All Chapters of My Brother’s Love Is a Cage(Not Brothers): Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

POV: Rhys "Take your shoes off, Bash. You're tracking mud across the rug." I didn't raise my voice from the dark corner of the sofa. His shoulders slammed up against his ears, his hand freezing on the brass knob like he'd been caught with his thumb on a trigger. "I didn't hear you come in," he said—a lie, obviously, since he'd heard me the second I spoke. "I've been here the whole time." I let the silence sit, watching him toe off his shoes in the dark, fumbling with the laces the way he only did when he was rattled. Letting him walk out the door earlier hadn't cost me anything, whatever he'd assumed back in the hallway. It had bought me something far more valuable than a won argument: a version of him who thought he'd gotten away with something. People who think they've gotten away with something stop watching the exits. They get careless in small, useful ways. That was worth more than any door I could have blocked. I switched on the single lamp beside the sofa, keeping it low

A Quiet Table POV: Bash "Stop digging your thumb into your palm, Bash." Rhys didn't even take his eyes off the highway when he said it, his hand casually resting on the steering wheel at twelve o'clock. I snatched my left hand back into my lap, my knuckles red and indented where I'd been counting the ridges on my thumbnail for three miles straight. "Sorry." "You don't have to apologize. I just don't want you bleeding on my seats." He said it lightly, almost fond, and somehow that was worse than if he'd sounded annoyed. I stared out the window instead, counting streetlights as they slid past — four, five, six — anything to keep my mind off the phone call two days ago, off Aunt Denise's voice going strange right before the line cut out, off the question I hadn't been able to stop turning over since. What had Marion asked her. What had she seen, or thought she'd seen, or been too afraid to ask outright. "You've been quiet since Tuesday," Rhys said, eyes still on the road. "I'm ju

A Normal Future POV: Bash "You're late clocking out." Julian leaned against the breakroom doorframe, a fresh apron folded over his arm, his smile easy and unhurried. I dropped the timecard back into its slot, my hands unusually steady for the first time all week. "Priya made me refill the ketchups. Apparently it's a crime to leave before every bottle's full." "Tyranny," Julian said, tying his apron on with the same unbothered rhythm he did everything. "You want to walk out together? I'm not on for another ten." "Yeah. Sure." "You're staring," he said, not looking up from the register he was counting. "I'm thinking." "About the ketchup crime?" "About whether Priya's going to make me refill the mustard next." I hung my apron on the hook, feeling lighter than I had in days just standing this close to someone who didn't require careful navigation. "You survive your shift without me holding your hand through the espresso machine?" "Barely. I burned my thumb twice and cried a lit

Slight Misalignments POV: Bash "They're pulling my shifts until the audit clears." Julian leaned against the stainless-steel prep counter, rubbing the heel of his hand hard over his eyes. The easy, grounded gravity he'd carried yesterday was completely gone, replaced by a frantic, nervous energy that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "What audit?" "Register totals from last Thursday. Miller says it's routine, but he wouldn't look at me straight when he said it." He exhaled hard, dragging both hands back through his hair. "It's just an administrative mess, Bash. I'll get it sorted, I just... I might have to cancel tomorrow." "That's fine. Don't worry about me." "I'm not worried about you, I'm worried about my job." He caught himself, softened. "Sorry. That came out wrong." "No, it's fine. Really." I said it too fast, the way I always did when I needed a conversation to be smaller than it actually was. Something cold had already dropped into my stomach and was sitting there, h

Distorted Signals POV: Rhys "You're trembling, Bash." I didn't move an inch from where he'd shoved me against the lip of the counter. I watched him back down the hallway, his boots dragging on the hardwood, his eyes wide and black with an adrenaline he couldn't name. He didn't answer. He just kept retreating until his bedroom door clicked shut, and I stood there in the sudden quiet of the kitchen, unbothered in a way that would have looked strange to anyone who didn't understand what I'd actually just witnessed. He thought he'd rejected me. That was the mistake in his reasoning, the small crack in his own logic he hadn't caught yet. A person who felt nothing simply stepped back, laughed it off, and made some easy joke to smooth over an awkward moment between siblings. Bash hadn't done any of that. His pulse had been slamming under my thumb hard enough to count without trying. His breath had gone ragged the second my forehead came close to his. That wasn't rejection. That was a sy