Page 36 of Pucking Them
I’m hoping D’Angelo will take the hint and buy us three cats.
To start with.
Robyn laughed when she saw it, before muttering, “Don’t you meanmen?”
She’s proudly wearing the matching t-shirt to me, which I gifted her.
She cast me a challenging look, when she first strolled in, as if daring me to say anything about the fact that she’d labeled each of the cats with marker pen and an arrow:JUDE,PHOENIX, andSHAY.
I didn’t, however, because she called the catPhoenix, rather than Eden.
Also, because she chose the cutest cat to be me.
It awakens something possessive in me every time I see her wearing my shit.
These emotions, which I don’t understand, make me feel more alive than I have before. I never want to go back to feeling numb.
Now, Robyn’s gaze slides to my bare legs.
She flushes.
Satisfying.
I may have been the only virgin in this group last year, when we met, but I am a quick learner.
Plus, D’Angelo is a good mentor.
Robyn swallows, forcing herself to look away from the pale stretch all the way to my hip. “You both did amazing stealing what D’Angelo needed.”
I glow. “It was easy.”
I don’t mention Shay’s panic attack and how terrible it had been to hide underneath that desk, while my brother had fallen apart with flashbacks.
She doesn’t need to worry about our shit.
To my surprise, however, it was Shay who begged me not to tell Robyn.
“She’ll think that I’m still broken.” Shay wiped furiously at his tears as he clung to me. “I’ve worked too hard to prove that I’m not.”
“She won’t.”
“But what if I am?” Shay whispered, his voice rough from crying. “You didn’t freak out; I did. Everything is going so well, Dee. We have a home and people who have proved that they love us. I don’t want to risk them abandoning us because I’m a mess.”
I tightened my hold on him. “D’Angelo would punish you for talking like that about yourself. He would never abandon you. He’d never let you go.”
Shay brightened at the thought.
Yet sometimes, it worries me how much that’s true. D’Angelo is more possessive than I am.
I still called D’Angelo after the panic attack.
Shay can let himself be amessin front of him in a way that he’s terrified to show in front of Robyn.
Is it because his abusive ex was a woman? Or because D’Angelo often tears him down in order to put him back together again?
Shay still grumbled, “Twin Code, bro…”
D’Angelo pulled my brother into a closet in the arena for privacy, wrapping extra jerseys around Shay and helping him take sips from his water bottle.
