Invite Him In

I don't move from the door. Let him linger. Let him wonder. I strip off my jacket slowly, toss it on his bed like you belong here. Then I call out, voice steady: "You can come in, Caleb. It's your room."

The shadow freezes. A beat of silence. Then the doorknob turns, and he enters like smoke—quiet, inevitable.

"Bold of you," he murmurs, eyes tracking your every movement. "Acting like you have a choice here."

I meet his gaze. "Don't I?"

His smile is all teeth. "That's what we're going to find out."

The door clicks shut behind him, and suddenly the room feels smaller. He doesn't move closer—not yet—but his presence fills every corner, presses against my skin like humidity before a storm. He's always been like this. Taking up more space than physics should allow.

"So," I say, crossing my arms. "Are we going to talk about the photo?"

His eyes flick to the desk where I'd found it, then back to me. Something shifts in his expression—not quite surprise, but a kind of pleased recognition. Like I've finally started playing the game properly.

"Which one?" he asks.

My stomach drops. "Which one?"

He moves then, fluid and unhurried, crossing to his desk. He pulls open the top drawer and withdraws a small stack of photographs. My heart hammers as he spreads them across the desktop like playing cards.

Me at nineteen, asleep on the couch during Christmas break, mouth slightly open, ****.

Me at twenty, reaching for something on a high shelf, shirt riding up.

Me at twenty-one, laughing at something on my phone in the backyard, unaware.

Me. Me. Me.

"Jesus, Caleb." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "This is—"

"Creepy?" He leans back against the desk, watching me with those dark eyes that used to make me want to throw things at him. Still do, actually. "Inappropriate? Crossing about seventeen different lines?"

"Yes. All of that."

He tilts his head. "And yet you're still here."

"Because I need somewhere to sleep."

"No." He pushes off from the desk, taking one deliberate step forward. "You could've insisted on the couch. Could've called a friend. Could've slept in your car. But you called me into my own room." Another step. "Why?"

I hate that he's right. Hate that some twisted part of me wanted to see what would happen if I didn't run this time. If I stopped being the girl who left and became something else. Something dangerous.

"Maybe I'm tired of being predictable," I say.

His laugh is low, appreciative. "There she is."

"Stop saying that."

"Why? Does it bother you?" He's closer now, close enough that I can smell that cologne—something woody and expensive that absolutely doesn't belong on a twenty-five-year-old who still lives at home. Except Caleb's always been a contradiction. Lazy and driven. Careless and obsessive. Beautiful and cruel.

"Everything about you bothers me," I tell him.

"Liar."

The word hangs between us like a dare.

I think about all the times we've stood like this—too close, too charged, too aware of each other. In the kitchen at midnight, fighting over leftovers. In the hallway before school, when he'd block my path just to make me late. In the pool that one summer when I was eighteen and he was nineteen and something almost happened that would've changed everything.

But I always ran. Always found an excuse. Always chose the safer path.

"Why did you keep them?" I nod toward the photos. "The pictures."

He studies me for a long moment, and I see him weighing his options. How much truth to offer. How much to hold back. It's a calculation I recognize because I'm doing the same thing.

"You want the easy answer or the real one?"

"The real one."

"You sure about that?"

I lift my chin. "Try me."

He moves past me—close enough that his arm brushes mine—and sits on the edge of his bed. The casualness of it is deliberate. Everything Caleb does is deliberate.

"The easy answer," he says, "is that I missed you. Little sister goes off to college, leaves a hole in the family dynamic. Photos help fill the gap."

"I'm not your sister."

"No," he agrees, eyes glinting. "You're not."

"The real answer?"

He leans back on his hands, and his t-shirt stretches across his chest in a way that makes me remember I'm twenty-two and he's twenty-five and we're alone in his bedroom and this is exactly the kind of situation my college roommate would've called 'asking for trouble.'

"The real answer," he says slowly, "is that I've been collecting pieces of you since we were teenagers. Before you left. After. During those awkward holiday visits when you'd show up for two days and spend the whole time acting like we were strangers."

My breath catches. "Caleb—"

"I'm not finished." His voice drops lower, rougher. "The real answer is that you were the only person in this house who ever fought back. Who gave as good as you got. Who looked at me like I was more than just the fuck-up son of a single mom who got lucky when Aaron came along."

The confession hits me like a physical thing. I knew our dynamic was complicated—step-siblings who met too late to feel like family, too early to be strangers—but this is something else. Something that makes all those years of tension retroactively dangerous.

"So you what, developed a creepy obsession?"

"Obsession's a strong word."

"You have a stalker wall of photos."

"It's a drawer, not a wall. And they're all from family events." He pauses. "Mostly."

"Caleb."

He grins, and it's the same wicked smile that used to make me want to punch him. Still does. Among other things I'm not examining too closely.

"Relax. I'm not going to **** you and wear your skin."

"The bar is so low it's underground."

"And yet." He gestures between us. "Here we are."

I hate that he keeps being right. Hate that I can feel the pull between us like gravity, stronger now than it ever was when we lived under the same roof. Four years of distance have done nothing to dilute whatever this is. If anything, it's concentrated, aged into something more potent.

"Why did you really invite me back?" I ask.

"We told you. To reconnect—"

"Bullshit."

His eyebrows raise. "Such language."

"I learned it from you."

"You learned a lot of things from me."

The words are loaded, and we both know it. I think about all the things he taught me, intentionally or otherwise. How to sneak out without setting off the alarm. How to forge Aaron's signature. How to do a body shot. How to want something you absolutely shouldn't want.

"The letter," I say. "All three of you signed it. That's weird, Caleb. You have to know that's weird."

He shrugs. "Maybe we all missed you."

"Aaron barely knew me. I lived here for six years and we maybe had a dozen real conversations."

"Aaron notices more than you think."

The way he says it makes something shiver down my spine. I think about dinner, about Aaron's careful attention, his hand on my chair, the way he said 'stay' like it wasn't really a request.

"And Madeline actively hated me."

"Madeline doesn't hate anyone," Caleb corrects. "She just enjoys making people squirm."

"Same difference."

"Not really." He stands, and I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "Hate's personal. What Madeline does is more like... performance art."

"And what you do?"

He's in my space now, close enough that I have to work not to step back. Close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, the small scar above his left eyebrow from when he crashed his bike at thirteen.

"What I do," he says softly, "is wait."

"For what?"

"For you to stop running."

My pulse jumps. "I'm not running."

"No?" He lifts a hand, and for a moment I think he's going to touch me. Instead, he traces the air beside my face, following the curve of my cheek without making contact. The almost-touch is worse than actual touch would be. "Then why did it take four years and a formal letter to get you back here?"

"I was busy. College—"

"You graduated six months ago."

I blink. "How did you—"

"I pay attention." His hand drops. "We all do."

There it is again. The 'we.' The suggestion that this isn't just about him and me, that Aaron and Madeline are somehow part of whatever's happening here. It should feel like a threat. Instead, it feels like a promise I don't understand yet.

"This is weird," I say. "You get that, right? The photos, the letter, the empty room—"

"Your room's not empty."

I frown. "I was just in there. It's completely—"

"Not that room." He moves to his closet, pulls open the door. "This one."

I step forward despite myself. The closet is walk-in, bigger than it should be, and at the back—

"Are those my things?"

Boxes. Labeled in Madeline's neat handwriting. Clothes. Books. Personal. Private.

"We couldn't throw them away," Caleb says behind me. "And Aaron wouldn't let us donate anything. So..."

"So you kept them. In your closet."

"It was that or the garage. Seemed wrong to put you out with the Christmas decorations and old tax returns."

I turn to face him, and we're trapped in the closet doorway, too close, nowhere to run.

"Why your room?" My voice comes out smaller than intended.

Something shifts in his expression, goes darker and more honest than I've seen since I got here.

"Because I wanted them close," he admits. "Wanted something of yours near me. Even if it was just boxes of things you left behind."

The confession should creep me out. It does, a little. But mostly it makes something hot and complicated unfurl in my chest. Because I understand it. Because I kept his old lacrosse hoodie, the one that smells like him, hidden in my apartment where no one would find it. Because we're both collectors, apparently. Both obsessed with pieces of each other.

"This is so fucked up," I whisper.

"Yeah," he agrees. "It really is."

Neither of us moves.

"I should go," I say.

"Where?"

"Anywhere. The couch. My car. A hotel."

"In the storm?" As if on cue, thunder rolls overhead, and rain begins pattering against the window. "Besides, you already made your choice."

"I chose a place to sleep. That's all."

"Is it?" He leans in, not quite touching, but close enough that I feel his breath against my ear. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you finally chose to stop pretending we're family."

I shiver. "We are family. Legally."

"Legally," he repeats, amused. "Right. Because that's what's stopping you. The legal technicalities."

"Caleb—"

"Not the four-year age gap. Not the fact that I used to put gum in your hair. Not the way Aaron looks at you when he thinks no one's watching. Just the legal stuff."

I pull back sharply. "What do you mean, the way Aaron—"

But he's already moving, stepping out of the closet, giving me space I didn't ask for and don't want.

"You should get some sleep," he says. "Long day tomorrow."

"Doing what?"

He smiles, and it's different this time. Softer. More dangerous.

"Finding out what happens when you stay."