Bought and Bound

The phone buzzed against the nightstand at 2:14 in the morning. I knew the time because I'd been staring at the ceiling for three hours, counting the water stains that spread across the plaster like continents on a map of nowhere.

My stepbrother's name lit up the screen. Derek. Calling, not texting. That alone made my stomach drop.

I answered on the fourth ring, my voice still rough from not sleeping. "What?"

"Open the front door."

"What?"

"Just open it. I'm outside."

I should've hung up. Should've rolled over and pretended I hadn't seen the call. But I was already swinging my legs out of bed, already padding barefoot down the hallway of the house my mother had married into eighteen months ago. The hardwood was cold. The house was always cold, even in June, some architectural flaw Derek's father refused to acknowledge because fixing it would mean admitting something in his perfect life was broken.

I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open.

Derek stood on the porch in a rumpled t-shirt and jeans, his dark hair pushed back from his face like he'd been running his hands through it. His eyes were red-rimmed. Not crying. Derek didn't cry. But close.

"I need you to do something," he said.

"No."

"You don't even know what it is."

"Don't care." I started closing the door. His hand shot out and caught the edge. Not hard. Just enough.

"Five minutes," he said. "That's all I'm asking."

I looked at him. Really looked. Derek was twenty-two, two years older than me, and built like someone who spent his free time in a gym because his father paid for the membership and expected results. But right now he looked smaller. Younger. Like the version of him I'd met at the wedding, the one who'd shaken my hand and said, "So you're the stepsister," with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Five minutes," I said. "Then you leave."

He nodded and stepped inside.

We sat in the kitchen. The fluorescent light hummed overhead, casting everything in that sickly pale glow that makes even healthy people look like they're dying. Derek poured himself a glass of water and didn't drink it. Just held it, rotating the glass between his palms.

"There's a party tomorrow night," he said. "At the Kessler house."

"The Kessler house."

"Yeah."

"The one where you're not allowed to go anymore. Because of what happened last time."

His jaw tightened. "That was months ago."

"Three months. And you're still banned."

"I'm not banned. I'm just not welcome."

"Same thing."

He set the glass down. Water sloshed over the rim and pooled on the granite countertop. He didn't wipe it up. Derek never cleaned up his own messes. That was kind of the whole problem with him.

"Dad's cutting me off," he said.

I waited.

"Not completely. Not yet. But he's threatening to. Says I need to get serious about my future. Says if I don't have a job by the end of summer, he's closing my accounts. All of them."

"Sounds like a you problem."

"It is a me problem. But it's also a you problem. Because if he cuts me off, he's going to start paying attention to where the money goes. All of it. Including the money that keeps your mom's car running. Including the money that pays for your tuition."

My chest tightened. I didn't let it show on my face. I'd learned that much living here. Never let them see what hurts.

"What do you want?" I asked.

Derek leaned forward. The fluorescent light caught the sharp line of his jaw, the hollows under his cheekbones. He was handsome in a way that made people forgive him for things he hadn't earned. I wasn't people.

"I need you to come with me tomorrow night," he said. "To the party."

"Why?"

"Because you're the only one who can get me in."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It does if you think about it." He smiled, and it was the same smile from the wedding. Empty. Calculated. "The Kesslers love you. You're the quiet one. The studious one. The one who doesn't cause trouble. If you show up with me, they'll assume I've changed. That I'm not the same guy who wrecked their pool house."

"I'm not helping you lie to people."

"I'm not asking you to lie. I'm asking you to stand next to me. That's it. You don't have to say anything. You don't have to do anything. Just be there."

"And what do I get?"

The question hung in the air between us. Derek's smile faded. He studied me for a long moment, and I watched him recalibrate. He hadn't expected me to negotiate. He'd expected me to say no outright, or to say yes because I was scared of what would happen if I didn't. He hadn't expected me to ask for something.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"A car."

He laughed. Actually laughed, a short, sharp sound that bounced off the kitchen walls. "You don't have a license."

"I have a license. I just don't have a car. Mom can't afford to buy me one, and your father won't. But you could. You have three. You never drive the Audi."

"The Audi's worth forty grand."

"And you've driven it twice in six months."

He stopped laughing. I could see him doing the math in his head, weighing the cost against whatever he wanted from that party. Whatever was waiting for him at the Kessler house.

"One night," he said. "You come with me. You smile. You make nice. And when we leave, I'll transfer the title."

"You'll transfer the title tomorrow morning. Before the party."

"Fine."

"And you'll pay for the insurance for a year."

"Don't push it."

"I'm not pushing. I'm being reasonable. You want me to risk my reputation with the Kesslers, people who actually like me, so you can get into a party you're not welcome at. The least you can do is make sure I'm covered when I drive off in your car."

Derek stared at me. Something shifted in his expression. Not respect, exactly. More like recognition. Like he was seeing me for the first time, not as the stepsister who kept her head down and her grades up, but as someone who could be useful. Someone who could be bargained with.

"Deal," he said.

We shook on it. His hand was warm and dry. Mine was cold. It's always cold.

He left through the front door without saying goodbye. I watched him walk down the driveway, his shoulders hunched against the dark, and I wondered what he was really after. Because Derek didn't do anything without a reason. He didn't need me to get into a party. He could've found another way. He always found another way.

I locked the door and went back to my room. The ceiling still looked like a map of nowhere. I lay down and stared at it and thought about the Audi, a 2019 with leather seats and a sunroof and an engine that purred like something alive. I thought about the way Derek's hand had felt in mine, and the way he'd looked at me when he said deal. Like I was a card he'd just drawn from the deck. Like he was already planning his next move.

I should've said no.

But I'd been saying no for eighteen months. No to the fancy dinners. No to the weekend trips to the lake house. No to every invitation from Derek's father to call him Dad. No had kept me safe. No had kept me separate. No had kept me from becoming part of this family that wasn't mine.

And now I'd said yes.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but the word kept echoing in my head, soft and insistent, like a door I'd opened that I couldn't close. Somewhere in the house, a floorboard creaked. Derek's father, probably. Or maybe Derek, sneaking back in through the side door he thought no one knew about.

I pulled the blanket up to my chin and told myself it was just a party. Just one night. Just a car.

But I knew better. Nothing with Derek was ever just anything.