Lila
I left home at eighteen so I would stop wanting my stepbrother.
Four years later I signed a consent form for a lower-back tattoo and the man who came to collect me from the desk was Tyler.
Same height. Same mouth. Older in a way that made my stomach drop. He looked at the tablet, then at my face, and the shock was mine alone. He only smiled, small and sure, like this was a booking and not a collision.
“We meet again, little sister.”
Heat went down my body so fast I locked my knees. I had chosen a shop across the city. I had paid for VIP so a stranger could work the base of my spine behind a locked door. I had not let myself read the artist line twice. I had told myself the feeling would be dead if I never walked back into that house.
It was not dead.
It was holding a tablet in
