Don't Tell My Brother

"Doodling nonsense again?"

My dad's voice cuts through the pencil lines before I even register I've stopped moving. I blink up at him, sketchbook balanced on my knee, the stadium noise rushing back in all at once - whistles, cleats on grass, someone yelling for a pass. Soccer practice.

"It's not nonsense, Dad."

"You're twenty-five." He crosses his arms, that familiar exasperated look settling over his face, the one he's worn since I was nineteen and told him I wasn't going to college for anything practical. "Still obsessed with this drawing thing."

"It's my career," I say, for what feels like the hundredth time this year alone. "People pay me for it. Real money. I don't know why that's still up for debate."

He waves a hand at me, already turning back toward the field, already done arguing because he knows exactly how stubborn I am. That's the thing about my father - he'll fight the whole world for me, but never actually fight me.

It's been that way since I was nine, since it became just the two of us and Luther against everything.

I watch him jog down toward the field, his whistle already between his teeth, and I let my eyes drift over the team scattered across the grass in their training drills. Luther spots me first.

My brother lifts a hand in a quick wave, and I wave back, a little awkward, a little late, the way I always do when I'm caught staring at nothing in particular. He's been on this team for years. Still no championship title to his name, though not from lack of trying.

I know exactly whose fault that is.

Keith Colton jogs past the tribunes like he owns the air around him, grinning at something one of the other guys said, cleats barely touching the ground. Local star. Team captain. The reason my brother's trophy shelf stays half-empty every season. He's obnoxiously good, and worse, he knows it.

I look down at my sketchbook.

There's his profile, half-finished, jaw angled just right, the curve of his neck caught mid-turn.

It's just a study. He has good bone structure, that's all. Anyone with an eye for proportion would sketch a face like his - it's not personal, it's not anything.

The ball comes flying before I can convince myself further, smacking into the ground a foot from my sneakers, bouncing hard off the tribune railing.

"Get it, Vivi!" Dad shouts, not even looking over.

I hear the team laughing - Patrick, red-faced, hands on his hips after clearly overthrowing the pass. I sigh, tuck my sketchbook under one arm, and climb down the steps, muttering under my breath the entire way. I'm an artist, not a ball girl. Nobody in this stadium seems to remember that.

I scoop the ball up off the grass and send it back toward the field with more force than necessary. The team scrambles after it immediately, a wall of bodies moving at once, and someone crashes straight into my shoulder before I even see him coming.

Of course it’d be him.

My sketchbook flies out of my hands.

"What is wrong with you?" I hiss, stumbling, my palm scraping against the turf as I go down with it.

Keith laughs - actually laughs, bright and unbothered, like tackling strangers is a completely normal Tuesday for him - and reaches a hand down to pull me up. I ignore it, pushing myself off the ground on my own, and that's when I see where he's looking.

My sketchbook. Open. His face staring back up at both of us in graphite.

Heat floods my cheeks so fast it's almost dizzying.

I lunge for it before he can, snatching it against my chest like it's something worth protecting, which - apparently - it is.

"Were you drawing me?" His grin stretches wider, entirely too pleased with himself, entirely too close.

"No." The word comes out sharper than I mean it to, all teeth.

"That was very clearly my face."

"It was clearly not."

"Vivian." He says my name slow, teasing, like he's savoring it, and something in my chest reacts before my brain can stop it. I hate that. I hate it a lot.

"I have better things to draw," I snap, already turning away from him, searching the field for Luther instead - anything that isn't Keith Colton's stupid, smug face two feet from mine.

My dad's whistle shrieks through the air. Break time.

Luther jogs over, pulling his shirt up to wipe sweat off his forehead, and drops onto the grass beside the tribune steps like he hasn't been running for the last forty minutes straight.

"You good?" he asks, nodding at the grass stain on my knee.

"Fine. I genuinely don't know why Dad drags me to these things every week."

"Free labor," Luther says, grinning, and I shove his shoulder, and he laughs, and for a second it's easy - just us, like it's always been, since we were kids and it was just the two of us and Dad against the whole world.

Then I glance past him.

Keith's huddled with Patrick and Ian near the goalpost, heads bent close, voices low. Patrick says something and grins. Ian glances over his shoulder at me, then quickly looks away, biting back a laugh.

Keith looks over too - confused for half a second, like he's catching up to whatever joke just landed.

Then his grin spreads, slow and sure, aimed directly at me, like I'm suddenly the punchline to something I wasn't even told the setup of.

My stomach drops. I have a really, really bad feeling about this.

"What's that about?" I ask Luther, nodding toward the huddle without really meaning to draw his attention to it.

Luther follows my gaze, frowning slightly, then shrugs. "No idea. Probably some stupid dare. Ignore it."

I try to. I really do. But Keith's eyes stay on me a beat too long, that grin refusing to fade. And I already know that dare’s about me.

Soccer’s star Keith Colton is plotting something against me, and whatever it is, the champion targeted me for it.

The huddle breaks apart before I can figure out what it means, Patrick and Ian scattering back toward the goalpost, Keith jogging off with that same infuriating grin still stuck to his face. I sit back down on the tribune step, sketchbook pressed to my chest, and try to shake the feeling crawling up the back of my neck.

It's not quite dread, but it's close enough to make my skin prickle, close enough that I keep glancing over at him even when I tell myself not to.

It doesn't shake.

"You're doing the weird staring thing again," Luther says, dropping down beside me, water bottle in hand.

"What weird staring thing?"

"The one where you look like you're trying to set something on fire with your mind." He squints at me. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened." I look away, toward the field, toward anywhere that isn't my brother's too-perceptive face. "I'm fine."

Luther doesn't push, which is somehow worse than if he had. He just watches me a second l