Torn Between two brothers

Episode 3

EPISODE 3: The Ghost in the Room

Dinner was a blur.

The kind of blur where your body sits at the table, nodding and smiling at all the right moments, but your brain is still trapped out on that balcony, locked in Cameron’s stare.

I barely tasted the roasted chicken.

I couldn’t remember what Liam’s mom was laughing about.

Every time someone clinked a glass, I flinched—like they were cracking open the fragile dam holding me together.

Cameron didn’t speak much. He sat at the far end of the table, close enough to see but far enough to pretend we were strangers.

Except we weren’t.

Not in the way that mattered.

When dessert arrived—a ridiculous chocolate torte topped with edible gold—Liam leaned toward me. “We’re staying over tonight. Mom insisted. I already put our bags in the guest room.”

My stomach tightened. The guest room. Which was two doors down from Cameron’s.

“Unless you don’t want to,” he added, reading my hesitation as simple fatigue.

“No,” I said too quickly. “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t.

The night stretched on. Wine bottles emptied. Stories grew louder. Liam’s mom kept asking me about flower arrangements and table runners and if I’d thought about a string quartet. I smiled. I agreed. I nodded.

Inside, my pulse was a drumbeat I couldn’t quiet.

When Liam finally excused us, my shoulders ached from holding myself so rigid. We made our way upstairs, passing Cameron in the hallway.

He didn’t move aside.

Liam walked past him without a second glance, but I felt the brush of Cameron’s hand—light, deliberate—against mine.

A jolt shot straight through me.

I didn’t look back.

Couldn’t.

The guest room was warm, soft, perfectly put together. Liam set his phone on the nightstand and kissed me lightly. “Back in a sec—gonna grab some water.”

The moment the door closed, I pressed my palms to my eyes, willing the tension out of me.

That’s when I heard the faintest knock.

I froze.

Another knock. Soft. Measured.

When I opened the door, Cameron was there.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t speak.

Just stepped inside and closed it behind him, like he’d been invited.

“We need to talk,” he said, voice low.

My throat went dry. “Now’s not—”

“Now’s the only time,” he cut in.

And before I could argue, he moved closer, the air between us charged with all the things we’d never said.

His gaze swept over my face like he was memorizing me. “You look the same,” he murmured. “Like no time’s passed at all.”

“Stop,” I whispered.

“I can’t.” His jaw flexed. “You think I haven’t tried to forget? You think I don’t remember every single thing we—”

“Cameron,” I warned, panic prickling my skin. “He’s downstairs.”

“I don’t care.” His voice dropped lower, dangerous. “I’m not losing you again.”

The words hit me like a blow—because a tiny, selfish part of me didn’t want him to care.

We were too close now. One step, and I’d be in his arms again.

One step, and the life I’d built with Liam would start to crack.

“Say you don’t feel it,” Cameron said quietly. “Say it, and I’ll walk away.”

I opened my mouth—

But the door handle turned.