I’m In Love With My Brother’s Best Friend?! – Episode 01
Kaitlyn Sinclair studied her reflection in the narrow bedroom mirror and smoothed her summer dress for the tenth time. Tomorrow she would begin college, but today felt like the true beginning: the day she moved into an off-campus apartment with Brent, her high school sweetheart. In both hands she cradled a neatly wrapped box she had spent all summer earning. Every double shift and blistered heel had seemed worthwhile when she imagined his face.
She let herself into the apartment with the key Brent had given her, expecting to catch him by surprise. Instead of silence, a woman’s laughter drifted from the bedroom. Kaitlyn stopped in the entryway, her happiness faltering before her mind understood why. The bedroom door stood partly open, and the sight beyond it turned every hopeful thought to ice.
Brent was tangled in the sheets with a blonde woman Kaitlyn had never seen before. The gift slipped from her numb fingers and struck the floor. Brent looked startled for only a second, then annoyed, as though Kaitlyn had interrupted something trivial. When she demanded to know how he could betray her, he asked whether it even counted as cheating when she had never slept with him.
The accusation cut through her shock. Kaitlyn had believed his promises that he respected her wish to wait until she was ready; now he wielded that boundary against her. The blonde climbed from the bed without the slightest embarrassment and picked up Kaitlyn’s present. She introduced herself as Maddy, president of Theta Gamma and, by her own estimation, the most desirable woman on campus.
Kaitlyn snatched the box back, but Maddy only smiled and told her to leave. This was supposed to be Kaitlyn’s home, the place she and Brent had planned together. Brent coolly reminded her that the lease was in his name because she had trusted him enough to let him handle the paperwork. In a single morning, he had taken her relationship, her home, and the future she thought they shared.
Maddy’s gaze traveled over Kaitlyn’s work clothes with open contempt. She mocked Kaitlyn for failing to satisfy her boyfriend, then seized the strawberry milkshake on the counter and poured it over her. Cold sweetness soaked Kaitlyn’s hair and shirt while Brent watched without intervening. Humiliation burned hotter than the tears pressing behind her eyes.
Kaitlyn tightened her grip on the gift and faced them both. She would not beg a man who considered her body a debt, and she would not compete with a woman proud of helping him betray her. Calling Brent a cheater and Maddy exactly what she deserved, Kaitlyn walked out before either could see her break. The door shut behind her with the finality of a life collapsing.
Outside, Kaitlyn sank onto a bench with her suitcase at her feet. The campus around her glowed with first-day excitement, making her misery feel even more private. She called the one person she knew would answer—her older brother, Ryan. The moment he said her childhood nickname, the composure she had fought to keep dissolved.
Ryan’s voice softened when she told him Brent had cheated and left her nowhere to live. He was spending the semester in London, he explained, so his apartment was empty and she could stay there as long as she needed. Relief rushed through her so quickly that she nearly cried harder. Whatever else had gone wrong, she still had family.
Ryan tried to add a warning, but the connection began to crackle. Kaitlyn caught only the words “Cole moved in” before the call broke apart. She asked him to repeat himself, yet the signal swallowed his answer. Exhausted and desperate for a shower, she decided the missing detail could wait.
An hour later she unlocked Ryan’s apartment and stepped into a space far cleaner and quieter than the one she had lost. Modern furniture, orderly shelves, and the faint smell of coffee made it feel safe. She set down her suitcase and breathed for what seemed like the first time all day. Then the sour-sweet smell clinging to her hair reminded her she was still covered in Maddy’s milkshake.
She wandered toward the bedrooms in search of a towel and clean clothes. One door stood open, revealing a neatly made bed and a dark T-shirt tossed near the pillows. Assuming it belonged to Ryan, she stripped off her ruined top and pulled it over her head. The shirt fell nearly to her thighs and carried a rich scent of cedar and citrus.
Kaitlyn frowned. Ryan had never worn cologne like that. The fragrance stirred a memory she could not place, warm and familiar beneath the sharpness of the day. Curious, she lifted the loose collar toward her face and inhaled again, trying to identify why it made her pulse quicken.
A deep voice sounded from the doorway. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my shirt?” Kaitlyn froze with the fabric still gathered in her hands. Heat raced from her throat to her cheeks as she slowly turned around.
The man in the doorway had damp dark hair and wore nothing but gray sweatpants. Water traced the strong line of his chest, and his broad shoulders nearly filled the frame. For one disorienting instant he was a stranger, older and more imposing than anyone Kaitlyn expected to find in Ryan’s apartment. Then she recognized the sharp jaw, the watchful eyes, and the face she had once searched for at every family gathering.
Cole Hart had been Ryan’s best friend for as long as Kaitlyn could remember. He had also been the center of a secret she had carried through high school, buried beneath a safe relationship with Brent and years of forced indifference. Time had changed him from the boy who teased her into a man who made the room feel suddenly too small. Apparently, time had not changed what one look from him could do to her.
Cole’s surprise gave way to recognition. “Katie?” he asked, disbelief roughening his voice. His eyes dropped to his shirt hanging from her bare shoulders before he immediately looked away. That small act of restraint somehow made the moment more intimate, not less.
Kaitlyn tried to explain the milkshake, the suitcase, Ryan’s broken phone call, and the mistaken bedroom all at once. The words tangled until none of them sounded sensible. Cole leaned against the doorframe, caught somewhere between concern and amusement. She wished she could disappear beneath the floorboards before he asked the one question she could not answer with dignity.
Then his gaze returned to her reddened eyes and damp hair, and the amusement faded. He took in the evidence of a terrible day without yet knowing its cause. Kaitlyn clutched the shirt closed at her throat, suddenly aware that the first person to make her feel beautiful was seeing her at her most humiliated. Worse, some foolish part of her still cared desperately what he thought.
She had come to Ryan’s apartment seeking a place where her broken heart could recover. Instead, she stood half-dressed in Cole Hart’s bedroom, wrapped in his scent while he watched her with an expression she could not read. The childhood crush she had spent years trying to outgrow was no longer safely in the past. He was standing only a few feet away—and, whether either of them was ready or not, he lived here too.