Chapter 2: The Cold Morning After

Elijah woke to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar windows and the immediate, crushing weight of what he'd done.

He was in Sam's bed. In Sam's room. And Sam was curled against his side like she belonged there, her blonde hair spilled across his chest, one arm draped possessively over his ribs. The scent of her shampoo filled his nostrils with each breath—fruity and innocent, a stark contrast to the decidedly not-innocent memories flooding back.

Christ.

He lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling painted with shadows from her hanging plants, trying to convince himself this was all some elaborate nightmare. That he hadn't actually crossed the one line that made their blended family possible. That he hadn't touched his stepsister like she was his to touch, hadn't whispered her name like a prayer against her skin.

But the phantom pressure of her lips against his was too real, too vivid to dismiss. And the way she was breathing, soft and even in sleep, her body warm and pliant against his—this was no dream.

This was a catastrophe.

Moving with the careful precision of someone defusing a bomb, Elijah extracted himself from her embrace. Sam stirred but didn't wake, simply curling into the space he'd vacated with a soft sigh that made his chest tight with something he refused to name.

He found his clothes scattered across her floor like evidence of his spectacular lack of judgment. The sight of his jeans tangled with her paint-stained t-shirt made him want to put his fist through the wall.

What the hell were you thinking?

The answer was simple: he hadn't been thinking at all. He'd been feeling, and that was dangerous territory for someone who'd spent three years maintaining iron control over every interaction with the girl currently sleeping in rumpled sheets behind him.

Dressed and desperate to escape the suffocating intimacy of her room, Elijah slipped out into the hallway. The house felt different in the morning light—not charged with possibility like it had last night, but heavy with consequences he wasn't ready to face.

He made it to the kitchen on autopilot, muscle memory guiding him through the motions of making coffee. The familiar routine should have been calming, but his hands shook as he measured grounds, and the silence felt oppressive rather than peaceful.

It was a mistake, he told himself firmly. A moment of weakness that can't happen again.

The coffee maker gurgled to life, filling the silence with something that wasn't the echo of Sam's voice saying she wanted him. Saying she'd always wanted him.

Elijah gripped the counter until his knuckles went white. He needed to fix this. Needed to find a way to stuff the genie back in the bottle before their parents came home and everything imploded.

The solution was obvious: pretend it never happened. Go back to their careful dance of polite animosity and forced family meals. Become the responsible older brother again, the one who kept his distance and his thoughts strictly appropriate.

It was the only way.

Lost in his planning, he didn't hear her footsteps on the stairs. Didn't realize he wasn't alone until her voice cut through his internal monologue like a blade.

"Running away already?"

Elijah's entire body went rigid. He turned slowly, dreading what he'd find, and nearly lost his composure entirely.

Sam stood in the kitchen doorway wearing nothing but an oversized band t-shirt that hit mid-thigh, her legs bare and endless. Her blonde hair was a riot of bedhead waves, and her blue eyes were bright with something that looked dangerously like satisfaction.

She looked thoroughly debauched. She looked beautiful. She looked like everything he couldn't have.

"I was making coffee," he said carefully, proud that his voice came out steady.

"How domestic of you." She padded closer, bare feet silent on the tile, and Elijah had to fight the urge to back away. "Sleep well?"

The innocent question was loaded with landmines. Her tone was light, almost conversational, but there was steel underneath—a challenge he recognized from three years of verbal sparring.

"Fine," he lied.

Sam reached around him for a mug, her body brushing against his for just a moment. The contact was electric, sending shockwaves through his nervous system, and from the slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth, she knew exactly what she was doing.

"That's good," she said, pouring herself coffee like nothing had changed. Like they hadn't rewritten the fundamental rules of their relationship just hours ago. "I was worried you might have regrets."

The word hung between them, sharp and pointed. Elijah's jaw clenched.

"About what?" He couldn't quite manage to make it sound casual.

Sam's laugh was soft but edged with something darker. "Really? We're playing this game?"

She moved to lean against the opposite counter, cradling her mug between both hands, and studied him with those unnervingly direct blue eyes. The morning light streaming through the window caught the gold in her hair, and Elijah had to look away.

"I don't know what you mean," he said to his own coffee.

"Look at me, Elijah."

The command in her voice made him obey before he could think better of it. The moment their eyes met, he knew his mistake. Sam had always been able to read him too easily, and three years of living together had only sharpened that particular skill.

"There it is," she said softly. "The guilt. The regret. The desperate need to pretend last night was some kind of fever dream."

"Sam—"

"No." She set down her mug with deliberate care. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to touch me like that, make me feel like that, and then act like I'm something you need to scrub off your skin."

The hurt in her voice hit him like a physical blow, but it was the anger underneath that made him wary. Sam's anger was a living thing, unpredictable and scorching.

"It was a mistake," he said quietly.

"A mistake." She repeated the words like they tasted bitter. "That's what I am to you? A mistake?"

"That's not what I meant—"

"Then what did you mean?" She was moving closer now, her blue eyes blazing. "Because from where I'm standing, it sounds like you're trying to reduce the most honest moment we've ever had to some dirty little secret you can't wait to forget."

The kitchen suddenly felt too small, the air too thin. Elijah found himself backed against the counter with nowhere to retreat as Sam advanced, her righteous fury filling the space between them.

"It can't happen again," he said desperately.

"Why?" The question was sharp, demanding. "Give me one good reason that isn't about what other people might think."

"Because we're family—"

"Bullshit." The curse exploded out of her. "We're not family, Elijah. We're two people who got thrown together by circumstances neither of us chose. And last night proved that whatever this thing is between us, it's not brotherly concern."

She was right in front of him now, close enough that he could see the flecks of darker blue in her eyes, close enough to smell her shampoo and remember exactly how her skin had felt under his hands.

"You felt it too," she continued, her voice dropping to something dangerously intimate. "The way we fit together. The way it felt like coming home and catching fire at the same time."

Stop, he wanted to say. Stop talking about it like it meant something.

But the words wouldn't come, because it had meant something. More than he wanted to admit, more than was safe.

"I can see it in your eyes," Sam whispered. "You want to do it again. You want to take me back upstairs and forget about all the reasons we shouldn't—"

"Enough." The word came out harsher than he'd intended, but it stopped her litany of temptation. "This is exactly why it can't happen again. You're nineteen, Sam. You don't understand—"

"Don't." Her voice was deadly quiet. "Don't you dare use my age as an excuse when you were the one who lost control first."

The accusation stung because it was true. He had lost control. Had been the one to escalate from harsh words to devastating kisses. Had been the one to cross every line he'd spent three years carefully maintaining.

"You want to know what I understand?" Sam continued, her voice gaining strength. "I understand that you're scared. I understand that this threatens your perfect little world where everything has its place and everyone follows the rules. But most of all, I understand that you're a coward."

The word hit like a slap. "What did you just call me?"

"A coward," she repeated, chin lifted defiantly. "Someone who runs away the second things get complicated. Someone who would rather pretend something beautiful never happened than risk having to feel something real."

"Beautiful?" Elijah's voice cracked on the word. "Sam, what we did—"

"Was the first honest thing that's happened in this house since our parents got married," she finished fiercely. "And if you can't see that, if you're so determined to stuff it back into whatever neat little box makes you comfortable, then you're exactly what I said you are."

The silence that followed was deafening. They stared at each other across the small kitchen, three years of careful distance obliterated by one night of weakness and one morning of brutal honesty.

Elijah's chest felt tight, his breathing shallow. Everything she'd said was cutting too close to truths he'd spent years avoiding. He wasn't ready for this conversation, wasn't ready to examine what it meant that touching her had felt like coming alive for the first time.

"I need space," he said finally. "I need to think."

Sam's laugh was bitter. "Of course you do. God forbid you make a decision based on what you actually want instead of what you think you should want."

She turned to leave, and panic flared in his chest. The thought of her walking away, of leaving this conversation unfinished, made him want to reach for her. Made him want to pull her back and kiss the hurt out of her eyes.

Instead, he stayed frozen against the counter, watching her go.

At the kitchen doorway, she paused without turning around.

"You know what the really pathetic part is?" she said quietly. "I actually thought you were different. I thought underneath all that responsibility and control, there was someone brave enough to want something just because it was worth wanting."

Her words hung in the air long after her footsteps faded up the stairs, each one a direct hit to parts of himself he'd thought were well-armored.

Elijah stood alone in the kitchen, surrounded by the detritus of a normal morning—coffee cups and sunshine and the lingering scent of her shampoo. Everything looked the same, but he felt fundamentally changed. Cracked open and exposed.

And despite every rational thought screaming that this was for the best, that distance was the only sane response to what had happened between them, one word echoed in his mind with devastating clarity:

Coward.

The worst part was knowing she was right.