My Stepbrother, My Enemy {BL}

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Rachel set the table with a cheerful clatter, sliding plates of golden toast and fluffy scrambled eggs in front of us like she was serving a fancy brunch instead of what was left over from a power outage.

The eggs were surprisingly perfect—creamy and just the right amount of pepper and the toast came with little pots of homemade jam that tasted like summer in a jar.

We all squeezed around the small kitchen table: Rachel at the head, her mom beside her with a plate cut into bite-sized pieces, and Adrien and I crammed together on the narrow bench, because personal space wasn’t really a thing in this house.

The conversation started off light, Rachel asking Adrien about school and if he played any sports (he admitted to basketball with a shy grin that gave me butterflies), and whether he enjoyed the vineyard tours his dad sometimes dragged him on.

Adrien, in full charm mode, told a ridiculously exaggerated story about the time he’d accidentally knocked over a whole display of vintage bottles during a "very important" investor tasting last year. Rachel threw her head back and laughed so hard that she had to wipe her eyes, saying he was "just like his mom when she was young...equal parts graceful and disaster."

I mostly stayed quiet, alternating between shoveling eggs into my mouth to stifle any accidental moans over how good they were and sneaking glances at Adrien. Every time our knees bumped under the table, he’d flash me the tiniest smirk, like he knew exactly why I was suddenly so interested in my toast crusts.

I kept waiting for Rachel to catch on to the weird energy buzzing between us, but she seemed too happy just to have company to notice.

Halfway through a second helping, the lights flickered once, twice, and then blazed to life overhead. The refrigerator hummed back on, the radiator in the corner gave a triumphant clank, and the little clock on the wall started ticking again like it had never stopped.

Rachel let out a cheer that would’ve made any sports fan proud. "Hallelujah! Power’s back! No more freezing!"