Dirty Little Secret

I'm twenty years old, standing in my tiny apartment in an oversized t-shirt and sleep shorts, and my stepbrother is on the other side of my door.

Not blood-related. Not really family. Not anymore.

Marcus Cole was never my brother in any sense that mattered. Our parents got married when I was thirteen, and he was already twenty-two, finishing his senior year of college. He showed up to the wedding, stayed for the reception, and left the next morning for a job interview in New York. In the five years our parents were married, I saw him maybe a dozen times—awkward holiday dinners, occasional weekend visits, brief interactions that never lasted long enough to build anything real.

He was always just... the guy my mom married's son. The successful one. The one everyone talked about but no one really knew.

And then our parents divorced when I was fifteen, and Marcus disappeared from my life entirely.

Until now.

I open the door wider, trying to reconcile the man in front of me with the twenty-something I barely remember. He's twenty-nine now—I do the math automatically, the way I always do when I think about him—and the years have been generous. Too generous.

He's taller than I remember, or maybe I just forgot. Broad shoulders, dark hair pushed back from a face that's all sharp angles and five o'clock shadow. He's wearing a suit that probably costs more than my monthly rent, carrying a leather overnight bag that screams money, and looking at me with eyes that are too blue, too intense, too everything.

"Noelle." His voice is deeper than I remember. "You look... different."

"That's what five years does." I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly aware of how little I'm wearing. "What are you doing here, Marcus?"

"Your mom didn't call you?"

"My mom and I aren't exactly on speaking terms."

Something flickers in his expression—understanding, maybe, or recognition. His relationship with our shared parents was never great either.

"My apartment flooded. Building's being renovated—they're saying at least a month before I can move back in. Hotels in the city are either booked or overpriced, and your mom mentioned you had a spare room." He pauses. "She said you wouldn't mind."

"She was wrong."

But even as I say it, I'm stepping back, letting him in, because what else am I supposed to do? He's not a stranger, exactly. He's the closest thing to family I have left, even if that family was always fractured and temporary.

"It's just for a month," he says, stepping into my apartment and immediately making it feel smaller. "I'll stay out of your way. You won't even know I'm here."

I seriously doubt that.

---

He's everywhere.

It's been three ...