Outside the doorway to the Duffys’ formal dining room, Jazz pressed a hand to her shaky stomach. If her belly knotted any more, she’d throw up for sure. “I’m so nervous.”

Wide hands cupped her shoulders. “Why?” Gray spoke near her ear, his warm breath wafting through her hair and causing goose bumps to pop up on her neck. “We’re your family.”

Though the words helped settle some of the manic fluttering in her stomach, she rolled her eyes. “I’ve lived here a few months. Before then I was a complete stranger. It takes a lot longer than that for someone to become family.”

Not for her with Gray, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. She was already half in love with him and his parents. They made it so easy.

Now there was someone new she had to win over—Gray’s older brother, Brent. She supposed she could use the reminder that nothing was guaranteed, nowhere was safe. There were always new challenges and higher hurdles.

Including smirky-mouthed frat boys who scared the hell out of her even in a photograph.

“Says who?” Gray tugged her back against his chest. She closed her eyes and savored, relieved he couldn’t read her mind. “The best family is what you make when you get to choose. We chose you.”

Her lips curved in spite of the pang between her breasts. How could words that filled her up also tear her down? She didn’t want to cling. Didn’t want to need him or his parents too much. This situation, like all the others in her life, was just temporary.

Wonderful, absolutely, but temporary.

She was being silly. Brent was giving her his room, for God’s sake. He was probably a great guy. He had to be, didn’t he, coming from such an amazing family? The twist in her belly whenever she glimpsed his face in family pictures didn’t mean anything. He just looked so much like Gray that it was disconcerting. They had the same thickly lashed gray eyes, the same dark hair that tended to curl if not cut super short. Matching strong jaws and lush lips. They could’ve practically been identical twins if not for the fact that Gray was growing his hair out past his shoulders and had more definition in his arms and shoulders. He had a guitarist’s upper body whereas Brent had a bit of a beer pooch. Otherwise, they were scarily similar.

But hey, that should make it easier to get to know Brent, right? That he looked like someone she lo—cared about a lot had to help. Besides, he would only be home for the weekend to pack up the rest of his stuff to take back with him to his off-campus apartment. She was getting his room permanently…for however long forever lasted here.

His bedroom was large like Gray’s and the enormous space overwhelmed her in the best way. She could already picture having her girlfriends over to sit on the fluffy white rug in front of the bay windows that overlooked the backyard with its kidney-shaped pool and brightly colored deck chairs. Their voices would fill the room with their laughter and happiness, chasing away the monsters that lived not in Jazz’s closet, but in her head.

If she actually had any girlfriends, she would’ve pictured that.

Instead she visualized sitting on the bed with Gray, notebooks and music composition books spread out between their knees, guitars on their laps, surrounded by the scent of erasers and Cherry Coke and Gray’s minty aftershave. She’d never seen him anything but clean-shaven, which was why it was a surprise to feel his stubbled cheek scraping over hers.

“Stop thinking so hard. You’re making my brain hurt.”

“Sorry. Bad habit.” She laughed and shifted to kiss his cheek, something she’d done a million times. She’d kissed his cheek the morning before she’d watched him go down on his latest girl, kissed it again the next day when he’d come down to breakfast and looked at her with heavy, brooding eyes. They’d never spoken of those moments when she’d played voyeur. If it was up to her, they never would.

But now there were new moments, a new tension unwinding between them as her careless cheek kiss glanced off the corner of his mouth, so close that she swore she tasted cherry cola. His wary gaze shot to hers and he hooked his arm around her waist, drawing her in even as his mouth twitched with all the things he didn’t say.

“Sorry,” she repeated. God, her cheek was still tingling from the imprint of his stubbled jaw. “Missed.”

“Stop apologizing, Jazz.” Gray eyes so like the mists over the San Francisco Bay drifted over her face. But they weren’t cold. They were the day’s warmth burning off the fog until only heat lightning remained. She felt the sizzle and simmer in her bones, in her blood. “You have nothing to be sorry for, ever. You’re perfect.” His lips were a heartbeat away. He angled his head and they skated closer for a fraction of a second. Lifetimes passed in that instant yet they weren’t nearly long enough to feel all of this. “Absolutely perfect.”

She lifted her hand but she wasn’t fast enough to hold him still. That was Gray. Life. Movement. Pure energy captured in human form. He was already moving away, striding through the dining room doors and calling out to the guy who waited on the other side with his parents. His brother. His family.

She wasn’t truly his sister and could never—would never—be more.