Page 1 of Stray for You

Chapter One

Cameron

DAD WALKING OUT was bad. Mom datingheris so, so much worse.

I don’t make it two steps into the café before there’s an arm around my shoulders and a shrill voice in my ears.

“Hey, bro.”

I shove the man trying to tackle me to the floor away. Not gently.

“I am not your brother.”

Julian dances away and puts his hands up, but that shit-eating grin of his suggests he’s not sorry at all. “My bad. Step-brother?”

My nostrils flare. I ball my hands into fists. My teeth grind together too hard for me to squeeze a word out between them.

Ever since our moms started dating, Julian hasn’t let me enjoy a single moment of peace. He was annoying in high school; he’s at least twice as annoying now that we’re at the same university. Couldn’t he have enrolled anywhere else? Why oh why did he have to choose City University of Montridge? This dude infests every second of my life. Our moms are constantly together. We see each other around campus. And we both work here at the Boyfriend Café. The one thing I hoped to leave behind when I moved out to go to college is stuck to me like dog shit on the soles of my shoes.

But I’ll never tell Mom a word of this. When Dad up and leftout of the blue, it almost broke her. It almost broke me too. I was thinking about my high school graduation. Then I arrived home one day to find my mother weeping on the couch. He’d simply packed up his stuff and left, abandoning both of us. He was never the warmest father, but his abrupt departure was a level of assholery I never suspected of him.

I did my best to help Mom pick up the pieces. I got a job so I could help with bills. I very nearly dropped out of school — college isn’t cheap — but Mom insisted I go get my degree and said we’d figure it out. I’m working just about as much as I can while I try to get a music degree. I don’t know what good that degree will do us, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at, so I don’t have much choice.

All of this would be so much more bearable ifhewasn’t here.

“Hey, we match,” Julian says.

“We absolutely do not match,” I grumble.

“We totally match. We’re like twins. How cute!”

I grind my teeth. We couldn’t look much more different if we tried. I have dark hair that I like to keep tidy and even darker eyes, while Julian is all blond mop and glittering blue eyes and flashy smiles. He’s also a hell of a lot paler than me. Sure, we’re both wearing gray vests and blue ties for work today, but that is where the similarities begin and end.

“Come on, admit it,” Julian says. “You were thinking of my dazzling eyes when you chose that tie. That’s why we picked the same color. It’s brother telepathy.”

I roll my eyes almost to the back of my skull. “I don’t make a habit of thinking about your eyes.”

“Cam, I’m wounded!” Julian blinks at me like I could ever actually be charmed by him.

“Good,” I drawl.

I extract myself from the conversation as swiftly as I can, heading to the back of the café to make myself tea and get readyfor my shift. Our co-worker Henry, who’s one year younger than us, is back there making his own tea. Our resident ray of sunshine smiles when he sees me, but the expression falters once he gets a closer look at my face.

“Are you okay?”

Julian is back on me, his arm around my shoulders. “Big bro is feeling grumpy today. Didn’t get enough sleep? Up all night with a hot date? Come on, you can confide in me.”

I shove Julian off of me nearly hard enough to send him into the tea supplies. “I amnotyour brother.”

“But you could be if our moms get married.”

I close my eyes and take deep breaths. It’s only four years. And we’ve already completed one, so it’s only three years. Three years. Then I can get out of here. Mom and I are all we have, and I’ll do anything I have to to take care of us — even tolerate Julian Brooks.

“HEY, CAMERON.”

Part of me wants to flinch at that greeting, even five years and three thousand miles away from my former life in New Jersey.

“Hey, Henry,” I say as my former Boyfriend Café co-worker strides into the new café where we both work.

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