step brother rules

Chapter 1: The Toast Mara Ellison had practiced the toast in the bathroom mirror four times that morning, and it still felt like a lie in her mouth. "To Diane and Robert," she said, raising her glass under the string lights strung across her mother's backyard, voice steadier than she felt, "who found each other later than most people get the chance to, and who are lucky enough to know exactly what to do with it." Applause rippled through the small crowd. Her mother's eyes went glassy. Robert Cole — silver-haired, broad-shouldered, the kind of man who filled a room without trying — pulled Diane into his side and kissed her temple like the forty guests scattered across the lawn didn't exist. Mara sat back down, reached for her wine, and drank more of it than a toast-giver probably should. That was when she felt him watching her. Jonah was across the table, one arm slung over the back of an empty chair, that half-smile on his face that told her he'd clocked exactly how much the last three minutes had cost her. "Good speech," he said, leaning in over the flowers and half-eaten cake. "You almost didn't sound like you wanted to throw up." "I wanted to throw up a little." "Yeah." He turned his glass in slow circles against the tablecloth, ice cubes clinking. "Same, actually. During mine." "You didn't look like it." "I'm better at hiding it than you are." "I'll take that as a compliment to myself, then. At least I'm honest." That got a real laugh out of him — quick, low, gone almost as fast as it came — and something in Mara's chest did a small, unhelpful flip. Six months ago, she hadn't known Robert Cole existed. Four months ago, she'd met his son at an engagement dinner she'd almost skipped, and spent the whole night arguing with him about, of all things, a restaurant he swore was overrated and she swore was underrated. Neither of them had backed down. Neither of them, if she was being honest with herself now, had wanted to. And now there was a ring on her mother's finger, a new last name coming for both of them eventually, and a boy sitting across a folding table who wasn't her brother — not by blood, not really — but who was about to be family in every legal and practical sense by midnight. A boy she was absolutely, categorically not supposed to notice the way she currently, helplessly, did. "Weird day," Jonah said, watching her over the rim of his glass. "Weird week," Mara corrected. "Weird everything, honestly. I keep waiting for it to stop feeling like someone else's life." "You get used to it. I think." He glanced toward the dance floor, where their parents were swaying badly to a song neither of them could probably name, laughing about it. "Or maybe you don't. Maybe you just stop expecting it to make sense." "That's bleak." "That's realistic." He looked back at her. "I'm an architect. We deal in things that have to hold weight. This is more like — abstract art. Nobody tells you if you're doing it right." "Is that your way of saying you don't know what we're supposed to be to each other now?" The question came out before she'd fully decided to ask it, and for a second neither of them moved. The music kept going. Someone a few tables over laughed too loud at something. Jonah's jaw shifted, like he was choosing his next words the way he probably chose which beam went where in a building — carefully, load-bearing. "I know what we're supposed to be," he said finally. "Step-siblings. Family friends, basically, with better Christmas presents." "Right." "I'm just not sure that's going to be easy." Mara's pulse did something complicated. "Why not?" He didn't answer right away. Instead he reached for the bottle of wine between them and topped off her glass without asking, an easy, familiar gesture that felt like it belonged to two people who'd known each other far longer than four months. "Because I like arguing with you about restaurants," he said eventually, quiet enough that it was just for her. "And I have a feeling I'm going to want to keep doing it. Which is fine. Except now there's a rulebook, and I didn't get a copy." Mara's breath caught somewhere she wasn't proud of. "There isn't a rulebook." "There should be." His eyes held hers a beat too long. "Step-siblings. Rule one: don't make it weird for them." He nodded toward the dance floor, toward Diane laughing against Robert's shoulder like she'd been given a second chance at something she thought was over. "Rule two—" "Jonah." Someone called his name from across the yard — his cousin, maybe, waving him over for photos — and the moment broke like a dropped glass. He stood, straightening his jacket, throwing her one last look over his shoulder. "We'll figure out rule two later." Mara watched him go, wine sweating in her hand, her mother's laughter drifting across the lawn like nothing in the world had just tilted sideways. She had a horrible feeling rule two was going to be the one that mattered.