Avery leaned back against her bedroom wall, her eyes scanning the quiet of the room, though her mind was far from peaceful. The weight of everything she couldn’t say pressed heavily on her chest, a constant reminder of the truth she had to ignore. Max was her stepbrother.
Her stepbrother.
That simple fact should have been enough to shut down any feelings she had for him, but no matter how hard she tried, her emotions refused to comply. Every time she was near him, the air seemed to change, thick with something she couldn’t quite name. It was always in the little things: the way his eyes lingered a moment too long, the way his voice lowered when he spoke to her, or how his smile seemed to soften when it was just the two of them. She told herself it was all in her head, that it was just no
