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to Vince, she’d had an insane crush on me and tried to seduce me at every opportunity the minute we both hit puberty. I’d never reciprocated her feelings, but even now that our parents were divorced, she’d still try to sink her fangs into me under the pretense of ‘family catchups’. Barely a week went by without her texting or calling me.
    Yeah, my new stepsister disliking me would definitely be a nice change from that sorta bullshit.
    I turned to walk away, and Mia finally responded. “Wait,” she said. “Look, you’re right. We don’t want to ruin things for our parents, so we should move on from our little spat. Let’s just agree to never bring up the pool incident again. It never happened. Okay?”
    My eyes narrowed slightly. “Got it. It didn’t happen.”
    Now all I had to do was actually convince myself that it didn’t happen. As I strode away towards the bar, my earlier concern became even clearer. Pretending nothing went on between us was going to be a serious fucking problem for me, and I had no idea how I was going to handle it.
    As much as I couldn’t fucking stand to admit it, all I knew was that only twenty-four hours ago, I’d met Mia, and my world had already tilted on its axis. It was only a slight movement, but it was there nonetheless, and there was nothing I could do to change that.
    Goddammit.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
    MIA
    “Should I get pink streaks in my hair to match this dress?”
    I glanced over at my best friend, Tamara, as she held up a deep pink dress in front of one of the mirrors in the small clothing boutique we were in. Classes started tomorrow, and we were treating ourselves to a quick shopping trip before the craziness of lectures, essays and exams began again.
    “Get the dress, but maybe don’t go for the streaks,” I replied. “Your parents would kill you!”
    She poked her tongue out at me. “Of course you’d say that, Miss Goody Two-Shoes,” she replied with a grin.
    I grinned back at her. While I was generally studious and quiet, she was the polar opposite of that. Not just in personality; looks as well. I was on the shorter site and quite curvy, and she was tall and slim with legs that went on for miles. Despite all our inherent differences, she and I had been friends for what felt like forever. We’d gone to school together, and now we were enrolled in the same classes at Overton together. She told me everything, and I told her everything too. Usually. That had changed in the last few days.
    She knew that my Dad had remarried, but I hadn’t given her any details about Brad, my new stepbrother. I just didn’t know how to explain any of what happened in Biloxi to her. I didn’t even know how to explain it to myself, to be honest. How could I tell her I’d hooked up with my stepbrother in the pool only hours before our parent’s wedding? Sure, I hadn’t known who he was when it happened, but still…it was pretty scandalous. Even she’d think so, and she’d accidentally made out with her second cousin at a bar once before discovering who he was.
    Straight after the wedding, Brad had tried to apologize to me about the whole pool incident, and frankly, I’d been a total bitch to him about it. I simply hadn’t been in the mood to listen to him. When he’d called me out on what a child I was acting like, I’d realized he was right, and I’d felt quite ashamed at my crappy behavior. He was trying to be an adult and make things right between us, and I’d basically flipped him the bird and told him to go screw himself, in a manner of speaking.
    I felt bad about it, but that wasn’t enough to make me start being nice to him after the wedding was over and done with. I’d still been too distracted by the shock of the surprise marriage between our parents to even think about forming any kind of bond with my new stepbrother.
    Besides, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to form any sort of friendship with him.
    Truthfully, that was because no matter how much I thought