My lips were pressed together and my eyes shut as August rolled himself beside me. Other than our panting, we laid there in silence for a minute until he spoke. “Are you alright?”

I swallowed and nodded without turning to him.

He stood to dispose of the condom but didn’t come back to me in his bed after. Instead, he slipped his sweats back on and walked out of the room.

I brushed my hands across my face and sniffled. “I guess we’re doing this,” I whispered to myself before pushing off the mattress and looking for pieces of my clothes.

The living room felt colder somehow when I finally stepped out.

“How long have you known?” August asked, his tone sterile. He was facing the window, his hands in his pockets. His mood was immediately familiar to me. It was how he spoke with his associates on all those calls back at his parents’ house.

I bit my lip and he twisted impatiently, dark eyes glowering at me.

“How long Harper?”

“The night you held up the sign. Troy would never do anything like that. And when you grinned up at me from the ice…I knew I was right. Your dimple, it's…deeper.”

I watched him take it in. Knew when it hit him what happened later that night. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He ran a hand through his hair and turned away from me—silence filling the room. “I was going to tell you.” His tone shifting to gruff and tired.

I swallowed, closing my eyes briefly as if to find my strength to tell him this wasn’t his fault, that I didn’t blame him. “I wouldn’t let you. Not if you were going to use it as a reason not to see me again.”

It was painful to say out loud and a little sad on my part, but I wouldn’t let him take the blame.

Not all of it.

He considered it, looking away and nodded. His eyes were narrowed and there was hint of disgust in his tone. “That’s a little twisted don’t you think?”

“What?”

“Pretending I’m my brother because you couldn’t have him?”

An invisible sharp object jabbed into my chest. “No that’s not—”

“I never thought you’d stoop that low.”

What the hell?

“Stop it. You couldn’t talk to me, I thought this... made it easier for you. Until you were ready...”

He stepped toward me but there was no warmth in his advance. “Well guess what, I have no problem talking to you now.”

I stepped back with a whisper. “August.”

“I’m sorry for lying. I’m also sorry to ruin your fun.”

My eyes stung as I tried to process what he was saying through the steel voice. “August.”

“You can say my name all you like. But we both know who you really want.”