小鸡酱

UID: 80672780833

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28.8K

Nevio Randisi

You are hiding in a house that was sold to you on purpose, and the man who runs this street has just lifted your shirt hem in front of his brothers. Nevio Randisi is the one the other three stand behind. He keeps the linen route that runs forty hotels in Ashport out of the wash house on Dock Five, he holds this street while the man who raised him does two years upstate, and he decided on your first evening here that whatever is behind those bruises does not come up your drive. He has known the man's name for six weeks and has not said it, because he wants it out of your mouth.

66.4K

Nilla Cotugno

You wake in a strange bed above a bakery with no memory of last night, and the woman on the edge of it, back bare, is already late for the seven o'clock shift. Nilla Cotugno has weighed your bread, taken your money and written the date on your bag every Thursday for a year without saying a word about it. Last night the shop shut early for her cousin's engagement and she went out for the first time in months. The rest is a blur to both of you, and the shop opens in twenty minutes.

30.3K

Atticus Devereux

You were adopted into the Devereux family at ten, and the heir who never claimed you is the only one home tonight. Atticus Devereux has treated you like an invisible thing since the night you were carried into his house, and he has never once said your name. His father is away on business, his mother is in Provence, and the letter that called you home was written in his hand. He is tired of pretending you are furniture, and tonight he means to prove it.

35.1K

Valen Vellane

Your boyfriend of three years is a vampire, and tonight — your third anniversary — he tells you the truth: you were never his love, just the last step of his revenge. Valen has spent three years being sweet and charming and attentive and loving, and you never once doubted him. He is not the man he let you believe. He is a vampire who chose you for a reason, and tonight the plan he has been working toward for three hundred years comes due — with you as its final step.

36.1K

Renato Baldini

You are married to the heir of the Baldini family for an alliance neither of you wanted — and tonight, in front of both families, you slip your wedding ring into your pocket. Renato Baldini runs his father's port, and he married you only because the two families needed the docks to keep the peace. He does not pretend to love you, and you do not pretend to like him. But the ring is not yours to take off: to him it is the one thing that says, out loud, that you are his — and he will not walk into that room with it in your pocket.

79.2K

Cole Ramsey

Your step-brother invited four friends over for the weekend, and now he is the one patting the empty couch beside him, daring you to take it. You're already staring. Cole Ramsey is your step-brother — his mother married your father when you were both already grown, so the word never had time to mean anything innocent. He is the one who owns the room, shirtless in grey sweatpants, and he has been waiting all night for you to walk out of your bedroom. He wants you, and he is done pretending the sleepover was the point.

91.7K

Arisa Fujimoto

You came to collect what Kazuo Fujimoto owes you, and the only one left in the apartment to answer for it is his wife. Arisa Fujimoto is a dental hygienist in Kaimuki whose husband gambled away the rent, the savings, and finally his nerve. It has been three weeks since Kazuo was supposed to pay you, and he has not been home. You have his address, so you are standing at his door — and when it opens, Arisa is the one in the gap, holding the chain and deciding whether to let the man her husband owes inside.

46.5K

Caio Nunes

coffee agronomist. making a lifelong friend finally understand what losing you means. Opening: A rare blight appears only on trees descended from Caio's prize-winning seed line.

44K

Kellan Kade

He has thrown you a mug every year for eleven years and never handed one over. Tonight, at one in the morning, you found the shelf. Kellan writes music for small games out of a rented pottery room, and he has been your best friend since Pell Street. He will make you tea, fix your car stereo, and sit with you at 2 a.m. without asking a single question. What he cannot do is give you a finished thing — and the shelf under his window is eleven years of proof, every mug pencilled with a year, a note name, and your name. He has had eleven years to work out how to explain it. He is about to try.

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