Forbidden Fruit: Craving My Best Friend‘s Brother

Chapter 1

CAROLINE

I’ve been in love with my best friend’s older brother since I was fourteen.

Four years. Forty-eight months. Roughly one thousand four hundred and sixty days of pathetic, hopeless, completely one-sided yearning.

Back then I was just the awkward kid with braces who basically lived on his family’s couch, the clingy shadow stuck to his little sister’s hip.

To Damon George, I was furniture. A permanent fixture in the living room he never really saw.

But today is day one of the rest of my life. Move-in day at Blackwood University. I am officially done. New campus, new major, new everything. I’m scrubbing Damon out of my system like a bad detox.

“Caroline, if you force one more oversized hoodie in there, the trunk is going to detonate.” My fifteen-year-old brother, Theo, shoved my favorite gray sweatshirt back into the overflowing duffel. “You’re going to college, not the Arctic.”

“Shut up, it’s aesthetic.” I slapped his hand away and wrestled the zipper closed. “Campus style is comfort. You wouldn’t understand—you still wear shirts covered in gaming memes.”

“This shirt is iconic.”

“It’s tragic,” five-year-old Nora announced from her booster seat, hazel eyes already brimming with theatrical tears. “Caroline, do you have to leave? Who’s gonna make my waffles look like silly faces?”

My chest tightened. I twisted around and wiped her cheek. “Aw, Nora-bug, don’t cry. Mom knows the secret waffle formula. And I’m only an hour away. FaceTime every single night, I swear.”

“Cross your heart?” She held out a tiny pinky.

“Cross my heart.” I linked mine with hers.

“Alright, crew—seats adjusted, mirrors checked, we are cleared for launch.” Dad met my eyes in the rearview. “You ready for this, kiddo?”

“More than ready.” My stomach flipped as our house shrank in the side window.

Mom turned and squeezed my knee. “Caroline, I mean it. Clean slate. Focus on your psych classes, do not skip breakfast, and for the love of everything holy, do not let some smooth-talking frat guy tank your GPA in the first semester.”

“Mom. Oh my god.” Heat flooded my face. “I’m going there to study human behavior, not become a cautionary tale. No frat boys. Head down.”

“Yeah, right,” Theo snorted. “Caroline’s going to lock eyes with some hockey player on day one and forget we exist.”

“Keep talking and I’m changing the Netflix password before we even hit the highway.”

“Kids, enough.” Dad was smiling. “But seriously, Caroline. Call us. Even if it’s just to complain about a terrible professor. Your mother will lose it if we don’t hear from you at least twice a week.”

“I will, Dad. Promise.”

The chatter faded once we reached the highway. Nora drifted off hugging her bear. Theo vanished into his phone.

I rested my head against the cool glass, watching the green blur past, my mind drifting exactly where it had no business going.

Damon George.

I really thought I was cured. I hadn’t seen him in over two years—not since he left for BWU on a hockey scholarship.

When he came home for the holidays, I invented reasons to be busy. Told myself the ache in my chest had finally dissolved.

He was the legendary hockey captain now. A campus celebrity. A projected first-round NHL pick. A literal god walking the halls, the guy everyone knew by name before they’d even met him.

And me? A regular first-year psych student trying not to get lost. A face in a sea of thousands. Different universes.

I was moving to Blackwood for an education, not to chase a ghost. He was just a stupid childhood crush. I was over it. Completely over it.

“Look—there’s the sign!” Mom’s voice yanked me back.

Brick arches spelled out BLACKWOOD UNIVERSITY in gold letters. The campus stretched out gorgeous and sprawling—historic stone next to glass and steel.

Trunks stood open everywhere. Students hauled mini-fridges across the grass. Music thumped from the Greek houses. It felt electric. It felt like a clean start.

Dad pulled up outside Maple Hall. The second the tires stopped, the back door flew open.

“Caroline!”

A blonde hurricane launched herself into the car and around my neck. I burst out laughing, vanilla perfume everywhere.

“Harper! Holy shit, let me breathe!”

Harper George dragged me out of the car, blue eyes sparkling, looking unfairly perfect in a cropped BWU crewneck and denim shorts.

“I’ve been waiting by the curb for an hour!” She bounced, squeezing my hands. “We’re finally here. Officially college roommates. No parents, no curfew—just pure, beautiful freedom. Our dorm is small enough to violate human rights, but we’re making it aesthetic as hell.”

“Still can’t believe we actually pulled this off.” I grinned, the knot in my chest loosening under her chaos. “Where’s your stuff?”

“Already dragged upstairs.” She waved at my parents unloading the trunk. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Donovan! I promise to keep her alive and mostly out of trouble.”

“Counting on you, Harper,” Dad said, popping the trunk. “Theo, grab the heavy bags.”

Twenty minutes of hauling bins and fighting for elevator space later, my side of the room was mostly set up.

Saying goodbye hit harder than I expected.

Nora clung to my leg like a koala until Mom peeled her off. Dad gave me a bone-crushing hug that stung my eyes. Even Theo managed an awkward one-armed squeeze.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he muttered.

“Love you too, brat.” I blinked hard as they disappeared down the hallway.

Harper clapped, shattering the quiet. “No crying allowed. We need to go grab your mirror before it becomes a pile of glass. One of my brother’s hockey friends said he’d haul it up.”

“Wait—which friend?” I followed her downstairs, my heart doing a strange, uninvited thud at the word hockey.

“Ethan, maybe? Or Noah? Honestly Damon’s whole team is basically on standby. He told them they’d be running extra laps if anyone let his little sister struggle with heavy lifting.” She laughed, pushing through the lobby doors. “Perks of having the captain as a big brother.”

The afternoon sun hit my face as we stepped into the courtyard—warm and loud with laughter and slamming doors.

“There’s the truck.” Harper pointed toward a sleek black pickup at the curb.

“Awesome, let’s get this over with so we can—”

The words died in my throat. My feet locked to the concrete.

A guy stood at the open tailgate, lifting an oversized gear bag like it weighed nothing.

He was wearing a faded charcoal BWU Hockey hoodie, sleeves shoved up over thick forearms marked with faint pale scars.

He moved with a quiet, lethal kind of grace that owned the entire sidewalk without trying.

Then he turned. The light caught his jaw—sharp and shadowed with stubble. Dark hair stuck out messily from under a backward cap.

My chest locked so hard I forgot how to breathe.

He wasn’t the twenty-year-old I’d spent two years avoiding at family dinners. Damon was twenty-two now. Broader. Taller. Six-foot-four of pure, intimidating muscle.

He looked older. Harder. Like a man completely used to being obeyed.

As if he could feel the weight of my stare, he paused… and turned his head.

His steel-blue eyes locked on mine across the crowded courtyard.

The world went muffled—the chatter, the car horns, even Harper’s voice beside me—all of it fading under the sudden thick pressure between us. The hair on my arms stood up.

His eyes narrowed slightly, tracking me, unreadable, and a shiver rip

ped straight down my spine.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’

t even breathe.

Oh my god, my brain screamed.

I am so not over him.