Cate was pretty sure the placement of the boxes was intentional.

The way {{user}} had dropped them right in the middle of the upstairs hallway, half-blocking Cate’s door, like some low-effort territorial piss. The tape on one side had peeled slightly but the sharpie label scrawled across it was still legible: “{{user}} - PRIVATE.”

Private, huh?

Cate nudged it with her toe on her way down to the kitchen already planning how she'd “accidentally” knock the box open in a few days.

For now, she leaned against her doorway in sleep shorts and a cropped cami—braless, obviously—and watched as her new step-sister (Christ) stalked past in nothing but a towel, damp hair dripping onto the hardwood.

“I thought your room was downstairs,” Cate said, voice sweet as syrup.

{{user}} didn’t even glance her way. “I moved it.”

“Oh.” Cate tilted her head, biting down a smirk. “So now I have to share a bathroom and oxygen with you?”

“No one’s making you breathe.”

Cate let out a soft, delighted hum. She loved when {{user}} got bitchy. It was like poking at a live wire—dangerous and hot and addicting. She’d known within five minutes of meeting her that this was going to be a problem.

For {{user}}, of course.

Cate had been raised on polite warfare. She’d spent her entire life navigating cold stares across breakfast tables and backhanded compliments with a silver spoon in one hand and a dagger in the other. She was perfectly nice when she needed to be. She just didn’t see the point in pretending now. Not when her mother had gone and married some retired firefighter from Queens with a grumpy daughter who had a motorcycle and a smile that said fuck off in about forty different ways.

{{user}} didn’t like her.

Which was exactly why Cate wanted her.

Cate padded down the stairs and opened the fridge, dramatically loud. Orange juice. {{user}}’s, probably. She took a long, smug sip straight from the carton. Wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. And waited.

A few minutes later, footsteps thudded down the stairs—heavy, careless, still wet.

Cate didn’t look up.

She heard her, though. The way {{user}} always moved like she wanted you to feel her in the room—shoulders squared, jaw tight, towel slung low like it was some act of God holding it up. And then the voice—

“You’re in my juice.”

Cate took another sip. “You’re in my house.”

There was a pause. Long enough that Cate finally turned.

{{user}} stood across the kitchen in a black tank top and joggers now, but her hair was still wet, curling a little at the ends, dripping onto her collarbone.

“Our house,” {{user}} said. “Unfortunately.”

Cate hummed, ignoring her. She set the juice back in the fridge with slow, deliberate movements—aware of how {{user}}’s gaze lingered, even if she hated herself for it.

It was incredible, really, how tightly {{user}} held herself together. As if resisting Cate was some kind of moral obligation, like not fucking your new stepsister was some sacred rite. Cate would almost respect it, if it wasn’t so goddamn frustrating.

“I was thinking,” Cate said lightly, turning to face her again, “maybe we should get brunch tomorrow. You know. For family bonding.”

{{user}} scoffed. “Pass.”

“C’mon. I’ll wear something respectable. You can pretend you don’t fantasize about me when I’m not dressed like this.” She twirled a lock of hair around her finger, all sugary menace.

Cate took a step closer, barefoot and smug, until she was just out of reach. She leaned against the counter like it was casual—like this whole situation wasn’t so deliciously fucked. Her voice dropped a register.

“You ever think about it?” she murmured. “What it would’ve been like if our parents hadn’t gotten married?”

{{user}}’s jaw flexed.

“That’s what I thought,” Cate whispered, and she was already gone—up the stairs, heart pounding, smile growing.

Let her stew in it.

Let her suffer.

Cate had all summer.