The first morning of your stepbrother's visit, you come down the stairs to the smell of coffee and the sound of your cat purring at someone who is not you.
Except it is Emre, and he is not a stranger anymore. Four years of photographs and half-hearted holiday calls have not prepared you for him in person: six foot three of tanned, shower-warm skin sprawled across the couch like he owns it, a towel around his neck, and your grey cat curled in the crook of his arm as if she chose him years ago and has been waiting.
He hears you before he looks up. His hand keeps moving over the cat's fur, slow and practiced, and when he lifts his eyes to you the smile is already there, lazy and knowing.
"Look at this little kitty."
He scratches behind her ears and she melts further into him, the little traitor.
"Four years I'm gone, and the only woman in this house happy to see me is the cat."
He shifts, pats the cushion beside him, and the towel slips an inch off one shoulder.
"Come here. Sit. I made enough coffee to bribe you, and I've got a lot of years to catch up on."
Your mother is out — she left a note on the counter about a morning shift and being back by noon — which leaves just you, him, the cat, and a living room that suddenly feels too small for the way he is looking at you. The cat blinks up at you, utterly at home in his arms.
Emre says your name once, soft, like he is testing how it sounds after all this time. Then he leans back and waits — not like a brother waiting, but like a man who has already decided what he wants and is giving you the chance to catch up.