FAZER LOGINI walked.The aisle was shorter than it had looked in rehearsal. Flowers. Faces. Mom crying in the pretty way. The groom waiting like a man who had practiced being gentle. Roman stood in the groomsmen line with his hands folded and his eyes on the officiant, and I felt every step of last night and this morning smear between my thighs under the pale dress.I did not look at him.I looked at the bouquet until my hands ached.They said the words. Love. Family. Forever. Someone read a poem I would not remember. When they kissed, the room made the sound rooms make, and I smiled with my mouth closed because if I opened it I might have said his name.We signed.I was a witness. My name went under my mother’s new one. Roman’s name went under his father’s. The pen was heavy. Our hands did not touch. The paper made us family in black ink while I was still wet from him.Pictures.Closer. Family. Bride’s daughter, groom’s son, yes, like that.Roman’s hand settled at the small of my back where the
I slept in the dress.Not well. The clock said six-fifty when I gave up. My body remembered him before my brain did — the stretch, the wet, the word he had put in my ear. I peeled the rehearsal dress off and stood under the shower until the water ran cold. I washed between my legs and still felt marked. I put on the robe the hotel had hung on the door and looked at the bridesmaid dress in the closet like it was a sentence.Hair and makeup at nine. Walk at eleven. I had two hours to become a daughter again.A knock at 614 was not Mom.I cracked the door on the chain.Roman. Already in black trousers, white shirt unbuttoned at the throat, no jacket. Coffee in one hand. He looked like he had slept as badly as I had.“Zipper,” he said.“I have a stylist for that.”“She’s in 620 with your mother doing lashes. You have ten minutes before someone comes looking for you.” He lifted the coffee. “I brought a reason to be in the hall.”I took the chain off.He came in and locked it.The bridesmai
I did not go to 614 for pillows.Mom’s voice was still coming around the corner when I passed my own door and put my hand on 618. The latch gave. I slipped in and closed it with my palm so it would not click. The hall went muffled. I stood with my back on the wood and listened until her laugh moved the other way, toward the elevators, the groom saying something about extra hangers.Roman had not turned on the overhead light.One lamp. Jacket on a chair. Ice bucket sweating on the desk like a prop. He was at the window with his sleeves still rolled, watching the parking lot, and he did not look surprised that I had come. He looked like he had been standing there counting.“She almost saw you,” he said.“She saw an ice machine.”“She saw her daughter in a hallway with no shoes.” He turned. The lamp cut his mouth in half. “Lock it.”I locked it.The rehearsal dress felt thinner in his room. Low back. No underwear. I was still wet from his fingers and the walk from the ice machine had not
TessaMy mother was getting married in the morning and I already wanted the groom’s son.That was the whole problem.The hotel smelled like roses and carpet cleaner. Rehearsal dinner on the mezzanine. White dresses that were not the dress. A photographer who kept saying family, family, closer. I stood next to Roman in every shot because someone had decided the bride’s daughter and the groom’s son should bookend the smiling lie.He was twenty-eight. I was twenty-three. Tomorrow he would be my stepbrother. Tonight he was just the man in the dark suit who had looked at my mouth when I said cheers and had not looked away fast enough.“Little sister,” he said under his breath when the flash went off, like a joke for the adults.It did not land like a joke.Heat went down my body so fast I had to smile at the camera with my knees locked.Mom squeezed my hand after. “He’s lovely, isn’t he? I want you two to get along. This is a family now.”“We get along.”Roman’s mouth moved. Not quite a sm
He didn’t pull out right away.He stayed buried in me over the back of the lounger, one hand on my hip, the other braced beside my head, breathing like he’d just run somewhere. I could feel every thick inch of him, the way he stretched me in places Miles never reached. My thighs were shaking. The robe was a ruined puddle of silk under my knees.“You always this quiet after?” he asked against the back of my neck.I wasn’t quiet. I was trying not to say his name again because I’d already said it twice and it felt like a line I wasn’t supposed to cross.He pulled out slow. I made a sound I hated. Empty. Aching.“Inside,” he said. “I’m not finishing you on outdoor furniture like you’re a weekend I have to return.”I followed him.The kitchen first because it was closest and because he lifted me onto the cold marble island like I weighed nothing. The robe was gone. I was naked in a house that wasn’t mine, legs spread, watching a man who was supposed to be the driver push back into me while
He handed me the glass without asking if I wanted it.I took it. The robe was still damp against my skin. I hadn’t bothered to find my clothes. Part of me wanted him to keep looking.“You been doing this long?” he asked. “House-sitting.”“A year. It’s easy money when people leave.”“And when they don’t.”I looked up. He was leaning against the counter, arms folded, watching me over the rim of his own glass.“They left,” I said. “You said they sent you.”“They did.” He set the glass down. “Doesn’t mean I expected the sitter to be half-naked in the pool touching herself for a boy who texts like that.”Heat crawled up my neck.“He’s not a boy.”Caleb’s mouth almost smiled.“He’s Miles.”The way he said the name again made something twist low in my stomach. Not jealousy. Something meaner. Like he already knew Miles wasn’t enough and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.I drank to have something to do with my hands.“I should change,” I said.“You should.” He didn’t move. “Or you could sh







