Upgraded to His Rival

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For six months, I had been secretly sleeping with my best friends little brother.

I stood right outside Tessas front door, my nails digging into the leather strap of my purse, finally ready to come clean to her. Before my knuckles could even graze the wood, my phone buzzed with her incoming call.

Theo finally brought his secret girlfriend home! Tessa squealed through the speaker, her voice practically vibrating with excitement. "Hurry up and get your boy toy over here to join the party!"

The dead air stretched on for a long, suffocating moment. Standing on her porch, I pulled the phone away from my ear. Then, I brought up the contact for my own boyfriend and dialed.

He picked up on the third ring. "I'm busy," Theo snapped. "Stop calling and blowing up my phone."

Click.

I shoved the front door open, my gaze cutting straight past him to land directly on the petite girl glued to his side. I arched an eyebrow and let out a cold, mocking scoff. "Nice to finally meet you, future sister-in-law."

He instantly froze in place, his face turning completely pale.

Chapter 1

I stood right outside Theo's front door and dialed his number.

It rang six times before it connected. A full minute of dead silence stretched between us. Finally, Theo let out a soft, careless laugh on the other end. "Come on, stop playing around."

"I'm busy. If you don't have anything else to say, I'm hanging up."

Met with my prolonged silence, Theo's patience snapped. A second ticked by before he threw out a dismissive, "I'm actually busy. Let's talk later."

The line went dead. The call timer stopped at exactly one minute and thirty seconds.

I stared blankly at the glowing screen. After a beat, I tapped out a quick text to his older sistermy best friend, Tessa.

Moments later, the front door swung open. Tessa popped her head out and yanked me inside. "What are you doing just standing out there? Get in here!"

I let her pull me into the entryway, kicked off my shoes, and reached blindly into the cabinet for my usual bunny slippers. My fingers grasped empty air. On the rack where my slippers usually sat, there were only two pairs of shoes.

One was the limited-edition sneakers I had bought for Theo on Valentine's Day. The other was a pair of delicate, strappy heels. They sat perfectly aligned on the same shelf, shoulder to shoulder. Disgustingly intimate.

There was nothing else. I lowered my gaze and shoved the cabinet shut.

Going barefoot isn't the end of the world, I told myself, a hollow attempt at comfort.

I padded into the hallway barefoot, locking eyes instantly with Theo, who had just stepped out of the bathroom.

"What are you doing here?" All the color vanished from his face. His voice pitched up into something sharp and panicky.

My throat felt tight. I forced a stiff, cynical smile. "Surprise?"

Theos expression instantly turned glacial. He shot a frantic glance toward the living room. The TV was blaring the evening news at max volume. Satisfied that no one was paying attention to us, he lunged forward, clamped an iron grip around my wrist, and forcefully dragged me into the bathroom.

"You know, don't you?" He didn't even bother beating around the bush.

I tilted my head back, staring up at the guy who towered nearly a full head above me. I had practically watched him grow up. From the time he was a kid in kindergarten to right this second. We had orbited each others lives for nearly two decades.

Yet, staring at him now, the realization hit me like a physical blow: I didn't know the person standing in front of me at all.

I violently yanked my hand out of his grip and took a hard step forward, locking my eyes dead onto his. "Know that your official girlfriend is sitting in the living room? If that's your girlfriend, Theo, then who the hell is the guy who has been sleeping in my bed every single night for the last six months, telling me he loves me?"

Theo shifted his gaze, dodging my stare. The silence thickened in the cramped bathroom before he finally forced out two words.

"I'm sorry."

"I don't need your apologies." I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat, keeping my voice deadpan and steady. "I just need you to tell me who your actual girlfriend is."

This time, his silence stretched on even longer than the dead air on the phone. Then, three sharp knocks echoed against the bathroom door.

Both of us instantly went rigid.

Chapter 2

Tessa's voice echoed through the door right after. "Theo, did you fall into the toilet?"

"Hold on!" Theo yelled back, his eyebrows pulling together into a hard frown.

He whipped his head back to me, opening his mouth to say something else, but Tessa shouted again. "Stop stalling! Get out here! Iris drank too much, she says she's going to throw up."

The forced composure completely shattered off Theo's face. Panic flooded his features.

I watched, paralyzed, as he shoved past me and rushed for the door. "Is Iris okay?" he demanded, his voice thick with a sickening amount of worry. "Do we need to take her to the ER?"

I stumbled, barely catching my balance. My bare feet landed squarely in a puddle of half-dried water on the tile. The clammy, freezing sensation seeped straight into my bones.

Turning my head, I caught my reflection in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the vanity mirror. I looked like a corpse. All the blood had vanished from my face.

And I looked even worse the second Theo rushed back in, carefully supporting Iris by the waist. My gaze dropped straight to her feet. She was wearing my bunny slippers.

The last drop of warmth drained from my veins.

"Why are you still standing here?" Theo shot me a dirty look.

I stared at him. The silence roared in my ears as I brushed past them, walking out under the heavy weight of his accusatory glare.

"Who is that?" I heard Iris ask him in a soft, questioning murmur.

I stepped into the hallway, and the bathroom door clicked shut behind me. But right before the latch caught, Theo's muffled voice drifted through the crack.

"Just one of my sister's friends. Nobody important."

The deadbolt clicked into place.

Theo and I started sneaking around six months ago. We grew up together, and with a five-year age gap, I had always hard-coded him in my brain as just Tessa's annoying little brother.

Until that night. I remember it with crystal clarityFebruary 14th. Valentine's Day.

I had managed to get off work early for once. Not in the mood for the whole corporate happy hour scene, I decided to just head straight to my apartment. Around seven, I found Theo slumped against the wall by my front door. A graveyard of crushed beer cans surrounded him.

When he tilted his head up to look at me, his eyes were hazy and glassy, looking pathetically sweet.

"Maeve," he mumbled, reaching out to tug at the hem of my coat. He leaned into my space. The heavy stench of alcohol rolled off him in waves. I took two steps back, fully prepared to chew him out for getting trashed in my hallway.

Theo suddenly lunged like a feral beast, violently slamming me against the wall.

His hands locked around my wrists like iron vises, pinning them back as he desperately and roughly crushed his mouth over mine. "Don't push me away."

His eyes were bloodshot, his chest heaving wildly, and his voice dripped with unhinged, paranoid obsession. "Look at me. Why do you keep rejecting me?"

My brain short-circuited. It took a ridiculous amount of coaxing and empty promises just to wrangle his drunk, dead-weight body back to his own place.

The next morning, he showed up at my door, sobered up and flushed with embarrassment, stammering out an apology. I figured it was just the booze talking, laughed it off, and told him to forget it.

But later that same day, my phone lit up with a random text from him out of nowhere.

[What if we gave this a real shot?]

A loud ringing sound erupted in my ears. I texted back a flat no immediately.

He was the kid from next door. I still saw him as a teenager, completely failing to process him as an actual, grown man. Getting involved with a kid like that felt like playing with fire. At least, that was the excuse I fed myself.

But Theo had made up his mind, relentlessly launching into full-blown pursuit mode.

It started small. Bouquets of flowers, my favorite pastries, dropping off a heating pad and hot tea when I had cramps. Then it escalated. Waiting outside my office with an umbrella in the pouring rain, camping out on my porch just to see me when I got home, dragging me out to indie movies and local art galleries.

Chapter 3

That day, he had waited for me at the intersection under an umbrella. A few girls had clustered around him, probably asking for directions. Theo had one hand shoved in his pocket, his expression completely closed off and indifferentuntil his eyes locked onto mine and instantly lit up. "Maeve!"

The exact second he bolted toward me like an eager puppy, the heavy, deadened weight in my chest actually fluttered.

We had spent over six months sneaking around in the dark. We brushed fingers and held hands under this exact dining table more times than I could count. Yet here I was, sitting directly across from Theo, watching him meticulously peel a shrimp and place it on Iris's plate.

Tessa naturally steered the dinner table conversation. She rested her chin on her hand, a teasing grin on her face.

"So, Iris. Theo was the one who chased you, right? Spill the details. How did he pull it off?"

Iris flushed a deep crimson. Theo immediately jumped to her defense. "Tessa, can't you just eat your food and drop it?"

"Theo." Iris gave the hem of his shirt a gentle tug. He clamped his mouth shut instantly, completely playing the role of the whipped boyfriend.

Tessa lost it, elbowing me in the ribs as she cracked up laughing. I forced my lips to stretch into a stiff, plastic smile.

I shifted my gaze to Theo, only to catch him narrowing his eyes at me. It was a microscopic shift in his expression, a volatile mix of warning and raw irritation. I wanted to tell him to relax, that I wasn't going to blow his cover and expose our dirty little secret to the table. Instead, I kept my mouth shut, dropped my gaze, and stared a hole through my rice bowl.

"He chased me for over six months." I didn't actually expect Iris to air out their entire timeline. She looked like the timid, introverted type, but she didn't miss a single beat. She laid it all outhow they went from regular classmates to him showering her with flowers and pastries, dropping off hot ginger tea for her cramps.

Then came the stories of him standing in the pouring rain outside the campus library to pick her up, camping outside the student union for two hours just waiting for her to finish. He even crammed up on her favorite indie artists just to take her to an art gallery.

As she happily rattled off the list, the realization slammed into me like a freight train. He had run the exact same playbook on me.

"Are you talking about the Dreams of Passing Time exhibit?" I cut in, my voice deadpan.

"Yeah! Did you go too?" Iris looked at me, her eyes practically sparkling.

Oh, I went. Theo had practically begged me on his hands and knees to go with him. I lifted my heavy eyelids and stared directly at him. He immediately averted his gaze, his jaw ticking as he stared aggressively at his plate.

I vividly remembered that day. He had rattled off facts about the painter, the hidden meanings, and the brushwork like an absolute expert. When he finished his little monologue, he had looked at me with those bright, expectant puppy-dog eyes, waiting for validation. I gave it to him willingly, impressed by his effort.

When he saw my genuine admiration, the tension had visibly drained from his shoulders, and he subtly pumped his fist in a victorious little 'yes' motion. At the time, I thought it was the most endearing thing in the world.

Looking back now, the truth was brutally simple. I was just the test run.

He ran the simulation on me first, monitored my reactions, made sure the whole routine worked flawlessly, and then copy-pasted the exact same strategy onto Iris. It was a hell of a lot of dedicationjust not for me.

Staring at the barely concealed panic and guilt fracturing Theo's smug facade, the suffocating knot of misery in my chest simply dissolved. The swirling chaos of betrayal flatlined into absolute, freezing clarity.

A cheap knockoff never stood a chance against the real deal.

The irony was suffocating. He actually thought he was the mastermind of a flawless double life, completely blind to the fact that his desperate scrambling just made him look like an absolute clown. This chapter was completely closed for me.

Theo shot me a few erratic glances before awkwardly hijacking the conversation and forcing a new topic.

Chapter 4

Everyone else at the table just smiled, assuming Theo was embarrassed. But after roasting her little brother, Tessa suddenly pivoted, locking her sights right on me.

She poked my arm, her eyes practically gleaming with gossip. "So, Maeve, where's your boyfriend? Come on, spill the tea. How did you guys meet?"

Before I could even open my mouth, Theo started hacking violently across the table, acting like a grain of rice had gone down the wrong pipe.

"Oh, you don't even know," Tessa giggled, completely ignoring him. "Maeve snagged herself a younger guy. Total golden retriever energy."

Theo snatched the water glass Iris offered him and chugged it. "Who cares?" he choked out, looking utterly pathetic.

He immediately darted his eyes back to gauge my reaction. When he saw me just staring down at my plate with a faint, detached smile, the muscles in his jaw tightened. His facade cracked, and he tore his gaze away, his face hardening into a dark scowl.

"Ugh, I seriously want to meet this guy. The one who's always glued to your side, practically worshiping the ground you walk on," Tessa sighed dreamily. I avoided her eyes. I definitely couldn't look at her, and I sure as hell couldn't tell her that the golden retriever in question was currently sitting right across from us.

My silence stretched for a beat, and Theo practically leaped out of his skin to run interference. Now that he had secured his ultimate prize, the last thing he wanted was our dirty little secret blowing up in his face.

"If she doesn't want to talk about it, drop it. God, Tessa, you're so annoying," Theo snapped, shooting his sister a lethal glare.

The tension spiked. Right as the two of them were about to tear into each other, Iris hastily tugged on Theo's sleeve to pacify him. I grabbed Tessa's arm to stop her from lunging across the table. I let the silence hang for a second before looking at her.

"If you're that curious, why don't I just call him over to say hi?"

Tessa's eyes lit up like fireworks. Theo's expression instantly twisted into a panicked, sickly knot. Without glancing in his direction, I pulled out my phone and dialed.

Across the table, Theo went rigid. His knuckles turned stark white as he gripped his own phone in a death grip under the table. But the incoming call he was bracing for never came. Instead, after a single ring, the line on my end connected.

"Hey, Maeve?" a crisp, deep voice drifted out of my phone's speaker.

Tessa threw her hands over her mouth, letting out a silent, theatrical squeal. Theo's face went completely dead, a storm brewing in his dark eyes.

I kept my voice smooth and level. "Are you free to swing by for a bit?"

When Nolan showed up, he was dressed in a sharp, flawlessly tailored suit. His tie was perfectly knotted, his hair slicked back without a single strand out of place. He didn't look anything like a soft puppy dog. He looked like a ruthless, high-powered executive fresh out of a boardroom meeting.

"Sorry, traffic was a nightmare." Nolan flashed me a devastating smile. "Did you wait long?"

I shook my head, pouring him a glass of water, then leaned in close, dropping my voice to a whisper. "Thank you."

Nolan looked down at me, something dark and unreadable flickering in his eyes.

Then, under the watchful eyes of everyone at the table, he naturally and dominantly wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me flush against his broad chest. He dipped his head close to my ear, letting out a low chuckle with his magnetic voice.

"Why are your hands so cold? Don't be scared. I'm right here."

Theo stared at Nolan's arm wrapped tightly around me, his eyes practically turning to ice. He slammed his glass down onto the table with a harsh, cracking thud.

"There are other people eating here. Can you guys not be so disgusting?" Theo sneered, blatantly rolling his eyes right at Nolan.

In a flash, Tessa reached across and smacked the back of his head. "They're a couple! If they want to show off, they can show off. Why do you care, you little hater?"

The word couple hit Theo like a physical blow.

His face darkened into an ugly, thunderous scowl. He aggressively shoved a bite of food into his mouth, refusing to look at me, and didn't say another word.

Chapter 5

"Wait, Nolan, if you're letting Maeve play the 'older woman' card, does that mean you're younger than her? Are you already working a corporate job at your age?" Tessa was practically vibrating with interest. Her eyes bounced between Nolan and me, shining brighter than a pair of headlights.

I took a sip of my iced tea. The question caught me so off guard that I inhaled the liquid straight into my windpipe. I hacked a couple of times into my fist. Instantly, two napkins appeared in my line of sight.

One came from Nolan, sitting right beside me.

The other came from Theo, sitting across the table next to Iris.

The two men locked eyes. A silent, high-voltage current snapped in the air between them before they sharply broke eye contact. Theo let out a dark, cynical scoff. Without waiting for me to choose, he crushed his napkin into a tight ball and pitched it violently into the trash can.

I took Nolan's napkin, murmured a quiet thanks, and fielded Tessa's question for him. "Actually, he's two years older than me."

"Oh, come on!" Tessa leaned across the table, her gossip radar fully hooked now. "Then why did he play along with the whole younger guy thing?!"

It was a long story. I shot a glance at Nolan, who was already fighting back a smirk. I gave Tessa the condensed version of how we met.

An interactive retro arcade and gaming lounge had opened up in the arts district near my apartment. I used to kill time there on my days off, messing around on classic 90s arcade cabinets or hunting down rare cartridges. That was exactly where Nolan and I bumped into each other.

I had gone three days in a row, and every single day, he was camped out in front of the massive 42-inch flat-screen in the main lobby, tearing through different games. From Zelda to Stardew Valley, he was completely dialed in.

With his dark hair falling messy across his forehead, a pair of thick black-framed glasses, a casual white tee, and athletic shorts, he looked like a typical college student.

I had always assumed he was just a big kid obsessed with gaming. He never bothered to correct me, just playing along with a lazy, teasing smirk and calling me older sister whenever I wanted to play the wiser woman.

But looking back, there was always a dangerous, predatory aggression lurking behind the lenses of those thick black framesa lethal energy I was too naive to decipher at the time.

Even later, when we finally figured out our actual ages, he kept the joke going. We were both massive gaming nerds, constantly swapping game recommendations and teaming up for co-op.

That lasted right up until six months ago, when Theo and I started sneaking around. After that, I slowly started pulling away from Nolan, letting our texts fade out.

We hadn't talked in months. Yet today, all it took was one desperate phone call, and he had dropped everything to rush over. He didn't expose my lie or ask a single exhausting question. He just sat right beside me, flawlessly playing the role of my devoted boyfriend with a devastating smile.

Meanwhile, my actual boyfriendthe guy I thought was crazy about mehad chosen to blindside me. He held another woman's hand, delivered a gut-punch of a betrayal, and silently proved that I was nothing more than a pathetic beta test for his real relationship.

Catching me staring, Nolan brushed a finger against his jaw. "Do I have something on my face?"

"No." I just thought you looked like a goddamn hero swooping in to save me. I shook my head, flashing him a genuine, grateful smile.

Nolan's eyes softened, and he smiled back.

Right then, a sharp, violent crack shattered the moment.

I whipped my head around. Theo had slammed the heavy ceramic teapot directly against a decorative centerpiece on the table. The spout completely shattered, spraying jagged porcelain shards across the wood.

As everyone scrambled in a panic to clean up the mess, Theo just sat there, frozen. His lips were pressed into a hard, bloodless line, his eyes burning a hole straight through me. The raw panic and staggering disappointment in his stare made it look like I was the one who had cheated.

Chapter 6

"Theo, watch your hands," Iris murmured sweetly, reaching out to help him. Theo instantly caught her hand, blocking her from getting too close.

"Don't touch it. There's shattered glass everywhere. What if you get hurt?" He gently guided her to step aside.

He haphazardly wiped down the table. I checked the time on my phone and stood up, signaling to Nolan that it was time to leave.

"It's still early," Theo practically spat, his knuckles turning stark white around the damp rag in his fist. Then, he couldn't stop himself from adding, "Leaving so soon? Going on a hot date?"

He realized his slip a second too late. He aggressively tossed the rag onto the table, his face closing off into a cold mask. "Forget it. None of my business."

I walked barefoot toward the entryway, pausing to glance over my shoulder at him. A bitter, sarcastic laugh bubbled in my throat.

"You're right. It's none of your damn business."

I reached the shoe cabinet, but before I could even grab my purse, Nolan's tall frame suddenly dropped to one knee right in front of me.

I flinched, instinctively stumbling back a step. "What are you doing?"

"Don't move," Nolan ordered, his voice leaving zero room for argument.

He carefully lifted my foot. A harsh frown carved into his forehead, his dark eyes heavy with concern.

"Are you out of your mind? You stepped on a piece of glass and you're bleeding. Did you seriously not feel that?"

I blinked, finally looking down. Only then did I see the smeared crimson drops staining the floorboards.

Hearing Nolan's voice, Theo took two panicked steps forward. But out of the corner of his eye, he caught Iris standing right next to him. He stopped dead in his tracks, his body going completely rigid.

"Why the hell were you walking around barefoot?!" Theo snapped, his voice lashing out aggressively to cover his obvious panic. "You brought this on yourself!"

Tessa smacked her own forehead, then whirled around and slapped Theo hard on the arm. "She didn't have any slippers to wear, you idiot! Iris is wearing hers!"

Theo's face turned an ugly, ashen gray. His lips parted, but as he stared at me, absolutely no words came out.

Nolan didn't waste another second. He smoothly swept me up into his arms, carrying me effortlessly toward the door. "I'm taking her to get this cleaned up."

As he carried me out into the hall, Tessa scrambled after us, shoving a small first-aid kit into my hands. She shot me a highly exaggerated, winking look.

I hid my burning face against Nolan's chest, muttering at her to go back inside before she embarrassed me any further.

"Put me down. I can walk on my own." I tensed my body, stubbornly fighting to break out of his grip.

Nolan's arms clamped around me like bands of steel, pulling me even tighter. He stopped dead in his tracks, dipping his head to look deeply into my eyes.

His voice dropped to a low, dangerous rumble, thick with barely contained anger. "Maeve. It's one thing to play the tough girl in front of him, but it's just the two of us now. Are you seriously going to lie to yourself and tell me it doesn't hurt?"

I stared up at him, completely paralyzed. The massive wall I had been holding up all night instantly shattered, and my tears broke through, spilling hot and fast down my cheeks. "It hurts."

It hurt. God, it hurt so much. But the sharp sting on my heel was absolutely nothing compared to the violent, suffocating pressure currently crushing my ribs