Nora

The café smelled like cinnamon and clean floors. The kind of place that made you feel like you should be productive, even if all you did was sip overpriced coffee and scroll through your phone.

I was already at the table when Amelia walked in. Hair twisted up, sunglasses still on, like she’d just come from yoga or something vaguely expensive and relaxing.

“There she is,” she grinned, sliding into the seat across from me. “The ghost of luxury past.”

I smirked. “You’re late.”

“I’m fashionably three minutes behind. It builds character.” She waved down the barista with a familiar flick of her fingers. “Usual, please. And make hers dangerous. She looks like she needs to feel something.”

I gave her a look. “It’s too early for your drama.”

“It’s literally ten thirty.”

“Exactly.”

She leaned her chin into her palm, studying me. “So. Mansion life. Tell me everything. Is your stepmom secretly a witch? Is your father a robot? Do you have secret passageways?”

“No secret passageways,” I said, wrapping my fingers around the paper cup. “Just awkward breakfasts and passive-aggressive silence.”

“Oh,” she said, blinking. “That’s somehow worse.”

I took a sip. The coffee was too hot, but I didn’t care.

“Philippe’s not bad,” I added, almost surprising myself. “She’s... polite. Tries hard.”

Amelia’s brows rose. “Wow. That sounded borderline nice.”

“I don’t hate her,” I admitted. “I think I want to. But I don’t.”

She leaned back, her expression softening just a little. “That’s gotta suck.”

“It does.”  

We fell into a moment of quiet. Comfortable, unlike the kind I was used to now.  

Amelia tilted her head. “So. What about him?”

I blinked. “Who?”

“The boy. There’s always a boy.”

I stared into my coffee like it had the answer.

“I mean, I know him,” she continued casually, “but Eric reminded me he’s technically your stepbrother now. Older. Mysterious. Possibly emotionally repressed. Sound familiar?”

I didn’t answer right away.  

“He’s quiet,” I said finally. “And rude. And not interested in being welcoming.”

Amelia grinned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is.”

“But you’ve been thinking about him.” Her tone was light, but the words landed a little too precisely.

I set the cup down. “You’re projecting.”

“I’m observant.”

I shook my head, but I didn’t deny it. Because the truth was.. I had been thinking about him. Not in a crush way. Not in a fantasy way. In a what-is-this-person’s-deal kind of way.  

In a he looked right at me and said I’m not his sister and something about it stayed in my chest kind of way.

“Maybe it’s just the change,” I said after a beat. “Everything’s weird right now.”

“You sure that’s all it is?”

I didn’t answer and she didn’t push.

The rest of the morning passed in the kind of easy rhythm I hadn’t felt since I got here, sarcasm, warmth, and a few laughs over the couple arguing too loudly at the next table.

But even as I smiled, something tugged at the back of my mind.

His voice.

His silence.

The way he looked at me like I was a riddle he hadn’t asked for.