I had known Mia since middle school. We were inseparable, the kind of best friends who shared everything like secrets, clothes, late-night texts about boys. Her house was basically my second home. Sleepovers, movie marathons, raiding her fridge at 2 a.m. But there was one rule I never broke. I never looked twice at her older brother, Dave.
Dave was three years older, in his final year of college when Mia and I were juniors in high school. Tall, broad-shouldered, skin like dark chocolate, with a confidence that made rooms go still when he walked in. He played basketball, studied engineering, and always had girls orbiting him. To me, he was just Mia's annoying big brother who teased us about our boy bands and hogged the TV for sports.
Until last summer.
Mia and I were twenty now, home fro
