I never should have gone to the gym that night.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, too bright, too clinical, casting everything in a sickly white glow that made the sweat on the machines look greasy. The place was almost empty—just the way I liked it when I wanted to punish my body after another shitty day of pretending I wasn’t thinking about him. My stepbrother. Cameron. Six-foot-four of pure, arrogant muscle who’d moved back into the house after college and somehow turned every shared hallway into a minefield of accidental brushes and lingering looks.
I was on the leg press, thighs burning, sports bra soaked through, when the doors swung open and the sound of deep male laughter rolled in like a storm.
Cameron walked in first, towel slung over one broad shoulder, grey sweatpants
