My Worst Enemy Is My Plus One

The bass line vibrated through the floorboards of the old Victorian house on Maple Street, rattling the cheap plastic cups lined up on the kitchen counter and making the cheap string lights outside sway like they were drunk too. It was the kind of late-spring night that smelled like cut grass, spilled beer, and the faint sweetness of someone’s poorly rolled joint drifting in from the backyard. Chloe Bennett stood just inside the open front door, arms crossed tightly over the soft gray hoodie she’d thrown on at the last minute, and wondered—not for the first time—why she had let Madison talk her into this. Madison Cole, her best friend since the second grade, was currently somewhere in the living room shrieking with laughter at something a senior boy had said. Chloe could hear her from here. Madison always found the center of every room without trying. Chloe preferred the edges. She was sixteen, almost seventeen, and still the kind of girl who showed up to parties in jeans and a hoodie while everyone else had somehow transformed into versions of themselves that belonged on i********:. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy ponytail that had already started escaping. She had no makeup on except the clear lip balm she always carried, and her Converse were scuffed from walking everywhere because her parents still thought sixteen was too young for a car. She should have stayed home. She had a chem test on Monday and a stack of AP history notes that weren’t going to outline themselves. But Madison had begged—actual begging, complete with the dramatic sigh and the “Chloe, you never come out, people are going to think I made you up”—and Chloe had folded the way she always did when Madison used that particular tone. Now she was here, hovering in the entryway of a house that belonged to some senior whose parents were conveniently out of town, and every instinct she had was telling her to turn around and walk the three blocks back to her own quiet street. She took one step deeper into the house anyway. The living room was packed. Bodies moved in the low light, some dancing, some just standing close and shouting over the music. Someone had pushed the furniture against the walls. A couple was already making out against the far bookcase like they were auditioning for a bad teen movie. Chloe kept her eyes moving, looking for Madison’s bright blonde head. She found her near the kitchen doorway, talking to a tall guy in a baseball jersey. Madison spotted her at the same time and waved both arms like she was guiding a plane in for landing. “Chloe! Finally!” Madison grabbed her wrist the second she got close enough and yanked her into the circle. “This is Jake. Jake, this is Chloe. My actual best friend who somehow still thinks parties are optional.” Jake gave her a polite nod and an up-down glance that lasted half a second too long. Chloe offered a tight smile and immediately looked for an exit route. That was when she felt it—the shift in the air that always happened when *he* entered a room. Ryan Cole. Madison’s older brother. Nineteen. Home from his first year of college for the long weekend. The kind of guy who walked into parties like he owned the deed to the house and everyone in it. Tall, broad-shouldered from whatever sport he’d decided to excel at this season, dark hair that always looked like he’d just run a hand through it, and a permanent half-smirk that made Chloe’s teeth itch. She had known him her entire life. He had been the older brother who used to steal the remote during movie nights and call her “Squirt” until she was thirteen and threatened to put hot sauce in his Gatorade. Somewhere around the time he got his license and a growth spurt, the teasing had sharpened. It stopped being brotherly and started being something else—something that left her feeling off-balance and weirdly exposed. Tonight he was wearing a black T-shirt that fit too well and jeans that looked expensive even in the dim light. A red plastic cup dangled from his fingers. He was already looking at her when her eyes found him across the room, like he’d been waiting for the exact moment she would notice him. His mouth curved. Chloe’s stomach did something complicated and unwelcome. Madison followed her gaze and groaned under her breath. “Oh god. He’s in one of *those* moods.” “What moods?” Chloe asked, even though she already knew. “The ‘I’m home from college and everyone should be impressed’ moods.” Madison linked their arms. “Ignore him. Come on, I want to show you the backyard. There’s a fire pit and everything.” They never made it to the backyard. Ryan reached them first, cutting through the crowd with the easy confidence of someone who had never once in his life worried about whether he belonged. He stopped right in front of Chloe, close enough that she had to tip her chin up to keep eye contact, and the smirk widened. “Well, well,” he said, voice carrying just enough to make the people nearest them glance over. “Look who finally decided to leave the library. Did they run out of books, Bennett?” Chloe felt the familiar heat crawl up the back of her neck. “I go to parties, Cole. I just don’t feel the need to announce it to the entire zip code.” “Could’ve fooled me.” He took a slow sip from his cup, eyes never leaving hers. “You’re standing there like someone’s about to ask you for a book report. Relax. Nobody’s grading you.” Madison elbowed him. “Leave her alone. She just got here.” “I’m being welcoming.” Ryan’s gaze flicked over Chloe’s hoodie, her ponytail, the way she was still half-turned toward the door like she might bolt. Something flickered behind the amusement—something quieter—but it was gone before Chloe could name it. “Besides, somebody’s got to make sure the baby of the group doesn’t get lost.” “I’m not a baby.” “You’re sixteen.” “Almost seventeen.” “Same difference.” He leaned in just enough that only she could hear the next part. “You look like you’re waiting for permission to exist, Chloe. It’s kind of adorable. In a tragic way.” The words landed harder than they should have. Maybe because the music chose that exact moment to dip into a quieter track. Maybe because half the people in the immediate radius were now watching the exchange like it was free entertainment. Maybe because Ryan had always known exactly where to press to make her feel small. Chloe’s face burned. She could feel the eyes. Jake from earlier was still standing there, eyebrows raised. A pair of girls she vaguely recognized from the grade above hers were whispering behind their hands. Someone laughed—soft, but not soft enough. She wanted the floor to open. Madison’s hand tightened on her arm. “Ryan. Stop.” He didn’t look at his sister. He was still watching Chloe, waiting for the comeback he always got, the sharp little retort that proved she could keep up. Tonight the words stuck somewhere behind her teeth. All she could manage was a tight, “You’re an ass,” before she turned and walked away. She didn’t run. She refused to give him that. But her steps were too fast, and the hallway that led toward the stairs felt endless. She found the first empty bathroom, locked the door, and braced both hands on the sink. Her reflection looked exactly the way she felt—flushed, furious, and younger than she wanted to be. She hated that he could still do this. Hated that after years of the same routine she still walked into it like a freshman who didn’t know better. Outside the door, the party kept going. Bass, laughter, the distant crack of a bottle opening. Chloe stared at herself until the urge to cry burned itself out into something harder. She would never, ever give Ryan Cole the satisfaction of seeing her flinch again. --- On the other side of the bathroom door, Ryan Cole stood with his shoulder against the wall and stared at the closed wood like it might open if he looked hard enough. He shouldn’t have said it. The second the words left his mouth he’d felt the wrongness of them, the way Chloe’s face had shuttered, the way the easy fight she usually gave him had simply… vanished. She always pushed back. That was the whole point. The push and pull had been their language since she was twelve and he was fifteen and she’d told him his new haircut made him look like a rejected boy-band member. Tonight she had looked at him like he’d actually hurt her. Madison appeared at his elbow, arms crossed, expression pure older-sister judgment even though she was the younger one. “You’re a d**k,” she said flatly. “I’m aware.” “She didn’t do anything to you.” “I know.” “Then why—” “I don’t know.” The admission tasted bad. He drained the rest of his beer and set the empty cup on a side table that already held three others. “She just… stood there looking like she didn’t belong, and it pissed me off.” Madison’s eyes narrowed. “Because she didn’t look like the rest of the girls here?” Ryan didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The real reason was worse. He’d seen her the second she walked in. The hoodie, the ponytail, the way she scanned the room like she was already planning her exit. Most of the girls at this party had spent an hour getting ready. Chloe had shown up looking like herself, and something about that had lodged under his ribs and stayed there. He was nineteen. He was supposed to be chasing college girls who knew what they wanted and didn’t look at him like he was still the kid who used to hide her favorite snacks on the top shelf just to watch her climb the counter. He was not supposed to notice the way Chloe Bennett’s mouth pressed into a thin line when she was trying not to react, or the way her eyes went bright when she was about to eviscerate him with a one-liner. He especially wasn’t supposed to feel something close to disappointment when the one-liner never came. Madison was still waiting for an answer. Ryan dragged a hand through his hair. “I’ll apologize.” “You better. And not one of your fake, smirking apologies either. An actual one.” “Yes, Mom.” She punched him in the shoulder hard enough to sting and disappeared back into the living room. Ryan stayed where he was for another minute, listening to the muffled sound of water running behind the bathroom door. When it stopped, he almost knocked. He didn’t. Instead he pushed off the wall and walked back toward the noise, already rewriting the night in his head so it would look like nothing had happened. By the time Chloe reappeared—chin high, expression carefully blank—he was on the other side of the room with a fresh drink and a group of guys who were talking about summer plans that already felt too small. He watched her anyway. She found Madison. She laughed at something someone said. She stayed for another forty minutes, and not once did her eyes find his. When she finally slipped out the front door without saying goodbye to anyone except his sister, Ryan felt the absence like a physical thing. He finished his drink. He stayed at the party until the cops were called and everyone scattered into the dark. He drove home with the windows down and the radio off, replaying the look on her face when he’d called her tragic. Somewhere between the stop sign on Oak and the turn onto their street, the irritation he’d been carrying all night cracked open into something quieter and far more dangerous. He had wanted her to fight back. He had wanted her to look at him. And the fact that she hadn’t— the fact that for the first time she had simply walked away—settled into his chest and refused to leave. Ryan Cole pulled into the driveway of the house he’d grown up in, killed the engine, and sat in the dark for a long time. He was home for four more days, he told himself he wouldn’t seek her out. He already knew he was lying.