He’s not paying attention to my twin, because he’s too busy staring at his phone. Probably arranging a lunchtime blowjob.
Both he and Maverick are here at school on hockey scholarships. Not only is Kodiak an incredibly talented player like his dad, he’s also a genius, like his mother. But unlike his mother, who is a saint, Kodiak is an asshole.
My twin harbors a particularly severe disdain toward him.
Because of me.
Something happened involving Kodiak two years ago, which was so devastatingly embarrassing for me that I wish I could scrub the memory from my brain. River received the stripped-down version of events, and I made him promise to never, ever speak of it. He never asked any more about it, and I never offered any further details. However, now River can’t stand Kodiak, and he wasn’t his biggest fan in the first place.
Kodiak ignores River. “We gotta roll, Mav, or we’re gonna be late.”
Maverick peels my fingers from his shoulder. “Can you get the fuck off me, please?”
My toe is still caught in his belt loop, so I fall back, and because I have no coordination or balance—thank you so much for that, Mom—I smack my head on the floor. I also shriek because my toe is bent at a very unpleasant angle. Maverick stumbles back a couple of steps, trying to figure out how I’m still attached to him.
“My toe is caught! Oh my God! You’re going to break it!” I scream at the top of my lungs.
It’s ironic, because when I was a kid, I didn’t talk much. River used to do a lot of the talking for me because I was shy and got all tongue-tied around people I didn’t know. He was trying to be a good brother. Unfortunately, it made me reliant on him for a lot of things for a lot of years.
I’ve also been highly insulated by my family. It’s like living inside a bubble, viewing the world from behind a screen and never fully participating in it. For someone raised in a highly stable, incredibly supportive, loving—albeit weird—family, I’m pretty damn messed up.
Maverick manages to get me untangled from his belt loop without breaking my toe. I jump to my feet, and because my embarrassment hasn’t hit epic levels yet this morning, my boob pops out of my tank.
“For the love of God, Lav! Put your tit away!” Maverick yells.
“It’s not my fault it fell out!” It’s genetics.
Kodiak glances up from his phone as I tuck my boob back inside my tank. His expression remains flat, as if he’s completely unaffected by the fact that my nipple was just eyeing him.
Because he is. Completely unaffected.
Unlike me. I can’t even form a full, coherent sentence around him anymore.
I’m sure my face is red and blotchy with humiliation. Again.
Kodiak always seems to have a front-row seat to these awful moments.
“I hope you all sprain your groins at practice.” I spin around and head for the stairs.
“I’ll find you in the quad after your first class, okay, Lav?” River calls after me.
“Whatever.” I stomp my way back up to my room.
I should’ve fought harder for on-campus housing. Even the all-girls dorm would’ve been better than living with my damn brothers. But there was no chance my parents would ever let me live in a dorm—too many unknowns and uncontrollable variables. And River, being the overprotective twin that he is, had a meltdown over the idea that I would even consider the dorms as an option.
The only reason my parents conceded to me moving away from home is because I’m living with my brothers, and I’m only about an hour away. Once high school was over, we packed up our house and moved to what used to be our cottage on Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin, which is much closer to Chicago than Seattle was. And don’t be fooled by “cottage”—it’s really a huge house on a lake.
And now, after years spent avoiding Kodiak—apart from that one, horribly mortifying incident—I’m going to have to deal with him again. Probably on a regular basis.
So I’m here, feeling a lot like I’m moving backward instead of forward. Because instead of fighting for what I wanted, I’ve let everyone else’s fears dictate my choices.
Chapter Two
And the First Day Fuckery Continues
Lavender
Present day
THANKS TO MY brothers, I have to rush to get ready for my first class. I also end up having to wear my glasses instead of my contacts because the eye I stabbed with my mascara wand won’t stop watering.
I pull one of my handcrafted dresses over my head—I make all my clothes and have since I could operate a sewing machine. I slip my feet into a pair of flats, grab my backpack, and speed-walk all the way across campus to get to class on time.
I don’t take Uber or cabs because I won’t get into a vehicle with someone I don’t know. I also don’t like public transit because there are too many people I don’t know in a small space. Most of the time, it’s not a problem because I have a car, or I can get a ride with my brothers, if I need one. Except when my brothers screw me over like they’ve done this morning.
On the upside, I’m starting today with a class I’m looking forward to—costume and set design. Unfortunately it’s at eight thirty on Mondays and Wednesdays. Usually only drama majors are allowed to register for this class, but because of my transcripts, my heavy involvement in both school and community theater, and the letter from Queenie, who is still my therapist, I was able to enroll. I was also granted special permission to take a visual arts class, thanks again to Queenie and my dad’s generous donation to both the school hockey team and the arts department. It doesn’t hurt that my dad is a hockey legend.
Is it nepotism? Sure. Do I feel bad that I’m potentially taking a spot from someone? Sure. But I worked hard for this, and the only reason I haven’t declared my major yet is because my parents thought it would be better for me to stick to general classes until the end of my sophomore year. Had my parents not been so adamant, I would be a theater major already.
I don’t necessarily disagree with taking a little bit of everything if you’re uncertain of your future path. Maverick’s already changed his major twice. He started in physics and then switched to chemistry and eventually decided he wanted to go the kinesiology route. All his courses have really long names, and the textbooks are so thick, they could stop a bullet. I may have forgotten to mention that while Mav is a fuckboy and a hockey player, he too is shockingly smart. Maybe not as smart as Kodiak, but pretty damn close.
But I, unlike my brothers, already know exactly what I want to do. My goal this year is to appease my parents, who are afraid attending college away from home is going to overwhelm me. They also don’t want me to lock myself into something too specific and close any doors before they think I’m ready.
I love them, but the overprotective bullshit can be a lot to handle. I get it, but it’s still tough to deal with at times.
I jog up the steps of the art building with only five minutes to spare. Of course, because I’m in a rush, I trip halfway up. My glasses, which I try not to wear unless I’m in the privacy of my own home, slip off and land facedown on the steps. It would be fine if my knee didn’t then land right on top of them. The crunch is ominous and telling.
“Crap.”
I scramble to right myself as a pair of hands slip under my arms and someone helps me to my feet.