I Fell For My Brother’s Rival

I didn't go straight home after the final bell.

Caleb had been glaring at me for two solid days, his silent interrogations suffocating the air in our house. I needed space.

I trudged out to the frozen lake just beyond the town limits. The setting sun stained the thick ice a bruised purple-gray. It stretched out like a massive silver mirror, perfectly smooth and eerily quiet.

I unfolded my wooden easel and grabbed a charcoal stick.

My hand stopped in mid-air.

A dark figure sat dead center on the ice.

I squinted against the fading light.

Ethan Cole.

He sat cross-legged, his winter jacket hanging wide open to the biting wind. A glass bottle of whiskey rested near his knee, half empty. White mist plumed from his lips, dissolving into the freezing air.

I hesitated. The smart move was turning around and marching back to my warm bedroom.

My sneakers crunched over the frosted grass as I walked toward him instead.

"Are you trying to freeze to death?" I asked, my voice echoing across the flat expanse.

He didn't flinch. He just slowly tilted his head up.

His amber eyes were completely unfocused, glazed over with a heavy, numb haze. He stared at me for a long time, blinking as if trying to wake up from a dream.

"Ethan," I said, stopping a few feet away. "You need to get up."

He didn't answer.

"Are you deaf? You're going to freeze out here."

He reached out.

His freezing fingertips met my cheek. The cold shocked my skin, but I didn't pull back. He traced the line of my cheekbone, his touch feather-light and unsteady.

"Scarlett..." he whispered.

The name hit my chest like a sharpened ice pick.

My lungs seized. The library. The overheard gossip. Scarlett Vance.

Suddenly, the shifting shadows in his eyes made perfect sense. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking for her.

A bitter laugh bubbled in my throat. I should have shoved him away. I should have slapped his hand and left him on the ice.

Instead, I dropped to my knees beside him.

"I'm not Scarlett," I told him, my voice flat.

"She left," he mumbled, his hand dropping heavily to the ice.

"I know." I grabbed the two sides of his open jacket. "Sit up."

"Don't want to."

"I don't care what you want. You're freezing." I yanked the zipper up to his chin, sealing the heat inside.

He slumped sideways, his heavy frame knocking into my shoulder. I braced myself, taking his weight so he wouldn't crack his head against the frozen surface.

"Just five minutes," he muttered, his eyes slipping shut.

"Five minutes," I agreed.

His breathing deepened, turning into a steady, rumbling rhythm against my collarbone. The deep crease between his eyebrows slowly smoothed out.

I sat perfectly still. The cold seeped through my jeans, numbing my legs, but I didn't shift.

The sun vanished. A pale moon crawled up over the tree line, stretching our merged shadows across the silver ice.

We just sat there in the dark.

"What the hell?" a voice muttered from the shoreline.

I snapped my head up.

A guy in a Westbrook hockey jacket stood on the snowbank, holding up his phone. The camera flash blinded me for a split second.

"Hey!" I shouted, trying to untangle myself from Ethan. "Stop!"

The guy didn't answer. He turned and sprinted back toward the road, his shoes slipping on the frost.

"Ethan, wake up," I urged, shaking his shoulder.

He just groaned, burying his face deeper into my coat.

***

The smell of burnt toast filled the kitchen.

I sat at the dining table, wrapping my hands around a mug of black tea. Caleb stood near the window, scrolling aggressively on his phone.

His thumb stopped.

The silence in the room instantly turned toxic.

"Caleb?" I asked, setting my mug down.

He didn't look at me. His chest heaved, his knuckles turning stark white around the metal casing of his phone.

"Did you come straight home yesterday?" he demanded, his voice dangerously quiet.

"I went to paint."

"Where?"

"The lake."

He finally raised his head. His eyes were entirely black with rage. "Alone?"

"Yes."

"Liar."

He slammed his phone down onto the dining table. The impact sounded like a gunshot. The screen shattered, instantly webbing into a jagged spiderweb of broken glass.

I jumped, my chair scraping backward.

Through the cracks, a photo glowed brightly.

It was me. Sitting on the dark ice, holding a sleeping Ethan Cole against my chest.

Above the image, a group chat banner read: *Ethan Cole and the new art student spent the night cuddling on the frozen lake.*

"I told you to stay away from him," Caleb snarled, stepping toward me.

"It's not what it looks like."

"It never is." He braced both hands on the table, leaning into my space. "Do you have any idea what you've just done?"

"I didn't do anything! He was drunk. He was freezing."

"He's using you, Lily."

"You're paranoid."

"Am I?" Caleb challenged. "Ask him about last year. Ask him why the coach almost benched him."

"I don't care about his hockey record."

"It's not about hockey!" Caleb yelled, the veins in his neck bulging. "I know exactly who he is. And I know exactly what he does to girls who think they can fix him."

"I don't want to fix him."

"Then why were you holding him?"

I opened my mouth, but the truth lodged in my throat. I couldn't tell my brother about Scarlett. I couldn't explain the shattered look on Ethan's face.

Caleb grabbed his keys off the hook, the metal jingling aggressively.

"Where are you going?" I asked, my pulse hammering.

"To finish this."

"Caleb, stop! You have practice!"

"Not today." He yanked the front door open, the morning wind tearing through the hallway. "If Ethan wants to ruin my family, I'll ruin his season."

"You can't do that!"

"Watch me."

The door slammed shut.

I stared at the shattered phone on the table. The screen flickered, then died, plunging the room into silence.

My brother was going to kill him.