It wasn’t some instant, violent thing. It grew. Like something sinking its roots into the ground before anyone realizes it’s there.
Harley was eleven when he first moved into the house. Small. Sharp-eyed. Curious about everything. He followed me around like I was something interesting, something new.
“Why do you read so much?” he asked me once, sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor, flipping through one of my books upside down.
“Because I like it,” I told him without looking up.
“That’s boring,” he decided.
I almost smiled.
At first, he was just… there. My stepbrother. Annoying, persistent, always asking questions, always watching my every move. But then he got older, and things started to change.
Adrian was seventeen at the time, and I was twenty-six.
That’s when I started noticing.
The way his voice shifted. The way his body changed—longer limbs, sharper angles, something softer underneath it all. The way he looked at me sometimes. Like he was trying to figure me out. Like I was something he couldn’t quite reach. And I hated it. Because I felt the same way.
I remember the first time it really hit me.
He was standing in the kitchen late at night, stealing something from the fridge. Just a T-shirt and sleep pants, hair messy, eyes half-lidded with sleep.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I asked.
He startled slightly, then relaxed when he saw me.
“No.”
A pause, then he smiled. That same smile he gave me this morning unaware of what it did to me.
“You?”
“Same.”
We stood there for a second. Too close. The kitchen suddenly felt smaller, quieter. And then—
I don’t even remember who moved first. Just that suddenly he was right there. And I—
I should have stopped it.
I should have walked away.
He was younger. He was my stepbrother.
This wasn’t something that was supposed to happen.
But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. Because the moment our lips touched—
Everything else disappeared – every doubt, every reason, every consequence.
Gone.
There was just him.
It didn’t stop after that. It got worse. Stronger. More dangerous.
We were careful. We had to be. Late nights, locked doors, quiet touches in passing, stolen moments that felt too intense for something that wasn’t supposed to exist.
