Filed to story: Addicted To My Hockey Stepbrother
“You can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Show up at my lunch. Threaten me in front of my friends. Act like you own-“
“You ghosted me. You left my bed at five AM without a word. You didn’t answer my texts. You avoided me for two days.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. Those grey eyes were hard and steady and stripped of every defense. “You want to end the deal? End it. Say the word. But don’t sleep in my bed and then pretend you felt nothing. That’s not fair to either of us.”
The room was small. The door was closed. And he was standing three feet away looking at me like I’d taken something from him and he wanted it back.
“We crossed a line,” I said.
“We crossed it in the bar bathroom. Everything since then has just been us admitting it.”
“We’re supposed to be fake, Rhys. The deal was fake dating. What happened in your bed was not-“
“No. It wasn’t.” Quiet. Certain. “So what do you want to do about it?”
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to run. I wanted to go back to his apartment and let him take me apart again and I wanted to transfer to a university in another country where nobody’s grey eyes could find me.
“The deal is still useful,” I said finally. “Caleb isn’t backing off. The fake dating gives me breathing room. And you still need a tutor.”
“So we keep going.”
“We keep going. But we – we need boundaries.”
“You mean the rules you wrote down that we’ve already broken?”
“New rules.”
“You going to underline them twice again?”
“I’m going to underline them three times.”
Something shifted in his face – not a smile, but the ghost of one. The version of softness that Rhys allowed himself, which wasn’t much, but was more than he gave anyone else.
“Fine. New rules. Whatever you need.” He stepped closer. Not touching – just close enough to remind me what touching felt like. “But Naomi? Don’t run from me again. I’d rather you tell me to fuck off to my face than disappear at 5 AM.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
We stood there for a moment. The air between us doing that thing it always did – humming, charged, daring one of us to close the gap. Neither of us did. Progress.
***
The campus mixer that evening was the first real test.
Some interdepartmental social thing in the student center – plastic cups, bad music, the kind of event that existed purely for networking and gossip. We walked in together and his arm went around my shoulder like it belonged there. Heavy. Warm. His thumb tracing a small circle against my collarbone – right where the bite mark was fading – and I didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose or if his hands just naturally gravitated toward the places he’d already claimed.
People noticed. Of course they noticed. Phones angled. Whispers rippled. The gossip machine churning out a new chapter of the transfer and the girl in real time.
Then he kissed my temple.
Casual. Easy. His lips against my hair for half a second – the kind of gesture that said mine without performing it. Natural in a way that fake things aren’t supposed to be. My heart did something structurally unsafe.
“He’s watching,” Rhys murmured against my hair.
I didn’t have to ask who.
Caleb was across the room. Leaning against the wall, drink in hand, expression carved from stone. His eyes locked on us – on the arm, on the temple kiss, on the way I was leaning into Rhys like gravity had shifted and he was the new center.
Zara appeared at my side. “Don’t look now but your ex-best-friend looks like he’s about to combust.”
“He’s not my ex-“
“He’s staring at you like you stole his car and he just watched you drive it off a cliff. That’s ex-something energy.”
My phone buzzed.
Miles: Caleb says he misses hanging out. Can he come to my practice on Saturday?
My stomach tightened. Miles’s practice. Caleb coaching my thirteen-year-old brother – inserting himself deeper into my family, weaving himself into the parts of my life that had nothing to do with campus, building a rope I couldn’t cut without hurting the person I loved most.
The leash was already being built. And Miles was holding the other end without knowing it.
I didn’t have time to respond because Caleb was walking toward us. Not storming – walking. Measured. Controlled. The golden-boy mask firmly in place, smile easy, posture relaxed. The performance so polished you’d never know there was a blade underneath it.
He stopped in front of us. Looked at Rhys. Extended his hand.
“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Caleb. Naomi’s best friend.”
The way he said best friend – weighted, deliberate, a claim dressed as a courtesy. This is mine. She was mine first. Whatever you think is happening, I was here before you.
