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ONE

HALE

Revolving my entire life around makeup and the artistry has never taken me in the wrong direction. I’ve been happier, and I finally feel like I have a place in the world, something that’s truly mine, and that I don’t have to share with anyone else.

Getting a cosmetology degree was well worth it, even if I eventually learned more on social media than I ever did in school.

My influencer career took off quickly, and before I knew it, I was being handed paid collaboration offers left and right, brand deals I never would have imagined, and now I make my living off of social media alone.

I’ve never had any regrets until today, now, getting this call from my stepbrother, Colby.

The phone rings, and I nearly don’t pick it up, but a little voice inside my head forces me to answer.

“Can I do something for you?” I sass. We haven’t talked in—well, a long time—but that doesn’t keep my eyes from rolling.

“Unfortunately, yes, brat .” He emphasizes the nickname.

“We need a makeup artist and a social media handler for the Twisted Tours event. Since that’s your thing, or whatever, you free?

” It’s clear he doesn’t want to be making this phone call nearly as much as I don’t want to be receiving it.

Sometimes, I feel like it would kill him to acknowledge my success. Any of my family, really.

“And when is this ‘Twisted Tours’?” I hum, continuing to fold my laundry with my cell on speaker.

“Uhm, we leave tomorrow. If all goes well, we were hoping you could join us on the rest of the tour too. This is just one stop on the tour, but it’s supposed to be a pretty big festival in the middle of Ohio, I guess.

” I can see his dark eyebrows pinching together without actually having to see him.

“You’re asking me to jump on a dirty tour bus, tomorrow? And be gone for how long?” I pause, trying to wrap my head around this last-minute plan. “How long is the tour?”

“Okay, so, the festival is like a week long. We only play one night, technically, but we’ll be there for a couple VIP things, meet and greets, hang with other bands, you get it.”

“Are you paying me?” I snap.

“In experience–”

I cut him off. “Nuhuh, big bro . Not gonna cut it. Run whatever numbers you need to, and then call me back, Mister Hot-shot Rockstar.” My finger hovers over the red button, waiting to end the call when he yells through the phone.

“Wait! Okay, seriously, it pays well. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. You think I enjoy calling you out of the blue when you’ve been so hell bent to leave us behind?” He has a point, and I fucking hate it. “Not to mention, you haven’t even met Sydnee yet.”

Ah, Sydnee. I’ve seen her on stage with the boys.

A fucking goddess, that one. Blonde, tatted, a look in her eyes that just screams I can fuck you better than your man .

Still, I aim for the clueless route, as if I don’t spend hours on social media, watching stupid thirst trap edits of Neon Cherry’s front and centers.

“Mmhmm. Nice. A new fuck buddy for Jackson, I assume.”

Colby laughs through the speaker.

“Nah, I don’t know if he’ll ever find his one.”

His words ping the spot in my chest that only my feelings for Jackson hide.

My mom married Colby’s dad when I was fourteen and Colby was sixteen. Jackson, Colby’s best friend, was fifteen at the time. When we moved in with them, Colby and Jackson were a package deal, and soon, it became the three of us. The cliche three musketeer bit. I loved it, though—maybe too much.

Falling for the two of them was easy. Never being able to have them, either of them, was excruciating. Jackson and I had stolen glances, hands brushing against each other when they shouldn’t, pinkies interlocking in the backseat of my mom’s minivan.

But Colby and I… Colby and I had something different entirely.

There was no physical touch to hold on to, no striking moment that I could look back on that solidified my fucked-up feelings for him.

It was all in the way he looked at me and cared for me.

The way he swore I was off limits to Jackson and how he slept on my bedroom floor after scary movies.

His blue eyes would promise me there was nothing hiding in my closet, no matter how anxious I was.

Colby and Jackson were always my best friends.

That is, until my heart couldn’t take the fact that I couldn’t have either of them the way my soul craved.

Colby grew colder, I grew distant, and the three of us weren’t ever the same.

“So what do you say, little sister?” I realize I’ve zoned out when his voice breaks through the line again.

Agreeing to this trip can bring no good things, but the part of my heart that misses my boys won’t let my mouth tell him no.

Even knowing I shouldn’t do this, the words come right out—with added sass, of course.

“I guess, if you need me sooooo desperately,” I coo into the phone, rolling my eyes as I stand to survey my apartment.

“I kind of do. You’d be a lifesaver, brat .”

I imagine his big, dumb smile, the one he only makes when he knows he’s gotten what he wants when he shouldn’t have.

“Don’t call me that. We’re not teenagers anymore. Just Hale.”

Him calling me “brat” the same way he used to sets my skin alight in all the ways it shouldn’t.

“Whatever you say, brat .” Oh Jesus. Colby teases me effortlessly, and fuck, if my idiot brain doesn’t actually kind of like it. The hindsight is immediate.

He agrees to text me all the details as soon as we get off the phone, and I agree to start packing before we say our goodbyes.

As I wait for the details, I walk around the small space I inhabit and remember the girl I was when first signed the lease here.

She was confused and needed to get away from the very same boys who I’m agreeing to spend an entire week with.

I’m older now, I know. I should be able to come to terms with the fact that the feelings I have, especially the ones I feel for my asshole stepbrother are wrong.

After ten years of fighting said feelings, this week will be able to tell me one thing.

If I’m fucking certifiable, or if I’ve moved past my childish and unreasonable desires.