by Lexi C. Foss
Rachel opened her mouth, I’m sure to give me some bullshit platitude, but Daniel stopped her with a gentle touch. “We have three sons that are your age. A set of fraternal twins, Noah and Wyatt, and then Ryan, who we adopted when he was five.”
“Where are they?” I asked. The words burst out of me, uncontrollable, the butterflies in my stomach amping up in intensity.
Daniel pursed his mouth. “They had some school obligations come up that they couldn’t get out of,” he explained, but I could hear the lie in his voice. Seems like my new “brothers” weren’t excited about the prospect of having a sister.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so disappointed at that.
The tour wrapped up a few rooms later, after I’d been shown my new bedroom, which looked more suited to a princess than a foster kid who they would be cutting loose in just a few weeks once they got to know me.
I sat through an awkward dinner, which Rachel and Daniel both tried to fill with chatter designed to convince me how “wanted” I was.
I practically fled to my new room as soon as it was over, promising that I would be down for breakfast the next morning at nine. “The boys will be here then, they’ll be so excited to see you,” Rachel called after me. I waved half-heartedly at her, because we both knew that wasn’t the case, and then fled up the stairs to where my room and the guys’ rooms were all located.
There were pictures of the guys all along the hallway, and the reason that I was panting as I walked by wasn’t because of how steep the staircase had been. I’d never seen such good-looking people in my life.
Rachel and Daniel had explained who was who during the tour. Noah was the athlete in the family, and the bad boy by the looks of it.
He had overgrown black hair that fell into his face in every picture. Hooded green eyes and a daring smirk stared at me hauntingly as I studied his picture. He didn’t look like any boy I’d ever seen at school.
Wyatt was evidently the musician in the family. Rachel had tried to roll her eyes exasperatedly when she’d explained he was the lead singer in a band, but I could tell how proud they both were of all their sons. Wyatt looked like he was probably breaking hearts left and right with shaggy blond hair that curled up at the base of his neck, eyes the color of blue ice, full lips, and a chiseled face.
Ryan was the youngest by a couple of months, the foster kid who they adopted after the twins had befriended him at school. The artist of the family. He was just as gorgeous as the other two, with dark brown hair streaked with gold highlights, eyes that reminded me of a midnight sky, and a mysterious smile in all of his pictures that hinted at secrets I felt weirdly desperate to know.
I didn’t know what was in the water in this house, but I was hopeful it would work on me the same way it had for the rest of this gorgeous family. Going through puberty along with these boys was going to be a bitch.
I inwardly slapped myself for the thought that I would even have a chance to grow up with them. Even if I didn’t have a list of problems a mile long, with my lanky black hair and large strange eyes that everyone swore looked silver, I would never fit in.
I sighed and dragged myself away from the pictures, suddenly even more desperate to lock myself in my new room.
The hours dragged by, and I tossed and turned in what was for sure the most comfortable bed I’d ever found myself in by far. Tears pricked at my eyes as I went over the day. I didn’t cry. Not even those first nights in new homes where I just knew my worst nightmares were about to come into fruition. For some reason, stepping into a home that seemed like it was too good to be true was sparking my emotions more than any of the others ever had.
I needed to get ahold of myself.
I was finally drifting towards dreamland when I heard laughter echoing down the hallways. Curious and hoping I could get a first look at the ridiculously good-looking Masterson boys, I slipped out of bed and crept towards my door, quietly opening it up so that I could peek out.
Unfortunately, they were disappearing into the theater room at the end of the hall, and I had to slip out into the hallway to go after them. I felt like a stalker as I crept down the hall, but my feet didn’t stop moving. It was like there were tiny strings attached to the nerves in my stomach, and I had no choice but to follow where the strings were taking me—right towards the guys.
Their voices got louder as I approached. “Did you see that text from Dad? I think he would have reached through the phone and strangled us if he could have,” a smooth, cocky voice said.
“Having Jasper throw that party was perfect, dude. The Henry’s house was probably the only place he wouldn’t have come after us. Wouldn’t want to make a scene with Mr. Henry,” another voice commented lazily.
“Cassie texted me and said she saw her walking into the house. She called her a cow,” another voice crowed, as if “Cassie” was the funniest person on the planet.
It took me a second to realize that the cow in the story was me. I would have been offended if I wasn’t a foster kid who could stand to gain at least twenty pounds before I looked healthy. Sounded like this Cassie girl must not have seen a lot of cows.
“I still can’t believe that the ’rents did this.”
“How long do you think we can go without having to meet her?”
My cheeks burned at the disdainful way they were talking about me. Looked like I’d been right about my new “brothers” not being excited about my presence.
The guys continued to laugh and joke, sounding more comfortable than I’d ever been with another human in my entire life. Their voices drew me in, and I stepped closer and closer to the door, desperate to see their faces for a reason I couldn’t comprehend.
I finally got close enough to the entryway that I could peek my head around to look inside.
Their pictures hadn’t done them justice. I may have been only fourteen, but holy dang, these boys were the stuff dreams were made of.
The boy I assumed was Wyatt, based on his golden colored hair, muttered something, and I stepped forward, straining to hear whatever he was saying.
Which led me to take one step too far.
Their gazes locked on me, all at once.
Strangely, those butterflies that had haunted me all day suddenly quieted.
I had been lost since that fateful night eight years ago.
And suddenly, standing there with their gazes locked on me like I was the answer to a prayer they didn’t know they’d made…
I was found.
1
Four Years Later
“Hi, pretty girl,” Ryan said with a wink as he hovered over me while I leaned against the lockers behind me.
My gaze locked onto his lips, wishing that I could kiss him the way that I wanted to.
Since that fateful night four years ago, the four of us had been inseparable. There had never been anything sisterly about my feelings for the three of them. I’d fallen hopelessly in love with them, and it had been the same for them. I had no explanation for it, nor did I care to explain it to anyone.
They were everything to me, and they’d transformed my horrible life into one better than anything I’d ever dared to dream about.
The only thing that sucked was that we’d had to hide how we felt every day for the last four years.
As far as Rachel and Daniel—aka Mom and Dad, as they’d begged me to call them about a year in—were concerned, the boys and I were nothing but extremely close siblings.
The poor dears were totally blind. There had been a million touches, a million kisses, a million I love yous exchanged, and none of them had been of the sibling variety.
I hated hiding what we were to each other, and as grateful as I was to the Masterson’s, I was counting down the days until we were on our own and didn’t have to hide.
School, in particular, was the worst.
The boys Ryan, Wyatt, and Noah were at fourteen were nothing like the men they’d become at eighteen. They were worshipped here at Hidden Hills Academy, and I knew that
wouldn’t be changing after they left the halls of the esteemed institution either.
Puberty had been good to them. All three of them had gone through growth spurts at fifteen and now towered over my five foot eight frame. They were all approaching at least six foot three, with Noah closer to six foot four. Their height combined with their meticulously kept bodies, cut cheekbones, and outgoing and confident personalities made them gods. And I, like the rest of the school, gladly worshipped at their alters.
“Does that sound good?” Ryan asked, bringing me out of my daydream. My heart fluttered as I stared at his face that never failed to knock me over with how fucking beautiful it was. Ryan wore the “tortured artist” persona well. It wasn’t really fair to the rest of the male population that the three boys were as talented as they were gorgeous. Ryan had been given a scholarship for his drawings to the prestigious Pratt Institute for next year, and he deserved every accolade thrown his way.
“I’m not sure what we’re talking about, but I’m sure I won’t mind whatever it is,” I told him with a grin. I watched in delight as his gaze got caught on my smile. I could see the hunger in his eyes as he dragged them away from my lips. There was only so many more nights where kisses could quench the thirst we had for each other.
“I was talking about going to Wyatt’s concert tonight,” he explained. He was standing way closer to me than he usually did at school, and I could feel curious and jealous eyes on us. I shifted uncomfortably.
Just three more months until we’re all in New York, I told myself. Noah would be playing football at Columbia, Ryan would be at Pratt, and Wyatt and I would be at NYU while Wyatt pursued his music. We’d all made sacrifices to make sure we’d be together for college, and they had all been worth it.
“Sounds great,” I told him, my voice catching with longing that only made the heat in Ryan’s gaze grow.
“Standing a little close aren’t you?” came Noah’s voice, and Ryan sighed and reluctantly pulled away at the reminder.
I frowned as my gaze shifted to Noah’s face. He was devouring my features, jealousy threaded through his gaze. Noah had always been the worst at sharing me. He claimed that he was the one to fall in love with me immediately, and we let him have that claim to fame, even though we all knew better.
“Ready to go to lunch?” Noah asked gruffly as he pushed his still too-long black hair out of his face. It took everything in me not to drool at the way the muscles in his arm flexed at the movement. He smirked as he watched me try not to eye-fuck him. “See something you like?”
I rolled my eyes, even though it was a hopeless task to hide the giddiness I felt every time they were near.
Ryan sighed, annoyed that his time with me was over until the end of the day. I had my first two periods with Ryan, lunch and third period with Noah, and then the rest of the day with Wyatt. I wasn’t sure how the guys had managed to have one of them in all of my classes, but I wasn’t about to complain.
Ryan put his finger to his lips, our secret sign designed to show when we wanted to kiss each other, and then he stalked off, garnering gazes from males and females alike as he prowled down the hallway.
Noah pulled on my arm in a thinly veiled ploy to get my attention.
“Are you excited for your game this week?” I asked as we walked towards the cafeteria.
He shrugged. “Should be an easy game,” Noah said with a distracted shrug as he glared at a few guys from the baseball team that were staring at me a little too interestedly. They quickly looked away.
“You don’t have to scowl at everyone who pays attention to me, ya know. Heaven knows I don’t get to do that with all of your admirers.”
“The difference is I know that every guy is bending you over the nearest flat surface when they look at you,” he remarked mildly.
“And the girls aren’t doing that to you? Believe me, they are,” I said with a scoff.
“Are you imagining me bending you over a table, sweetheart?” he teased in what I called his sex voice. I was pretty sure he could get anything he wanted from me when he used that voice.
“Don’t use that voice,” I groaned breathily. “You know I can’t control myself when you do.”
His self-satisfied smirk lasted the whole rest of the walk to lunch.
It kind of felt like I was walking with a celebrity as we entered the lunchroom. Guys and girls tried to get his attention. Noah was the friendliest of the trio, but it was clear that people considered it a personal victory if they got a hello from him. His fingers tangled briefly with mine as we walked for a second before he caught himself. The move immediately made me sad.
Just a few more months.
Noah grabbed lunch for both of us and stacked everything on his tray. At this point, he didn’t have to even ask what I wanted for lunch. He knew me better than I knew myself, or so it seemed sometimes.
“You want a brownie today, right?”
I blushed. “Why are you asking me that?”
“You started your period yesterday, didn’t you?”
My mouth dropped as I grabbed the brownie and threw it on his tray. It was a little disturbing that they knew me so well that they knew my period cycles.
“I’m not answering that,” I said grouchily.
“Whatever you say, pretty girl,” he said with a wink.
I stuck my tongue out at him childishly, and his eyes heated, like he had better ideas for what my tongue could do.
I looked away, only to see something I would never have expected in a million years.
It was Wyatt, leaning over one of the cheerleaders—Brittany I think was her name—the same way that Ryan had just been leaning over me.
Noah noticed I wasn’t paying attention to him anymore and looked over to where I was glaring. His lips pursed as he watched. “I’m sure there’s a good reason for whatever he’s doing,” he reassured me.
I tried not to get jealous. I really did. But when she reached over to fiddle with a button on his shirt, I almost lost it. Noah had to step in front of me before I marched over there.
I was on my period, and I was PMSing…I knew this. But I couldn’t stop the tears from stinging my eyes.
“Come on, Livvy. Wyatt’s crazy about you. I’m sure he’ll explain everything later.”
Noah led me to the football table in the middle of the cafeteria where the Varsity team and the cheerleading squad all sat. Everyone greeted him excitedly and then gave me half-hearted greetings as well.
It wasn’t a secret to me that the only reason anyone in this school was nice to me was because Noah, Ryan, and Wyatt would kick the ass of anyone who wasn’t.
I didn’t really care though. They, along with their parents, were the only people I cared about in the world.
I turned my head and saw that Wyatt was still talking to Brittany. I couldn’t see his face, but he was gesturing to her wildly with both hands.
Someone at the table asked Noah a question about Columbia just then, distracting me momentarily from Wyatt.
“I think we go a month early for training camp,” he answered. Guilt flickered in my gut at how unexcited he sounded.
Noah was a god at football. The kind of god that got scholarships to schools like Alabama and Ohio State.
I could feel the palpable hate in the air when he’d announced last year that he was going to Columbia and not one of the big football schools. Everyone blamed it on me. Little did they know how hard Ryan, Wyatt, and I had pushed him to not follow us to New York. We’d even volunteered to go wherever he went.
But he knew that Ryan and Wyatt needed a school in a city like New York to fulfill their dreams. He’d told us that if he was half the football player that people said he was, then he would make it to the NFL, even if he went to Columbia.
But I couldn’t help but feel guilty. We’d all made sacrifices, but it felt like his was a little bit bigger than everyone else’s.
Lunch dragged on, and I was grateful when the bell rang. Wyatt had disappeared at so
me point during lunch, a lunch he wasn’t supposed to be at in the first place. Brittany had made her way to our table, shooting me a triumphant look as she sat down as if she knew something I didn’t.
I tried to ignore her.
“I have to use the restroom. You go ahead,” I told Noah as we exited the lunchroom.
“I can wait,” he said with a frown as he softly pushed a piece of hair out of my face. My heart skipped a beat at the way he was staring at me. I loved this boy so fucking much.
“Just go ahead. You can’t be late to any classes this week,” I reminded him. Although his coach would be crazy to bench him, the football team was held to pretty high standards as far as class attendance went. He’d already been late once this week when someone had poured syrup into my locker. That hadn’t been a fun day.
“See you later, pretty girl,” he told me, holding a finger up to his lip to let me know he wished he could kiss me.
“See you,” I whispered before I slipped into the girl’s bathroom.
I was doing my business and changing my tampon when I heard a familiar voice. It was Brittany, or whatever her name was, and a few of the other girls on the team.
“He doesn’t want her to know. Wyatt told me she gets crazy jealous. Isn’t that sick? She’s his sister.”
“His adopted sister,” another girl reminded her.
That’s right, I thought to myself.
“Whatever. She’s a weirdo. Anyways…he asked me to go to his show tonight. I guess there’s an after-party and we’re going to hang out there. I’m literally dying right now. He’s so fucking hot.”
The girls squealed excitedly for her. I, however, felt like I was going to throw up. I trusted Wyatt. I did. I trusted all of them. They’d had opportunity after opportunity to hook up with other girls, and as far as I knew…they’d never strayed.
But I couldn’t think of a good reason for him asking Brittany to his show.
I walked to class in a daze, finally making it ten minutes after the bell rang. Noah kept shooting me concerned looks throughout class, but I didn’t mention the conversation to him. I was trying to be that girl that didn’t overreact, that approached situations maturely and logically.