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“Balls,” I groan loudly, dropping the pink backpack I had slung over my shoulder and tossing my anxiety pen. They hit the concrete with a dull thud, but the sound of my heart pounding in my ears is louder than anything. I focus on calling Phoenix for the eightieth time in the last hour, trying to suck air in through my nose. “Don’t you dare do this to me, Phoenix!” I hiss, hot tears already stinging my eyes. It’s a combination of knowing I’ve been abandoned again and the reminder of the last time Holden was forced to come to my rescue.
“You’ve reached Phoenix–”
I disconnect the call without bothering to leave another angry message. He’s not answering for a reason, and thirty thousand voicemails wouldn’t get him to pick up. Hell, I don’t think anything on this earth could convince my brother to answer the phone when he’s avoiding conflict at all costs. For a man at the center of most conflicts, he sure does hate confrontation.
I turn my back on the stupidly pristine muscle car as it pulls up to the curb and refuse to look at the man approaching me.
I know the man behind the wheel just as well as the car he’s driving. Holden is the reliable brother. The savior brother. The brother who’s constantly cleaning up the messes the other one makes. The brother I wish wasn’t my stepbrother at all.
“I assume Nix has abandoned me once again?” It’s more of a hissed growl than a question, and it doesn’t require an answer. I already know Phoenix isn’t coming.
“It’ll be okay, little sister,” my stepbrother Holden says as he approaches me. I can’t bring myself to look at him, but I heard the attempt at playful teasing in his tone when he called me sister. Fuck, I hate that nickname.
To make matters worse, the heavy hand he rests on my shoulder is warm and comforting. For once, I don’t pull away from his touch. For just a brief moment, I indulge.
I normally don’t allow Holden to touch me longer than it takes for me to jump away from his grip, but today is different. A special circumstance. I need the comfort. The reassurance that only he can give me. We’re bonded by our ever-growing disappointment in our brother.
Today, I need to feel like someone, anyone, gives a fuck about me. And Holden? He loves me more than most. Fuck, he might love me more than anyone ever has and ever will. Which is why I count to three, suck in a deep breath, and step away from him. He loves me like he loves Nix.
These feelings aren’t normal…not right…
It would be so easy to let Holden wrap me up in his arms. To fall into him and just…be. To let him hold my fucked up heart in his hand, but when he realizes my feelings for him are anything but platonic, he’ll toss my heart aside. I couldn’t take that rejection.
This is a dangerous game. A slippery slope you can’t just climb back up once you’ve fallen.
I know that more than anyone.
He lets out a deep sigh when I break away from his grip but doesn’t protest. Not like he used to.
“It’s okay to enjoy hugging me, Rose. I like hugging you too,”he’d say, and it fucked my head up even more. What did he mean?
“Let's get you home, little sis,” Holden says softly, and I cringe, wiping off the shame and guilt like it’s a physical presence in my chest. Like it’s something I’ll ever be free from. The truth is so much worse. So I lock it up in a little box and hide this ugly feeling away in the back of my mind.
As I accept my fate, I start walking toward the passenger side door.
“They're going to absolutely hate this,” I argue, knowing full well what's going on without him needing to explain. “Is there no other option?” I practically beg. I’m not exactly jumping at the chance to live with a bunch of frat boys… Kappa Delta Alpha… My new home? Fucking great.
But Phoenix isn’t here, and he sent Holden to clean up his mess. There’s only one thing it could mean. I just gained six unexpected roommates, and they just gained an unexpected cock block. Well, the three men I grew up with used to call me a cock block. The other three? I’m not sure anything could stop them from chasing tail down the street like a pack of hungry dogs. Respectful hungry dogs chasing tail that signed up as bait, at least. They may be horny, but they are all decent humans. Mostly.
“They’ll get over it. Having a sexy co-ed running around the house isn’t the worst thing to ever happen to them,” Holden says so offhandedly that, at first, the words don’t click.Sexy… Holden called me sexy…“And none of them will touch you unless they want to die…” he adds, and I just blink. I’m still stuck on the word sexy.
Fuck. He does that a lot. Saying things about my looks as if I’m not his stepsister. Making my skin shiver with uneasiness. Not because I’m uncomfortable, but because I am comfortable. Because the words light a fire in my chest that shouldn’t be there. Because every time I look at Holden, I want to see that look…the one he saves for the girls he fucks. The one that makes women feel fucking weak.
The one that Holden definitely shouldn’t give me.
“Stop it,” I grumble, hoping like fuck that he assumes the blush on my cheeks is just from crying. I watch him put my bags in the trunk and change the subject. “So what was it this time? A MILF in Majorca? A cougar in Cancun?” I scoff, and Holden chuckles.
“Nope, it was Milly, in Mexico.” His voice drips with disdain, and I pause, finally lifting my gaze to Holden. Nix stole his fucking girlfriend?
As soon as our eyes meet, I suck in a shallow breath. Jesus fucking fuck, the man is devastating to look at. Tight muscles and sharp cheekbones. The piercing blue eyes and short brown hair just make him look like a bad boy sex god. He’s tall, and I know he’s fit from years of playing hockey.
He’s a center for the Bristol Blues, my new college as of Monday. A position Phoenix had his heart set on during his senior year of high school before the accident ripped his dreams away.
The Mustang that was once this one's twin went up in flames that night, along with my brother’s future. The cars were eighteenth birthday gifts. Holden's birthday is two days before ours. Their brotherhood was written in the stars.
My doom was written in black ink when our parents signed the marriage certificate when we were sixteen, making him my stepbrother.
“As in your girlfriend Milly?” I whisper, and Holden smirks, nodding as he slams the trunk shut. “Holy fucking shit. That's a new low.”
