MY BROTHER'S BEST KEPT SECRET

Zara POV

The coffee went down the front of her shirt before she even made it out the door.

Zara stood in her kitchen, staring at the brown stain spreading across her only clean white top, and decided this was just going to be one of those mornings. The kind where everything goes wrong in small ways that add up to one big mess.

She changed fast, grabbed her bag, and headed out. She was already forty minutes late for Naomi's.

The walk to the Maddox house took seven minutes. She had done it so many times that her feet knew the way without her brain helping. Left on Cedar. Right on Pines. The blue house with the broken mailbox that Mr. Maddox kept saying he would fix.

She knocked twice and walked in the way she always did. Naomi had told her a hundred times, just come in, you're basically family.

Family. Zara had always liked that word when Naomi said it. It filled something in her that she did not talk about.

She pushed the door open and called out, "Nay, I'm here. I know I'm late, don't star."

She stopped.

A boy was standing at the stove.

Not Naomi. Not Mr. Maddox. A boy she had never seen before, tall, with dark eyes and broad shoulders, and the kind of face that made her brain go completely quiet for one embarrassing second.

He was flipping eggs like he had done it a thousand times in this exact kitchen. Relaxed. Unbothered. Like he owned every inch of the space.

He looked up.

And then he just looked at her. Steady. Direct. Not the way boys usually looked at her, which was mostly not at all. This was different. This was the kind of look that made her want to check if something was on her face.

She almost touched her cheek. She stopped herself.

"Hey," he said. Just that. No smile yet. Just those dark eyes holding hers like it was easy.

"Hey," she said back. Her voice came out normal, which felt like a miracle.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and then Naomi appeared, hair half-done, earring in one hand, completely chaotic the way she always was in the morning.

"Zara! You're here, okay, good. I'm almost ready, don't move." She grabbed the earring between her teeth and pointed at the boy at the stove. "That's Eli. My brother. He showed up last night. Don't ask him anything serious, he's in a mood." She disappeared back upstairs before Zara could say a single word.

The kitchen went quiet again.

Eli. Naomi's older brother. The one in college. The one Naomi mentioned, maybe twice a year, always with the kind of complicated expression that meant there was a longer story she was not ready to tell.

He turned back to the stove. "You want eggs?"

"No," Zara said.

"Okay."

She sat down at the kitchen island because her legs made that decision without asking her. She put her bag on the stool beside her, looked at the wall, and tried to act like she was a completely normal person who was not affected by strangers in kitchens.

She heard the spatula scrape the pan.

Then a plate appeared in front of her. Eggs. Toast on the side. A glass of orange juice she had definitely not asked for.

She looked up at him.

He was already back at the stove making his own plate, not looking at her, like he had not just done something without being asked.

"I said I didn't want any," she said.

"I know." He sat down across from her with his own plate. "You can not eat them if you want."

She looked at the eggs. They smelled really good. She was also starving because she had skipped breakfast after the coffee disaster.

She picked up the fork.

She ate every single bite. She did not say thank you, and he did not ask for it, and somehow that made the whole thing easier.

They did not talk much. He scrolled his phone. She looked around the kitche, whichn she knew better than her own. The same blue cups on the second shelf. The same crack in the tile by the sink. The same house, but somehow different now, with him in it. Like someone had moved the furniture one inch to the left. Nothing was wrong. Everything felt slightly off.

Naomi came back downstairs fully dressed and immediately started talking about their plans for the day. A trip to the mall. Maybe the lake later. Zara nodded and said the right things and tried not to notice that Eli had gone quiet in a specific wa,y not bored, just closed. Like a door someone had gently pushed shut.

Naomi kissed her brother on the cheek, grabbed her bag, and bounced toward the front door. "Come on, Z, we're already late."

Zara stood. She picked up her own plate and Eli's without thinking and carried them to the sink.

She felt him look at her when she did that. She did not look back.

She grabbed her bag and started toward the door.

"Hey."

His voice stopped her.

She turned around. He was still sitting at the island, both hands around his glass, looking at her with that same steady look from before.

"You're the one she talks about," he said.

Just that. Calm. Like a simple fact.

Zara's heart did something stupid.

She did not know what to do with those words. She did not know if it was good or bad or somewhere in between. She did not know what Naomi said. She did not know how he meant it.

She stood there for one second too long.

Then she turned around and walked out the door.

She caught up with Naomi on the sidewa,nd matched her pace, laughed at whatever Naomi was saying, and pretended everything was fine.

But all the way to the mall, one sentence sat in the center of her chest like a stone she could not move.

You're the one she talks about.

Like he already knew her. Like she was already something before she had even tried to be.

That scared her more than she wanted to admit.