His Best Friend's Sister

Prologue

I'd always known Ethan Lawson. From the time I could walk, he was there—laughing, running wild with my older brother Mason, and treating me like the annoying kid sister who wouldn't leave them alone. I grew up watching Ethan be the cocky, charming boy everyone loved, the one Mason trusted with everything.

But that was then. Before everything changed. Before this summer.

It was the summer Mason decided to travel for a year, leaving a hole in our house and my life. Ethan had left town a few years back, and I hadn't seen him much since. But the day he walked back into our lives, he wasn't the same boy I remembered. He was taller, more confident, his broad shoulders filling out his shirt in ways that made it impossible to ignore. And suddenly, I was no longer the little sister.

The first time I saw him again, he smirked, that same old cocky grin, but something in his eyes was different. Something in me was different, too.

We fell into old patterns—him teasing me, me pretending not to care. But underneath it all, there was something else now. Something unspoken.

As the days passed, the tension between us grew, subtle at first—a glance too long, a brush of his hand against mine. It was like a game we were both playing, one we knew we shouldn't. Because Ethan was off-limits. He was Mason's best friend. There were rules. Unwritten, but clear as day.

But the more time we spent together, the harder it became to ignore. His presence filled the space Mason had left, and soon, I couldn't deny it anymore. I didn't want to.

One night, everything shifted. We were alone in the kitchen, the house quiet, the air between us thick with unspoken words. And in that moment, it was no longer a game.

Because when Ethan looked at me—really looked—I knew everything had changed.

And I wasn't imagining it anymore.