Chapter 3

I woke up to a clean apartment.

The leftover food — gone. My suitcase — unpacked and put away. Everything in its place, exactly how it always was when Preston had quietly taken care of everything without saying a word about it.

He was always like that.

I picked up my phone. And found a new contact I didn't recognize.

[Nora — are you coming to my game tonight?]

[If you do, I'll play really well. I promise.]

I didn't need to guess who it was.

Cole and I had already made one mistake. It needed to stop here — cleanly, completely.

I made up my mind. Then I called him.

He picked up on the first ring.

"Nora?" His voice lifted at the end — bright, like he'd been waiting.

I kept mine steady. "After we hang up, let's delete each other's contact. Going forward, no private communication."

Silence on the other end.

Then, abruptly — a clatter of noise. Something hitting the floor. Voices rising, panicked:

"Cole! Cole! Somebody call an ambulance!"

My chest seized.

"Cole? What's happening?! Cole—"

The line went chaotic — then went dead.

Someone had ended the call.

Cole was hurt.

I tried calling back. No one answered. I tried again. And again. All day, I walked around with my heart in my throat, jumping every time my phone moved.

By the time Preston picked me up from work, I was a wreck.

"I need to go to the hospital," he said. "I'll drop you home first."

The hospital.

My pulse spiked. "Who got hurt?"

Preston glanced at me. "Why did you assume it was an injury, and not an illness?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

The light changed. He started driving again.

A long silence. Then, quietly: "It's Cole. He got hurt." Another pause. "Do you want to come?"

Cole had been hurt because of me.

His teammates explained what happened: Cole had gotten a phone call mid-game — from a woman — and something about it threw him completely off. His expression went wrong. And when the ball came flying at him, he didn't dodge.

He went down hard, hit his head on the edge of the court steps. Still unconscious when the ambulance arrived.

One of the guys on the team shook his head. "Cole never gets distracted like that. He doesn't even have a girl. But today some woman calls him out of nowhere, and—" He trailed off. "If it weren't for that call, there's no way he'd have missed it."

The hospital corridor went very quiet.

Preston's face was stone.

I stood there, unable to move.

This was my fault. All of it.

I made myself walk toward him. My thoughts were tangled and useless, but one thing had become clear: I needed to tell him. Whether it was his brother or me — this disaster had started with me.

"Preston—"

"Don't." His voice was rough. He was staring at his hands, knuckles white where they rested on his knees. "I don't want to hear it right now."

My chest ached dully.

Neither of us knew how to end this.

Then the door swung open.

A nurse leaned out. "The patient's awake."

Cole was in the hospital bed with bandaging around his head. We were still feet away when his eyes found me — cutting straight past his brother, landing on me first.

"Nora," he said. "My head hurts."

Cole had a concussion. Dizziness, nausea — on and off all afternoon.

When Preston started scrolling through delivery apps, Cole dry-heaved dramatically and managed to produce actual tears. "I want home-cooked food."

Preston put his phone away.

He glanced at me — just once.

"Then Nora and I will go back, cook something, and bring it to you."

"Preston—"

Cole's voice shot up — and then the nausea hit again, and he hunched over the side of the bed.

I moved automatically, rubbing his back. I looked at Preston. "Why don't you stay with him? I'll go back and make something."

Cole's injury had my name on it. I owed him at least this much.

Preston pressed his mouth into a line.

The patient made a small, pitiful sound. Cole pressed a hand to his bandaged head and murmured something about how dizzy and helpless he was.

Preston stood up, jaw tight. "Nora, you stay here with Cole. I'll be back as soon as I can."

His footsteps were stiff as he left.

The moment the door clicked shut, I turned around.

"You did that on purpose," I said. My voice was flat. "The sympathy act. Chasing your brother off."

I stepped closer.

"Cole. That's your brother. We've already hurt him enough. Why are you doing this?"

He went still.

Then, slowly: "Getting hurt wasn't intentional."

So everything else was.

Something hot and furious ignited in my chest.

"Then why?! We already did something we shouldn't have — and that's on me. But he's your brother. Your actual brother. Don't you care about him at all?"

The questions hit him one after another.

Cole's color drained. His expression caved in on itself.

"You care about him that much?" he asked quietly.

Then the tears came — slipping down the sides of his face without warning, his voice shaking. "Do you really not see me at all?"

He swung his legs off the bed, shaky but determined, and stumbled his way over to me. He pulled me against him — hard, uncoordinated — and kissed me.

His hand slid down.

I shoved him off and slapped him across the face.

Cole's head turned with the impact. He stood there, cheek red, eyes still wet.

"I knew you first," he said.