“Fine.” She pouts, and while she’s acquiescing now, I know this probably isn’t over. “School is fine. How’s work?”

  I own an architecture firm in Seattle, responsible for some of the city's largest buildings and for at least half of the city's developing communities. I’d gone into this line of work because it’s what my stepfather did and because I wanted to do something to honor his memory other than the few tattoos I have for him.

  I don’t think falling in love with and then screwing his daughter every year on his death date counts.

  “It’s good. I’m in the middle of a pretty big project, but they can handle it without me for a few days.”

  “You’re staying for a few days?” I hear the excitement in her voice over me being here longer than just one night.

  “Well, I’m heading to North Carolina when I leave here for Mom’s engagement party.” She nods, giving me a disappointed look. “She wants you there, Saint. I know she invited you.”

  “She did.” She nods. “I talked to her a few weeks ago.”

  “Good. She misses you.”

  “How do you feel about it…her getting married?”

  “I’m okay, but it’s been a long time since she’s been married to my dad. How do you feel?” My mother hasn’t remarried since Halle’s dad died twenty years ago. She called me a few months ago to tell me that she’d gotten engaged and was getting married at the end of the year. She’s been dating this guy for a few years, and I’ll admit that I’m happy she’s found someone to share her life with, but I can imagine that it may be tough for Halle to see her stepmom with someone when the last person she saw her with was her father. This weekend is their engagement party, which they threw together somewhat at the last minute, it seems. To my knowledge, Halle isn’t going, but I was hoping I could change her mind while I was here.

  “I’m glad she’s happy. It seems like he really cares about her from what I’ve observed and heard from you and a bit from her. My dad would want her to be happy.” She turns away and looks toward the sky before looking back at me. “He’d want me to be happy for her.” I nod, knowing she really does believe that, but my mom with someone else is still a painful reminder that her dad isn’t here. “Sometimes things just don’t work out, no matter how much we want them to.” She gives me a sad smile, and I hear the implication loud and clear.

  That no matter how much we want to be together, it may not work out.

  A few hours later, I’m at my hotel bar around the corner from Halle’s apartment. I know where it is because my name is on her lease. I pay for it every month…and I may also get updates from the doorman. Nothing too intrusive, just if she’s partying too much—not often, and if she’s happy—again, not often, and if she’s getting groceries or food delivered. And okay, if any men are sniffing around. I’m on my third drink, and I already know where the night will lead me. I knew it, and Halle knew it too when I took her home in an Uber.

  But I really was trying.

  I really do want more for her and for myself, if I’m being honest, and this tradition we have every year isn’t healthy. It’s a toxic cycle I’m worried we’ll never be able to break.

  What would happen on October seventh when we met other people? We’d sneak away under the ruse of needing to be with family? Screw each other’s brains out and then return to our partners? What would happen when either of us got married or had kids?

  I slam down my glass on the bar, thinking about Saint having kids with someone else because it means she’s fucked someone else, and to my knowledge, she’s only ever fucked me. Even in the year we’ve been apart, I don’t think she has, but the intrusive thought slips in and throws me off kilter.

  Me: Have you slept with anyone else?

  Her answer is instant.

  Saint: You’re so predictable. Let me guess, you’ve had three drinks?

  Me: Answer my question.

  Saint: Answer mine first.

  Me: Yes, I’ve had three.

  Saint: It’s insulting that you have to ask. Do you know me at all?

  Me: As well as I know myself. But say what I need to hear.

  Saint: No, Sebastian.

  Me: Why?

  Saint: Same reason you haven’t.

  Me: Who says I haven’t?

  Saint: Don’t be an asshole.

  Me: How do you know?

  Saint: Because I also know you as well as I know myself.

  My dick throbs at her confidence. That she doesn’t need the same assurances I need. That even though I'm fighting this thing between us, I’ve been hers for years, and no other woman has had a chance. My phone vibrates again, and when I look down, I see she’s texted again.

  Saint: Do you want to sleep with someone else?

  I stare down at her words and let out a sigh, knowing I can show her better than I can tell her that she’s all I want. I throw down some cash on the bar for my drinks before I walk down the block toward her apartment. I also have a key to access her elevator, and with a nod to her doorman, who I’m sure still can’t figure out who Halle and I are to each other, I’m in the elevator pacing, my dick already hard at the thought of being this close to Halle and a bed.

  Not that a bed is a necessity.

  When you’ve been sneaking around for almost nine years, you've learned to be creative.

  The elevator dings to let me off on her floor, and I’m in front of her door in moments. Just as I lift my fist to knock, it swings open, and Halle’s fresh face comes into view. She’s wearing one of my sweatshirts and a pair of my sweatpants, and it reminds me of all of the clothes she’s stolen from me over the years.

  I tear my gaze from the University of North Carolina sweatshirt I definitely thought I'd lost and meet her gaze. Her eyes are red and have tears in them, and when I look at what’s in her hand, I see the last picture she and her father took together just hours before he was killed.

  “Fuck.” I’m through the door, slamming it behind me and pulling her into my arms, and the dam fucking bursts. “I’m here, baby. I’m sorry.” All of my thoughts from earlier go out the window, and all I care about is comforting her however she needs me.

  “You said it would get easier,” she cries into my chest.

  “I know, I’m sorry.” I pick her up in a bridal carry hold as she continues to sob into my neck and hold her tight against me because it’s been years since she cried like this. She cried the majority of the year he died, but it was like once she turned five, her heart hardened, and it was rare that she’d shed tears to this extent. So, for her to be sobbing uncontrollably, I fear some of this has to do with my telling her “no” to continuing our carnal tradition tomorrow. Like I’m somehow abandoning her. It was as if what we did somehow shielded her from the pain, and my saying no just reopened the wound. “Please stop crying,” I tell her as I sit on the couch, keeping her on my lap. “Talk to me. What’s this about?” I wipe her tears from her face and drag my nose across hers.

  She doesn’t say anything at first. She just looks up into my eyes as I rub her back gently, trying to coax the words out of her. “I hate that I’m a burden to you.”

  “What?” I ask, shocked because that’s the last thing I was expecting her to say.

  “That you feel like you can’t move on because of what we’ve been through. That you can’t think about pursuing anyone because every October seventh, I need you.”

  “Hey.” I lift her chin to meet my gaze. “This is not us. We don’t do that. You know that you are absolutely not a burden to me. Just like you knew I’d eventually show up here tonight, you know that on any given day, any given moment, you’re what’s on my mind. Even with a country between us, even though we only see each other once a year, you’re here.” I hold her hand over my heart. “You know how much I love you.” She goes to speak up, and I cut her off. “Ah-ah, don’t try it.” I glower at her. “Not just like a sibling.” I hold her tighter. Of all the ways I love Halle St. John, like a sibling is at the bottom of the list. I love her in so many ways and in so many roles, and they are all connected in confusing and taboo ways, in ways no one would approve of.

  “I don’t know how I’m ever going to give you up,” she whispers as fresh tears stream down her face.

  “Who said you have to?”

  “We always say we can’t do this forever.” She sniffles. “But I don’t know how to exist in a world where you and I aren’t doing this. Where you’re not this person for me.” She bites down on her bottom lip. “I’m scared no one will ever love me as much as you do, and I’m even more scared I’ll never love anyone as much as I love you. I don’t know how I’ll ever be happy with someone who isn’t you.”

  I swallow, hearing her voice the same thoughts I’ve had a hundred times over. Thoughts that I know are very real, because while I’ve learned to live with it, there’s a constant dull ache in my chest with every day that goes by when I don’t see her.

  “I have these dreams,” she continues, “dreams about Dad…” Her eyes well up again. “I have a baby, and she runs toward him as she knows him despite never having met him, and when he picks her up, he points toward me and asks who I am, and she screams Daddy! and then I realize they’re talking about someone behind me. Any guesses who it might be?” She looks up at me, and I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me at the thought of being the father of her baby.

  I know about every single one of Halle’s dreams. I used to sit up with her and decipher them. Ones that were flashes of the day it happened. One of her killing the man who did this to our family. Trivial ones like showing up on the first day of undergrad in her pajamas, or when Rachel Green from Friends was somehow in her statistics class, or the hundreds of sex dreams she had about me.

  But this one is new.

  “Me?” My voice is hoarse with emotion and lust, and my dick hardens when she gives me a slight nod.

  “I can’t picture anyone else as the father of my children. It’s just you. It’s always been you. I know you’ll protect them and keep them safe because you’ve done that for me my whole life.”

  I move her to straddle me so she’s seated directly on my cock, and instantly she moves to get comfortable, rubbing herself against me, and a whimper leaves her lips. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper when she drops her forehead to mine. “Every day I wake up and wish you didn’t have to live with this.”

  “Knowing I have you makes it bearable. Slightly,” she whispers back, and her words hit me square in the chest because I’ve been able to make the worst thing in her life slightly less painful just by loving her the way I have for twenty years.

  Loving her is the easiest thing in the world, and somehow it eased the hardest thing she lives with.

  “You’ll always have me, baby. You know I’m always in your corner,” I tell her, rubbing my nose along hers as her lips move even closer to mine. I know it’s only a matter of time before our lips touch and will remain that way for the better part of the next twenty-four hours.

  “I want more than that,” she whispers against my lips, and I know she’s already succumbing to the high of us. She’s much less understanding about why we can’t be together once I’ve rubbed my dick against her a few times. “Take me to bed,” she whispers against my lips. “Please, I need you. I love you.”

  “I fucking need you too, Saint,” I tell her as I press my lips to hers. I’ve kissed Saint countless times, yet it feels like that first time in her bedroom. Shaky hands brought on by anticipation, and our hungry lips moving against each other. I run my hands up her back, beneath my sweatshirt, and begin rubbing circles gently into her skin. A soft sigh leaves her lips that makes my cock twitch.

  Twenty Years Prior

  Halle: 4 Years Old

  Sebastian: 5 Years Old

  “DADDY!!!!” I hear screaming from the top floor of the house. I turn up the volume on my iPad because you can hear Halle from any room in the house. “Can I come, can I come, can I come?” She bounds down the stairs, and I frown, wondering where they’re going. I want to go too. I peek my head up over the couch to see my stepfather picking up my stepsister just as she makes it to the bottom and carries her to sit on the counter in the kitchen.

  “I’m just going to the store. You sure you want to go, Princess? Sara said you guys are going to the park in a bit,” he says, talking about my mom as he puts her shoes on and begins to tie them.

  “I can go when I get back! Daddy, please.” She puts her hands under her chin like she’s saying her nightly prayers and squeezes her eyes shut. “I want a popsicle!”

  “Okay, come on.” He tightens both of her pigtails and presses a kiss to her nose.

  She looks over at me and smiles. “Wild, you want to come too?” She always calls me by my last name because when we met, Sebastian was too hard for her to say, and it just stuck. I like it, and I like that she has a nickname for me.

  I nod and hop off the couch because I want to go most places with my stepdad. He’s around more than my dad is. He taught me to play catch and ride a bike, and even coaches my baseball team. We are pretty bad, but he cheers us on like we’re winners. He married my mom when I was four, or maybe three, I don’t remember, but I know, and my mom has been living here with him and Halle for a while now.

  Halle’s okay for a girl. She’s always ready to build a fort or go exploring in the creek behind the house, even after her dad told us not to, and she didn’t rat me out the time she fell in and got hurt. She shares the TV and lets me watch my shows on the big TV even when it’s her night to pick. As far as sisters go, she’s pretty cool, and I like hanging out with her even though she’s only four.

  I grab my shoes and hear my mom calling for me to take a jacket even though it’s still warm out. I run upstairs, knowing my stepdad and Halle are waiting, before running back down and hopping in the car, buckling my car seat, and looking over to make sure Halle is strapped in like I always do. She’s holding one of her Barbies in her hand, talking to it like they’re having a conversation, and I turn my eyes back to my iPad.

  “Bud, why’d you bring that? You know you get car sick.” My stepdad looks at me in the rearview mirror, and he’s right, but I’m almost at the end of the episode. Just as we go around the corner, my eyes start to feel funny, my tummy turns, and instantly, I feel sick. I turn off my iPad and let out a breath.

  “Wild’s tummy hurts!” I hear Halle say, and then a tiny hand wraps around mine.

  “Shh. I’m fine.” I take a breath and hear a chuckle from the front seat.

  “That was some sort of record,” my stepdad says as he passes me a small bag of goldfish, and I eat a few of them, my stomach already settling with the salty crackers.

  “Gimme!” Halle says, and I see her hand opening and closing next to me.

  “Please, Halle Grace,” he says. My stepfather is big on manners and constantly reminds us to say “please” and “thank you.”

  “Gimme please!” she says, shaking her hand a little more. I put some in her hand, and she looks over at me and blows me a kiss. “Thank you!”

  “Good girl,” my stepfather says.

  It isn’t long before we’re out of the car, and I take a few deep breaths, feeling better now that we are no longer moving.

  My stepdad kneels in front of me. “You okay?”

  Halle stands next to him, holding his hand and pushing her hair out of her face before she puts her heart-shaped pink sunglasses on. My mom calls her a little diva, whatever that is, but I think it means she’s just cute and girly. At least that’s what I think of her.

  “I’m better now.”

  “What color popsicle do you want?” Halle asks, and I think she’s trying to get my mind off wanting to puke only minutes ago.

  “Red.”

  “Me too!” She hops up and down and grabs my hand with the one not holding her father’s.

  We aren’t in the small store for more than five minutes before we’re checking out, and Halle looks up at her dad. “You think Sara will want one?” She looks at me, and I shrug.

  “I’ll get her one too!” she says as she takes off toward the back of the store.

  “Halle Grace!” My stepfather groans and looks at me. “Go with her.” He nods, and I take off behind her.

  I see her standing on her tiptoes, trying to reach the popsicles, and take a moment to laugh at her. She looks at me and stomps her foot with a huff. “Help me!”

  I reach up and grab it and hand it to her, and she beams up at me. “Thanks, Wild! Your mommy will be so happy.” I always wonder why she says “your mommy” and calls her Sara when I say “our dad” and call him Dad.

  We are walking back to the front when something feels off. I don’t know what it is, but I feel sick, almost like in the car, but instead of my stomach, it’s my whole body. I pull Halle back, unsure of what’s happening but feeling like I should probably be standing in front of her just in case.

  “Wha—” she asks just as a loud boom rings through the air. Her eyes widen, and she lets out a shriek. She drops the popsicle and presses her hands over her ears just as there’s another boom. And another. Her eyes are wide and scared, and before I can stop her, I see Halle take off toward the front of the store. I’m right behind her, and when we turn a corner, we see a man holding a gun toward our dad, and then there’s another boom. Except I don’t hear it. I only know it happens because I watch him go down.

  “Da—” she starts, but I put a hand over her mouth and pull her into my chest, trying to pull her away from what’s happening.

  I can hear and feel her screaming against my hand, so I pull her out of my chest and look into her eyes. “Shhh.” I put a finger against my lips and whisper so quietly, I hope she hears me. I can barely hear anything over the pounding of my own heart. “Don’t scream.” I shake my head at her. The tears are leaking out of her eyes, but she nods her head. I keep my hand tightly over her mouth and peek my eyes around the corner. I watch as a man in a mask pulls the watch off my dad’s wrist that my mom gave him for Christmas. Tears burn my eyes seeing my dad lying on the ground, not moving, but knowing I have to keep Halle safe until the bad guy leaves. I pull us both out of sight until I hear the bell ding of the door opening and closing. Halle stays quiet, and when I peek around the corner again, I don’t see anyone.