Page 2 of Enchanted to Meet You

My heart kicked up another notch. Was he going to ask for my number? Maybe he wanted to send me something for the party.

I tried to push down the excitement. There was no point in getting excited about something that hadn’t happened yet, only to be disappointed when it didn’t.

“Tell Sebastian, would you? It would be great if he came.”

I blinked a couple times, not sure if I understood him correctly. “And… me, right? Like you want me to come and bring my brother?”

“Yeah.” He glanced up at me, apparently realizing from my expression that he’d left something out. “You, too.”

You, too. Two of the most insignificant words Justin Vaughn had ever spoken, and yet my brain immediately promoted them to the top five most important sentences in my life.

“Okay,” I said, trying not to smile too hard. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Cool.”

He slipped his phone back into his pocket and took Leah’s hand. “Anyway, we should…”

He trailed off and I realized he was staring at me. No, not at me—at the door. The door I was currently blocking.

“Oh.” My face heated. “Right.”

I skittered out of the way, tripping over three pairs of shoes on the front mat in the process. When Justin reached a hand toward me, I thought for one glorious second that he was going to catch me.

Instead, he grabbed the door handle and held it open for Leah.

Right. Of course he wasn’t going to catch some girl he barely knew.

I grabbed my bag and hurried toward the studio where my class was probably starting without me, but before I could turn toward the changing room, I glanced back through the glass. They were walking toward a dark SUV parked in the front row, where Leah climbed into the backseat, but instead of climbing into the driver’s seat like I would have expected, Justin climbed in the passenger’s side. I realized why a moment later as another boy came around from the front of the car and stepped up to the driver’s side—Justin and Leah’s new step-brother, Rhys.

Their mum had married his dad six months ago, and though he still went to the rival school, Crofton Academy, I’d seen him around quite a bit. From what I knew of him, he was Justin’s opposite in pretty much every way: while Justin had dark hair and brown eyes, Rhys had dirty blond hair and green eyes. While Justin had a smile that could melt hearts, Rhys had a smirk that made eyes roll. While Justin had a sense of humor, Rhys had… none. .

Not to mention, Rhys was Sebastian’s biggest rival on the soccer field. In the last year, they’d started to have a “who can get a yellow card sooner” competition in every single soccer match. Tripping and pushing, grabbing each other’s jerseys, charging to mess up plays, they did it all. Three months ago, in the first major game of the spring season, Rhys’s taunting had gotten into Sebastian’s head so much that he’d missed a penalty shot for the first time ever.

Basically, he was the last person in the world I’d ever want to hang out with.

Honestly, I was surprised either of the Vaughn siblings were willingly spending time with him now, since from what I’d heard, none of them got along all that well. I wondered if their parents were forcing them to spend time together to encourage sibling bonding. I could only imagine how well that was going to work.

I shook off the thought and ran down the hall toward my class. I had approximately five seconds left to make it to the barre, and apparently that was plenty of time for my brain to start obsessing over the fact that Justin Vaughn had invited me to his party.

Or, technically, invited Sebastian.

But still, he’d said you, too. That had to count for something, right?

two

My crush on Justin had begun last summer, nearly ten months ago now. I remembered, because it was only a week after my dad had confessed to my mum that he was having an affair and moved out. After that night, I’d done everything I could to avoid being in the house. Being inside meant thinking about him, and thinking about him meant crying, so I went anywhere else I could.

It was summer vacation and I didn’t have a job, so I mostly just wandered the streets. Eventually, I realized that a group of boys were playing softball at the park every day, and I figured sitting on the bleachers to watch them play beat randomly walking around. If nothing else, it was a distraction. Something new to focus on. I’d never been into baseball—I’d grown up watching my brother’s soccer matches and had gotten so into those that no other sports interested me, and baseball was more of an American sport and I’d lived in the UK until I was ten—but that didn’t stop me from returning. Night after night, I sat there and watched—the yellow street lights as they shone on Justin’s face, the way his shoulders squared up right before he threw, the flash of a grin whenever he made a good catch, like he couldn’t help being pleased with himself. And I felt my crush on him grow just a little bit more with every passing day.

I’d hardly ever spoken to him, and I was sure he didn’t know I existed, but that didn’t matter. I was happy to play the long game, to wait for him to realize it. And now, he’d invited me to his party.

Well, me and Sebastian. And by extension, probably my other siblings and their partners too, because that was how it always seemed to go when we all got invited out, but that was okay. This would be the first time Justin would know I was there, and I was sure it was going to be the moment he fell in love with me.

It had to be.

Now, if only I could get my brother to agree to go.

“I’m not stepping foot into Rhys Montgomery’s house,” Sebastian said. He shoved me over from where I was lounging on his pillows so he could make his bed. Given that it was after seven p.m., I assumed he was only doing it because his girlfriend was coming over and he didn’t want to seem like a total slob.