All Chapters of My Boyfriend's Brother: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I heard them the moment I stepped into the house. They were loud. I stood in the doorway, closed my eyes, listened, and tried to guess the girl. It had become a little game of mine. A girl has to entertain herself somehow. The moan that floated down the stairs was high pitched and dramatic, with that particular performance quality. It was too easy. "Yep. That's definitely Daisy." My boyfriend was upstairs. With Daisy. Again. Daisy was the most frequent. Then Hannah. Then Paige, who only showed up occasionally and always smelled like the same vanilla perfume that I'd started associating with Liam's guilty face. Sometimes there were new ones, but he usually cycled back to his usuals. Creatures of habit, the both of them. From upstairs, Daisy confirmed my suspicions at a volume that suggested she either genuinely lost her mind or had never heard of neighbours. She was always so extra. He wasn't even that good. I set my bag down by the door. Took off my shoes. Put the

Eleanor Holt's front door was dark green with a brass knocker that had been polished so many times it had probably forgotten what unpolished felt like.I stood in front of it and did my usual thirty second ritual — straighten up, breathe, remind myself that I was a person who belonged places and not a stray who had accidentally followed Liam home three years ago and never left.It helped. Slightly.Liam rang the bell. Eleanor opened the door with the specific warmth of a woman who was genuinely happy to see you, which still caught me off guard every single time."Nova." She took both my hands. Squeezed them. "You look wonderful. Come in, come in."We came in.The house smelled like something roasting and old wood and that particular expensive-house smell that wasn't a product, just money settling into the walls over generations. Gerald was already in the sitting room with a drink, which meant he'd been there long enough to need one, which was always a sign."Liam." Gerald. Then a paus

"Nova.""I'm going.""Just listen to me for one second —""Liam, I'm going to be late.""You don't have to do this." He was in the doorway of the bedroom, arms folded, wearing the face he wore when he'd already decided how this conversation was going to go. "You don't have to prove anything. There are other jobs.""I know there are other jobs.""So why this one?"I picked up my bag. Checked my phone. 8:31. The Tube from here was twenty-two minutes if I left right now and ran slightly."Because it's the one I have," I said."Nova —""Liam." I looked at him. "I'm going."Something crossed his face. Not anger — something quieter than that. The specific expression of a man who had just realised that the usual tools weren't working and didn't know what to do about it. He was used to me folding. We both knew it. I had folded consistently and reliably for three years on things that mattered and things that didn't and somewhere between last night and this morning I had apparently run out of f

I woke up at seven that morning, which should have counted as a human rights violation.I don't wake up for anything before nine on a weekend. Not phone calls. Not the smoke alarm, probably. But there I was, staring at the ceiling at seven, already resenting a man who apparently didn't believe in rest as a concept.I got there at eight, on the dot. I want that on record somewhere.I'd worn heels. Proper ones, the kind with an opinion. By the time I got off the Tube my feet had filed a formal complaint and I was ignoring it the way I ignored most complaints from my own body before nine in the morning.The eleventh floor was a different animal on a Saturday. No phones ringing. No one walking past with a coffee they were about to spill on someone. Just glass and quiet and the faint hum of a building that wasn't supposed to be occupied and knew it.Rhett was not at his desk when I got there.I want that on record too, because I had spent the entire Tube ride rehearsing something profession

Mum's dining table sat six, comfortably, which meant the seven of us were doing the thing where somebody's elbow always found somebody else's ribs and everyone pretended not to notice.I wasn't listening.I'd been not listening since the soup course, watching my sister Ruth's mouth move and Liam's mouth move and Mum's face do the thing it did now whenever Liam was in the room, soft and grateful and a little bit like she was watching a miracle happen at her own table."Honestly, Liam, you didn't have to bring wine as well," Mum was saying. "The flowers were more than enough.""Diane, please." Liam waved it off like it cost him nothing, which, to be fair, it probably didn't. "You've had us round more times than I can count. It's the least I can do.""He's being modest," Ruth said, leaning toward her husband like she needed a witness. "Sam, tell him he's being modest.""You're being modest," Sam said, entirely on cue, and refilled his own glass.I ate my potatoes."How's the new job goin