The worst part isn’t that I hate them. It’s that I know every fucking detail of their faces by heart.

I know Ryder's eyebrow scar and River's crooked smirk. I recognize Ryder's stormy anger and the green flecks in River's eyes when he laughs. I know their faces better than my own.

Right now, the boathouse smelled of damp wood and forgotten summers.

I came here to escape them—three months of pretending my stepbrothers didn't make my pulse race across dinner tables, three months of hating myself for it.

Living with them was hell. River's "accidental" touches and burning gazes left me exposed, heat pooling traitorously in my belly.

Ryder...