’re not doing this for you.”

“I’m not doing it for Bryce either.”

“And thank Christ for that. Deep down though, I think you’re letting everything he’s said to you—and what happened to you and Connor—get to you, and you think this is what you have to do. You don’t: all you have to do is be the Maci everyone loves, and let the rest fall into place, okay?”

Tears continued to fall down my face, but I didn’t try to brush them away anymore. The corners of my mouth lifted in a shaky smile and I cocked my head to the side as I looked at my brother.

“Who are you and what did you do with Sam?”

He laughed loudly and pulled me in for a hug. “Come on, let’s go back in. It’s freezing, and whichever twin’s jacket this is, it smells like he had prostitutes hanging all over him. Jessica is going to freak when she smells me.”

I didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. You could smell the jacket from a mile away. “I’ll back you up that it isn’t your jacket as long as you do me a favor. Don’t hold me back when I go ape-shit on Dakota and Dylan’s asses when we get back.”

“Deal.”

But when we got back, Sam didn’t have to worry about holding me back. Craig and Dad were trying to moderate a yelling match that was getting closer and closer to a brawl between Dakota, Dylan, and Connor.

Connor

PARKING BEHIND THE multiple cars at the cabin, I started cursing at the icy walkway as I tried to run up to the door. Without knocking, I walked in and walked toward the living room, where I could hear voices.

“Connor!” Dakota said loudly, his voice deceivingly happy. His eyes looked dark when he noticed my mood.

“Where is she?” I huffed as I looked around the room. I heard a bunch of women talking in the kitchen and turned that way.

“We told you,” he began as he stood in front of me, stopping me from getting closer to the girls.

“I said where the fuck is she?”

“Hold on here,” Mr. Price said, standing up from one of the couches. “What the hell is going on?”

“Connor,” Dylan said in warning as he shook his head.

“Maci!” I yelled toward the kitchen, and Dakota pushed me back with a hard shove.

“We told you to stay away!”

“The fuck?” Craig said as he came to stand behind Dakota.

“And I should have never listened to you! Maci!”

The women began pouring into the living room, and I looked wildly for her.

“She’s not here,” Amber said, her face breaking out in a smile when she saw me. “She left, but Sam followed her.”

“Left? Left for where?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter, because we told you to stay the hell away from her!” Dakota yelled, and started coming toward me, but Craig stopped him.

“Now everyone just shut the hell up!” Mr. Price yelled and walked into the triangle Dakota, Dylan, and I were making. “This has been the most dramatic Christmas vacation I think we’ve ever had. Now someone better explain to me what’s going on, and I mean right now.”

Dylan opened his mouth, but I spoke over him. “I’m in love with your daughter.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, not again,” Craig groaned.

“He can’t—”

“No,” I cut Dylan off, and kept talking. “Whatever that asshole told you last night, don’t listen to him. Maci doesn’t want to be with him, I’ve seen the way he treats her, all he does is order her around and belittle her.”

“Like that’s much better than what you would do to her?” Dakota sneered.

“I won’t hurt Maci!” I yelled at him, and turned back to his dad. “I’ve been seeing your daughter all month. I know that’s not a long time, but I also know that there isn’t another girl for me out there.”