Page 2 of Oblivion

I hate that a flash of jealousy fills me. I don’t know this boy. I don’t even know his name, but there’s a longing in his expression as he looks at Starling, like she’s the one that got away, and he’ll never get over losing her.

“Yep,” Starling says, popping the p as she continues to ignore all four guys, grabs my arm, and tows me toward the kitchen.

I hate that I kind of hate Starling a little right now. Evil Clark hasn’t even glanced in my direction since she came down the stairs, and I can’t help feeling like I’ve lost my chance with him. Which is stupid because we literally just met, and guys with the kind of bad-boy energy he’s exuding don’t go for good girls like me.

“Who’s your friend, Sis?” Clark Kent asks. “And which party are you going to?”

Sis? Sis? Did I hear that right? Did he just call her Sis…as in sister? Hope flares to life in my chest, and I dart a look between him and Starling, silently willing one of them to explain.

After a moment passes and neither of them says more, I turn to Starling. “Sis?” I question, running my eyes over both of their faces to search for similarities. Only apart from them both having dark hair, they don’t look alike.

“Ignore him. We’re not related. This is Evan. He is my mom’s new husband’s son.”

The hope that had swelled in my chest collapses again. Clearly, Evan is pining for his stepsister, and even though I don’t really understand why, I suddenly hate them both a little.

Starling gets me a drink, then before I’ve drank half of it, she suggests we leave, practically dragging me out of the house while the four beautiful boys all watch us go.

Unlike normal college campuses, Kingsacre doesn’t have real dorms. Instead, the students are housed in actual houses. All of the offices, classrooms, and cafeterias are clustered together, surrounded by manicured lawns and mature tree-lined paths. But the majority of the campus is split into mini suburbs of houses that increase in size the further from the main campus you get.

The scholarship students are all housed in row houses right next to the cafeteria. Then the houses get bigger and farther apart until you reach the legacy houses, like the one Starling andthe four boys live in. Their house is a huge Queen Ann Victorian-style home enclosed by a fence and an electric gate.

Each house is allocated golf carts for the students to use to commute across the sprawling campus. As Starling and I sit side by side in my cart, waiting for the massive metal gate to swing open and allow us to leave, I have to swallow back the hundred questions that are swirling in my head about Starling and Evan’s relationship.

She doesn’t owe me any answers. She and I are new friends, but I can’t help the feeling that the way Evan was looking at me before she came downstairs was more than just him wondering who I was to his stepsister. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I want him to be interested, and so I’ve imagined the way his eyes devoured me.

When the gates finally start to open, Starling makes a weird, pained noise. Glancing her way, I expect her to say something, but instead, her expression is blank, her eyes focused ahead like she hadn’t even made a sound. Pulling away from the house, I try to think of a way to encourage her to tell me about Evan without me having to ask, but before I have a chance, she suddenly bursts into tears.

Slamming my foot to the brake, we jerk to a stop, and I turn to look at her. “Are you okay?”

Slowly lifting her tear-filled eyes to me, it turns out I didn’t have to ask after all. The moment Starling starts to talk, she word vomits all the details of her past with the four boys she lives with. I just had no idea that what she was going to tell me would change everything.

2

EVAN

Black shoes, long legs, and a tiny skirt drag my eyes upward to the tops of her thighs that are smooth and soft, and begging to be licked and touched. It takes me longer than it should for my eyes to continue the path up her body, but when my gaze hits her tits, I have to swallow back a moan.

Black silk hides full breasts and a hint of a nipple just peeking through the fabric, teasing me with a visible sign of her arousal. But it’s her face that makes my heart skip a beat and dick swell. I don’t know who this girl is, but fuck, she’s gorgeous.

Her rich, glossy black hair is pinned up in a high ponytail, showing off the long expanse of her neck and the pulse I swear I can see fluttering as she watches me take my fill of her. Her face is flawlessly covered in makeup, and her lips are painted a bright red. But instead of making her look like a doll, oddly, it just seems to accentuate the peppering of freckles across her nose and brighten her blue eyes.

I’m mesmerized, lost to her and this moment where everything in the world suddenly feels…right.

When Starling appears, the frozen second in time shatters, and my attention is drawn to my stepsister and how different she looks. Since we brought her to Kingsacre, this is the first timeI’ve seen her choose to wear anything other than athletic clothes or denim shorts and tanks. Dressed in a tight white dress and heels, it’s easy to see how much she’s changed from the sixteen-year-old girl she was when we first dragged her kicking and screaming into our world.

Even though she’s always been beautiful, now she has a fragility that she didn’t have back then. She runs miles every day. Her body is lean, verging on skinny, and the guilt that only seems to increase any time she turns her hate-filled eyes on me suddenly seems to weigh a hundred pounds.

It feels wrong to blame all the things we did to help Sebastian claim Starling on the wealth and privilege we were raised to expect. But honestly, always having the ability to get what we want has affected our understanding of the world. We were taught to be ruthless because that’s what will be expected of us in business. But we were too ruthless with Starling. We took and took and took until part of her got broken beyond repair, and that’s our fault.

She’s only been living with us for a few weeks, but the regret I feel has grown exponentially. Now, when I look at her, festering guilt is all I feel. She’s my sister. I’m her big brother, and she should be coming to me with her problems, not seeing me as one of them.

I hate that my only chance of a true sibling relationship has been destroyed, and it’s my own fault.

Starling ignores me when I ask about the party they’re going to, then tells her beautiful friend that I’m her mom’s new husband’s son. I fight not to flinch as her barb scores a direct hit. I’m sure if she knew how much it hurt me every time she refuses our new familial tie, she’d do it all the more often. But instead of correcting her or fighting for a connection that she’ll likely never feel, I absorb the jab, adding the hurt to the guilt that isfilling me, and accept that no matter how much she hates me, I’ll probably always deserve it.

Before I have a chance to ask about the girl that I can’t look away from, they’re both gone. Before Starling ripped us all new assholes and made me realize how much of a fucking monster I am, I’d probably have followed them. I’d have flirted with her friend and chased her until I had her beneath me. But I won’t touch her now. She’s Starling’s. The first friend my sister has dared to make in over three years. Whoever the girl is, regardless of what she could have been to me, she’s Starling’s, and I won’t do anything more to hurt my sister, not again.

An hour later, I’m not sure which one of us finally convinced Sebastian that we all needed to go to the party Starling and her friend are at. Who am I kidding? It was all me. I told him that two girls that look like them, dressed like they are, are walking targets for thirsty frat boys, and that if he wasn’t careful, someone else would claim hislittle bird.

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