Brother’s Girlfriend: Part 1

The apartment felt different without Marcus in it.

I dropped my bag by the couch and locked the door behind me the way he had shown me. Two nights. That was all. He had a last-minute work trip, the subletter who usually took the spare key was out of town, and he hadn’t wanted the place empty. Just crash there, he had said. Use the bed, eat whatever’s in the fridge, treat it like home. The spare key was already on my ring.

It should have felt simple.

I set my things in their bedroom—Marcus’s and mine on the nights I stayed over—and walked back out into the open living room. The space was clean, masculine, a little sparse. Big couch, low table, the smell of his cologne still faint in the air. The second bedroom at the end of the hall belonged to his older brother, Damien. I had only met him twice. Once at a birthday dinner, once when he passed through the kitchen on his way out while I was making coffee. Tall. Quiet. The kind of man who looked at people like he was already deciding something about them.

Marcus had said Damien was staying at a friend’s place for the weekend. Some camping thing. The apartment would be mine.

I made tea. Scrolled my phone. Tried to watch something on their television and gave up after twenty minutes. The quiet felt heavier than it should have. Every small sound—the ice maker, a car on the street below—seemed louder without Marcus’s voice filling the space.

I showered early, washed the day off, and pulled on the soft oversized T-shirt I usually slept in here. Nothing underneath. Marcus liked it that way on the nights I stayed. The cotton hit mid-thigh. I left my hair damp and loose, made another cup of tea, and curled into the corner of the big couch with the city lights visible through the half-open blinds.

My phone buzzed once. Marcus.

Landed. Hotel’s fine. Don’t wait up, meetings start early. Miss you.

I typed back a quick reply and set the phone face-down. The apartment settled around me again. I should have gone to bed. Instead I stayed on the couch, legs tucked under me, the T-shirt riding higher on my thighs, and let my mind drift in the direction it had been trying to avoid all evening.

Damien.

I didn’t know him well enough to justify the way my thoughts kept circling back. The brief, assessing look he had given me in the kitchen that one morning. The low sound of his voice when he said my name the first time. The fact that he was older, broader, quieter than Marcus—everything my boyfriend wasn’t. It was a dangerous direction to let my mind go while I was alone in their shared apartment, half-dressed, with two full nights stretching ahead of me.

I pressed my thighs together against the low, unwanted pulse that had started between them. The T-shirt suddenly felt thinner. I told myself it was just the strange quiet, the absence of Marcus, the residual tension of a long week. It didn’t help.

I stood up to take my empty mug to the kitchen.

That was when I heard the key in the lock.

The front door opened before I could fully process the sound. Footsteps. The soft thud of a bag hitting the floor. Then Damien stepped into the living room, still in a dark jacket, hair slightly windblown, looking exactly as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

We both froze.

His eyes moved over me in one quick, involuntary pass—damp hair, oversized T-shirt, bare legs, the obvious fact that I wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The glance lasted less than a second. It still left heat in its wake.

“Maya,” he said. His voice was lower than I remembered. “Didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Marcus said you were camping.”

“Trip got cancelled. Weather.” He closed the door behind him and set his keys on the counter without looking away from me. “He didn’t mention you were staying.”

“Last-minute. He didn’t want the place empty.”

“Right.”

Silence stretched. I became hyper-aware of how little I had on, of the cool air moving against my bare skin under the T-shirt, of the fact that we were alone in the apartment and Marcus was in another city. Damien’s gaze flicked down once more, then returned to my face with deliberate control. Something unreadable sat behind his eyes.

“I can take the couch,” I offered, too quickly. “Or go home. I don’t want to—”

“Stay.” The word came out quiet but firm. “Marcus would want you to stay. I’ll keep to my room. You won’t even know I’m here.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. My pulse was thudding too hard in my throat. In other places.

Damien picked up his bag. He walked past me toward the hallway, close enough that I caught the faint scent of night air and something warmer underneath. At the edge of the living room he paused and looked back.

“You need anything from the kitchen before I turn in?”

“No. I’m good.”

He held my eyes for another second. The air between us felt thicker than the simple situation should have allowed. Then he nodded once and disappeared down the hall. His bedroom door closed with a soft, final click.

I stood alone in the living room, heart still beating too fast, the oversized T-shirt suddenly feeling like the thinnest excuse for clothing in the world. The apartment no longer felt empty. It felt charged. Occupied by the quiet presence of a man who was not my boyfriend, who had just looked at me like he was already thinking things he shouldn’t, and who would be sleeping only one closed door away for the next two nights.

I turned off the living-room light and walked to Marcus’s bedroom on unsteady legs.

Sleep felt very far away.