TEACH ME TO LOVE YOU (Loving My Stepbrother in Secret)

Three weeks into the holidays, I had a simple plan: double shifts at the eatery, save up for my final year, and never think about Henry again.

I had managed the last part for eleven days.

Tonight, I learned that heartbreak doesn't always cry quietly. Sometimes it orders another drink.

I sat at the bar of Velvet Eclipse with rain streaking the windows behind me and the bass rattling the glass in my hand. The club was packed. Neon light slid across the dance floor, over people laughing, kissing, shouting lyrics into each other's faces, all of them acting as if nothing in the world could ever go wrong.

I envied every single one of them.

"Another one," I told the bartender.

He glanced at my empty glass. "Miss, are you sure?"

"Did I stutter?"

He raised both hands and poured.

Eleven days ago, Henry had ended our one year together in the parking lot behind the faculty building. He didn't shout. He didn't cry. He said, "I'm sorry Bianca I think we should end it here," in the exact voice he used when he was late to pick me up, then walked back to his car and drove away.

Twelve months of my life, and he apologized for it like a missed call.

I had planned my entire final year around that man. Where we'd live after graduation. Whose parents we'd visit first. God, I was stupid.

I laughed under my breath, and the bartender gave me a strange look.

"Something funny?"

"No." I lifted the glass. "Just me."

The whiskey burned all the way down, and I welcomed it. At least this pain made sense.

My phone buzzed on the counter. Mary. Her fourth call.

Mary, my best friend since first year, had made me swear I wouldn't go out alone. I had sworn. Then I had lied.

I turned the phone face down and kept drinking until the edges of the room went soft. Good. That meant it was working.

Somewhere between the third drink and the fifth, I noticed him in the mirror behind the bottles. A man in a dark suit at the far end of the bar, perfectly still while the whole club moved around him. In front of him sat a glass of plain water. Every few minutes his phone lit up on the counter, and every time, he turned it face down without answering.

Who drinks water in a place like this?

Not my problem. I slid off my stool.

I needed noise. I needed music loud enough to drown out my own head. The dance floor swallowed me, and I closed my eyes and moved, and for the first time all night I stopped thinking. One song. Then another. Someone bumped into me and I laughed. Someone pressed a cup into my hand and I drank that too.

Maybe this was freedom. Maybe this was what broken people did: pretended so hard it started to look like healing.

Two men found me eventually. Normally, I would have walked away. Tonight I let one of them smile at me, and I smiled back, not because I wanted him, but because I didn't care.

Then his hand settled on my waist.

I pushed it off. "Don't."

"Relax."

He reached for me again. I stepped back. "I said don't touch me."

Louder this time. Heads turned.

He rolled his eyes. "You're being difficult for someone who's been drinking all night."

"And you're being stupid for someone who still has all his teeth."

His friend laughed. He didn't. His fingers closed around my wrist.

"She said no."

The voice came from behind me, low and unhurried.

The man from the end of the bar. Up close, he was taller than I'd thought, and a silver watch with a cracked face glinted at his wrist. He stood between me and the two men as if it cost him no effort at all.

"And who the hell are you?" the man snapped.

"Someone telling you to leave."

I almost laughed. My own personal bodyguard.

The two men looked at each other, then at him, then at the fact that he hadn't moved an inch. They decided I wasn't worth it and melted into the crowd.

I shoved the stranger's shoulder. "Nobody asked you to save me."

"You're drunk."

"Congratulations. You can see."

"You should go home."

"And you should mind your business."

His jaw tightened, barely. "They weren't going to let you have fun."

"I could have handled them."

He studied me for a long moment. "Could you?"

I hated that question. Mostly because I wasn't sure.

"Go away."

He didn't argue. He stepped aside, and I disappeared into the crowd without knowing his name or why he had bothered.

I told myself I didn't care. Tonight, I only wanted to forget.

The rest of the night came back in pieces.

The music stopping. A staff member announcing the club was closing, and me laughing because I thought it was a joke. Then my legs folding beneath me.

"Easy." A club attendant caught my arm. "Miss, you're not okay."

"I'm fine," I said, except the words came out in a slur I didn't recognize.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The air was cold enough to sting. And there, leaning against a black car at the curb, was the man in the dark suit.

"You're still here?"

"I am."

"Why?"

His eyes went to the attendant holding me upright. "She has no way home."

"Do you know where I live?"

"No."

"Then you're not much help."

The corner of his mouth moved. It was brief, almost invisible. "Where's your phone?"

I patted my dress. Nothing. I was so unstable

The attendant held out my handbag. The stranger took it before I could.

"Come on," he said.

I should have refused. If I'd been sober, I would have. But I wasn't, so I let him fold me into the passenger seat.

I don't remember much of the drive. City lights streaking across the window. My own reflection looking back at me, tired and unfamiliar. Why does losing one person make the whole world feel empty?

My eyes grew heavy.

For a moment, I thought I heard him say my name.

"Bianca."

I opened my eyes. "What?"

His gaze met mine in the rearview mirror. "Nothing."

Then everything went dark.

Warmth came first.

A soft bed. A quiet room. Sunlight pushing through heavy curtains. My head throbbed as if someone were using it as a drum.

Then memory crashed in. The club. The drinks. The men. The stranger.

Oh God.

I sat up too fast and instantly regretted it. I pressed my fingers to my temples. "Never drinking again."

"I've heard that before."

I froze.

He stood in the doorway, jacket gone, shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, the cracked silver watch catching the light. Without the suit he looked younger, maybe my age, maybe a few years older. Shadows sat under his eyes like he hadn't slept.

I scrambled backward until my spine hit the headboard. "Don't come any closer."

My voice came out weaker than I wanted.

He stopped at once.

I looked around the unfamiliar room: a wide bed, a wooden dresser, enormous windows. I was still in my dress. My shoes sat lined up neatly at the foot of the bed. On the nightstand, a glass of water and two tablets waited, as if someone had thought this through.

Panic climbed my chest anyway.

"Where am I?"

He slowly raised both hands. "You're safe."

"That's not what I asked."

"My house."

My heart nearly stopped. "Your house?"

I looked at the door. At him. Back at the door.

"You couldn't walk," he said, before I could speak. "I didn't know where you lived, and I wasn't going to leave you in a club with a stranger.

I grabbed the nearest pillow. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it was all I had.

He noticed. To my surprise, he almost smiled. "That's probably not going to help."

"Don't test me."

"Fair enough."

There was something unnerving about how calm he was. He didn't step closer. He didn't even lower his hands.

"And where did you sleep?"

He pointed toward the hallway. Through the gap, I could see a couch downstairs with a blanket thrown over one arm.

That made me feel slightly better. Only slightly.

"You didn't touch me?"

"No."

No hesitation. I searched his face for a lie and couldn't find one.

"Okay,"

He nodded once, and the silence between us stretched, awkward and heavy.

"What's your name?"

"Terik."

"Just Terik?"

He gave a faint smile. "Is that not enough?"

"You brought me to your house while I was unconscious. I'm allowed to ask questions."

His eyebrows lifted. "I didn't kidnap you."

"I know."

"Good."

"Probably."

He laughed softly, a low, surprised sound, as though he hadn't laughed in a while.

I looked away. "I'm Bianca."

"I know."

My head snapped up. "How?"

"You said it several times last night."

Heat flooded my face. "What else did I say?"

His smile faded. "You talked about someone named Henry."

My stomach tightened. Of course I had. Even unconscious, I couldn't escape him.

"Forget it."

Terik didn't push. Most people would have demanded an explanation. He seemed content to let me keep mine.

Then another thought hit me. "My bag."

"On the dresser."

I crawled across the bed, grabbed it, and tore through it. Wallet. Keys. Lip balm. A crumpled receipt from the eatery.

No phone.

I checked the pockets again. Then the lining. Then I turned the whole bag upside down on the comforter.

"It was on the bar," I whispered. "I put it on the bar."

"Then we'll find it," Terik said quietly.

Then his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He glanced at the screen, and something in him changed. The calm cracked. His jaw locked, and his hand curled into a fist around the phone. I caught the name on the screen before he turned it face down.

Dad.

"Excuse me," he said, and walked out of the room.

I sat there with my bag in my lap, listening to his footsteps fade down the stairs.

I had known Terik for less than twelve hours. I had watched him stare down two drunk men without blinking.

But for the first time since I'd met him, he looked afraid.