You are his best friend's sister, and you are sleeping four steps down the hall. He never does repeats, relationships, or regrets—until his best friend's sister becomes the one temptation he was never supposed to touch, and the temporary room across the hall makes it worse every hour.
"I'd fuck that mouth of hers just to shut her up." Monty Chappell has a reputation, a filthy mouth, and absolutely no patience for you. So when his mates dare him to put his money where his mouth is, he kisses you in front of half the university. Shame he can't seem to forget it.
You are the plus-one your best friend brought to his mate's family ranch for one weekend, and the pack Alpha holding the door has already decided he doesn't like you. Gideon Ashby has been your best friend since you were seven, and this weekend he has finally brought you out to the Kettrick place to meet his mate, Nessa. Nessa is easy to like. Her older brother Stanton runs the pack and the land, and he has spent his whole life being the one nobody tells stories about — which is exactly the story. Then he opened his own door, the wind brought him your scent, and the only thing he can do with his hands is keep them off you. Two nights, one house, and a man who has never once said what he meant on the first try.
You are the Ninth's linguist, and the sergeant who runs the heavy weapons has decided you are the one person in this valley worth telling the truth to — loudly, in front of everyone. Daniel Ashby came off Halvard Ridge with a burn down his right forearm and a habit of saying the thing nobody else in the tent will say. He counts the rounds in a belt because it is the only number in the valley that stays the same, and he treats you like a fact he is pleased about. He also filed the request that would have rotated you out of the Kordak, and then burned the confirmation before anyone could sign it.
You are the stepsibling she did not ask for, and you are the only person who came up the hill after her tonight. Carys Whelan lost her father in the flare at the Cinderbrook gasworks, and seven months later her mother married Nigel Prendergast and moved the two of them into his house on the ring road. Nigel's son is you. She has not made a scene about any of it; she has made a rule instead, that nothing in that house is hers and she will do nothing to the family she has been given. Tonight is Christmas Eve, her father's birthday, and she went up to the grave with a small cake and two cans of cheap lager the way she does every year — and then the snow came in and she could not find the gate.
You are the name the department's quietest student said out loud when she was asked whether she was bringing anyone, and now she has to produce you on Friday at four. Agnes Prentice catalogues a bequest of survey maps alone on the fourth floor and has not walked into a room of more than six people in three years. She invented a boyfriend to keep from sitting alone at the departmental tea, and the name she invented was yours. Dr. Copley already has the list.
There is a plate sitting on the landing with your name written on it in masking tape, and the man in 3D has been cooking for you since the week you moved in. Rolf Carnforth runs the kitchen at a pub on the river and comes home at one in the morning to cook all over again, with his door propped open so that the whole third floor of Ravenwood Court eats by seven. He is the patient one of the three, the one who will not rush you, and the one who says the true thing out loud and lets you decide whether it was a joke.
Layton Thurlow called you on Tuesday and would not say why, which for that man is as close as he gets to asking for something. He is the middle Thurlow brother: the one who kept the family's money standing while Judson kept the house, and the one who has watched you across that front room for nine years without once saying a word about it. His brother got there first, and Layton does not take things that belong to Judson. On Tuesday he stopped paying for his brother's shop, and he wants you to be the one who tells Judson why.
Your ex walked out on you eleven days before the world ended, and tonight she is standing at your fence bleeding, asking you to open the gate. Akemi Tsukamoto runs with the river crews now — the ones who go past the water for parts nobody else will fetch. She has a duffel, a wound in her side, and a red diamond patch on her sleeve that means she belongs to someone else's crew. The two of you were together almost a year when she ended it, and she never once told you the real reason.
You're the new Quota officer, and your first field visit is a woman who keeps missing her quota. When she opens the kitchen door, you find your own boss in an apron. She has run the district quota board for nine years and trained you herself, cold and exact, for six weeks. Tonight the system audit flagged her as its oldest repeat offender, and she could not un-flag herself. The program is voluntary, the contract revocable, and her one condition is that the officer they send is you.
Cecily Harvington chose a chubby dentist over your family's money, and your father destroyed him for it. Now she's at your door with one suitcase and nowhere else to go. She is your stepsister—your father's second wife's daughter—and she has been disowned for choosing love over the family name. The man she chose, Giles Hargreaves, lost his apartment and his job to your father's influence. Tonight she is crying in your doorway, and the only place left for her to sleep is with you.
You are her only equal in class and on the court, and tonight the midterm ranking finally tipped in your favor. She is waiting by the board with two coffees and a grudge. Shiori Hiiragi is the university's reigning women's tennis No. 1, the top of the economics cohort, and the most popular girl on campus — the one nobody can beat except you. You two have spent three years one-upping each other across the same lecture halls and the same clay courts, and everyone has already decided you belong together except, officially, her. The terms of your standing bet are simple: whoever ranks lower buys the winner's coffee, and until tonight she has never once had to pay.
The 16:40 pulled out with her bag three feet further away than she can reach, and you are the only person sitting opposite. Mika has four hours of this train and a list of things she intends to do without help. Asking you to move a bag is on the list. Being pitied is not.
You are closing the bar for the last time when a man who never asks or waits stays past closing to claim you—and gives himself 365 days to make you fall in love. Valerio De Santis runs the loans and the night dock of the Port of Naples, and he has been watching you from the corner table for three months, deciding. The night you tell him to leave, he doesn't—his men take you, and you wake on dark red velvet in a house you don't know. The terms are simple and he says them once: one year, 365 days, to fall in love with him, and if you don't, you're free. The only question is whether you'll still want to leave by then.
You took the cheap room in a Boulder house where four college guys already belong to each other — and the one who watches you hardest has already stopped pretending. Weston Marlow a senior at the university, remembers which mug is yours and the ringtone of a man he's never met. The house on Marine Street has been theirs for two years — a half-spoken rhythm you walked into the day you signed the lease. He was the first to look at you, the last to look away, and the only one still watching the door the nights your phone won't stop.
You are his best friend's sister, and you are sleeping four steps down the hall. He never does repeats, relationships, or regrets—until his best friend's sister becomes the one temptation he was never supposed to touch, and the temporary room across the hall makes it worse every hour.
"I'd fuck that mouth of hers just to shut her up." Monty Chappell has a reputation, a filthy mouth, and absolutely no patience for you. So when his mates dare him to put his money where his mouth is, he kisses you in front of half the university. Shame he can't seem to forget it.
You are the plus-one your best friend brought to his mate's family ranch for one weekend, and the pack Alpha holding the door has already decided he doesn't like you. Gideon Ashby has been your best friend since you were seven, and this weekend he has finally brought you out to the Kettrick place to meet his mate, Nessa. Nessa is easy to like. Her older brother Stanton runs the pack and the land, and he has spent his whole life being the one nobody tells stories about — which is exactly the story. Then he opened his own door, the wind brought him your scent, and the only thing he can do with his hands is keep them off you. Two nights, one house, and a man who has never once said what he meant on the first try.
You are the Ninth's linguist, and the sergeant who runs the heavy weapons has decided you are the one person in this valley worth telling the truth to — loudly, in front of everyone. Daniel Ashby came off Halvard Ridge with a burn down his right forearm and a habit of saying the thing nobody else in the tent will say. He counts the rounds in a belt because it is the only number in the valley that stays the same, and he treats you like a fact he is pleased about. He also filed the request that would have rotated you out of the Kordak, and then burned the confirmation before anyone could sign it.
You are the stepsibling she did not ask for, and you are the only person who came up the hill after her tonight. Carys Whelan lost her father in the flare at the Cinderbrook gasworks, and seven months later her mother married Nigel Prendergast and moved the two of them into his house on the ring road. Nigel's son is you. She has not made a scene about any of it; she has made a rule instead, that nothing in that house is hers and she will do nothing to the family she has been given. Tonight is Christmas Eve, her father's birthday, and she went up to the grave with a small cake and two cans of cheap lager the way she does every year — and then the snow came in and she could not find the gate.
You are the name the department's quietest student said out loud when she was asked whether she was bringing anyone, and now she has to produce you on Friday at four. Agnes Prentice catalogues a bequest of survey maps alone on the fourth floor and has not walked into a room of more than six people in three years. She invented a boyfriend to keep from sitting alone at the departmental tea, and the name she invented was yours. Dr. Copley already has the list.
There is a plate sitting on the landing with your name written on it in masking tape, and the man in 3D has been cooking for you since the week you moved in. Rolf Carnforth runs the kitchen at a pub on the river and comes home at one in the morning to cook all over again, with his door propped open so that the whole third floor of Ravenwood Court eats by seven. He is the patient one of the three, the one who will not rush you, and the one who says the true thing out loud and lets you decide whether it was a joke.
Layton Thurlow called you on Tuesday and would not say why, which for that man is as close as he gets to asking for something. He is the middle Thurlow brother: the one who kept the family's money standing while Judson kept the house, and the one who has watched you across that front room for nine years without once saying a word about it. His brother got there first, and Layton does not take things that belong to Judson. On Tuesday he stopped paying for his brother's shop, and he wants you to be the one who tells Judson why.
Your ex walked out on you eleven days before the world ended, and tonight she is standing at your fence bleeding, asking you to open the gate. Akemi Tsukamoto runs with the river crews now — the ones who go past the water for parts nobody else will fetch. She has a duffel, a wound in her side, and a red diamond patch on her sleeve that means she belongs to someone else's crew. The two of you were together almost a year when she ended it, and she never once told you the real reason.
You're the new Quota officer, and your first field visit is a woman who keeps missing her quota. When she opens the kitchen door, you find your own boss in an apron. She has run the district quota board for nine years and trained you herself, cold and exact, for six weeks. Tonight the system audit flagged her as its oldest repeat offender, and she could not un-flag herself. The program is voluntary, the contract revocable, and her one condition is that the officer they send is you.
Cecily Harvington chose a chubby dentist over your family's money, and your father destroyed him for it. Now she's at your door with one suitcase and nowhere else to go. She is your stepsister—your father's second wife's daughter—and she has been disowned for choosing love over the family name. The man she chose, Giles Hargreaves, lost his apartment and his job to your father's influence. Tonight she is crying in your doorway, and the only place left for her to sleep is with you.
You are her only equal in class and on the court, and tonight the midterm ranking finally tipped in your favor. She is waiting by the board with two coffees and a grudge. Shiori Hiiragi is the university's reigning women's tennis No. 1, the top of the economics cohort, and the most popular girl on campus — the one nobody can beat except you. You two have spent three years one-upping each other across the same lecture halls and the same clay courts, and everyone has already decided you belong together except, officially, her. The terms of your standing bet are simple: whoever ranks lower buys the winner's coffee, and until tonight she has never once had to pay.
The 16:40 pulled out with her bag three feet further away than she can reach, and you are the only person sitting opposite. Mika has four hours of this train and a list of things she intends to do without help. Asking you to move a bag is on the list. Being pitied is not.
You are closing the bar for the last time when a man who never asks or waits stays past closing to claim you—and gives himself 365 days to make you fall in love. Valerio De Santis runs the loans and the night dock of the Port of Naples, and he has been watching you from the corner table for three months, deciding. The night you tell him to leave, he doesn't—his men take you, and you wake on dark red velvet in a house you don't know. The terms are simple and he says them once: one year, 365 days, to fall in love with him, and if you don't, you're free. The only question is whether you'll still want to leave by then.
You took the cheap room in a Boulder house where four college guys already belong to each other — and the one who watches you hardest has already stopped pretending. Weston Marlow a senior at the university, remembers which mug is yours and the ringtone of a man he's never met. The house on Marine Street has been theirs for two years — a half-spoken rhythm you walked into the day you signed the lease. He was the first to look at you, the last to look away, and the only one still watching the door the nights your phone won't stop.