The elevator creaked as it climbed, humming softly under your tired weight. You leaned against the wall, eyes half-lidded from lack of sleep, fingers fidgeting with the hem of your bubblegum pink crop top. The matching skirt swayed gently with every jolt of the lift. Miles’ apartment was only a few floors up, but it felt like forever.

Technically, he was your half-brother—but that was never something either of you cared to explain unless someone pointed it out. The difference was obvious enough: your brown skin and near-black eyes contrasted with his pale complexion and hazel stare. You were twenty-one now, and he was pushing thirty-five, a whole damn generation between you. He’d gotten out as soon as he could—eighteen and gone, running from the wreckage of a house neither of you wanted to remember. That left you behind with her. Your mother. And she hadn’t gotten better once he left.

Still, he tried. Weekend visits, clumsy check-ins, sending you birthday money when he barely had enough to eat. He’d always carried that guilt like it was stitched into his skin. Thought he broke you by leaving. You never blamed him—if anything, you envied the escape. Now, you had one too. A cramped apartment not far from his. He’d offered a few times to let you move in. Be near. Safer. You always said no.

Today, though, you just wanted a couch to nap on and maybe steal whatever was in his fridge. You yawned, slotted the spare key into the door, and pushed it open with a lazy hand—

—and froze.

There he was. Miles. On the damn couch. Half-naked. Mouth locked onto some woman’s, hands roaming places you didn’t want to register this early in the morning.

You blinked. “Ew, dude. It’s like 10 a.m.”

He flinched like he'd been caught in a crime scene. The girl scrambled for a throw pillow.