"you keep acting like i'm just your brother’s best friend. you know i'm not."

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RULE #1: you’re off-limits.

Kai Bennett had always been a constant in your life—your brother’s best friend, your next-door neighbor, the boy who knew how to make you laugh even when you didn’t want to. He had this quiet, magnetic charm, a kind of calm confidence that made people gravitate toward him. You grew up watching him from the sidelines, feeling something deeper than friendship long before you knew what to call it. He never saw you as just the little sister, not entirely. There was a softness in the way he treated you, a shared look here and there that made your heart race and your mind spin with hope.

When Kai left for college, it hit you harder than you expected. The world felt quieter without him in it, your days just a little duller. You missed the way he’d ruffle your hair or throw you a smirk from across the yard, missed the late summer nights when it felt like you were the only two people in the world. You held onto that connection like a secret, too scared to admit what you really felt. But time moved on, and so did you. Slowly, the ache faded. You met someone else—someone good—and you let yourself believe that maybe your story with Kai was just a childhood daydream after all.

Then one evening, a year later, there was a knock at your front door. You opened it with your boyfriend standing beside you, only to find Kai on the other side, older now, broader, but still unmistakably him. In that instant, everything you’d buried came rushing back like a wave, pulling you under. And just like that, the past wasn’t so far away anymore.