Daniel just asked me to move in with him.
For a split second, the world went silent, the cheerful chatter of the charity auction fading into a distant, muffled hum. Ethan's protective-brother instincts, a dormant volcano of pure, unadulterated fury, began to rumble. He had to say something. He had to stop this.
He opened his mouth, a hundred frantic, panicked accusations ready to spill out. But then he saw his sister's face. It was a face he hadn't seen in years. A face free from the weight of responsibility, from the stress of their family's struggles. It was a face of pure, unadulterated, and very real happiness.
And he knew, with a sudden, gut-wrenching certainty, that he couldn't be the one to destroy it.
"That's... wow, Sarah," he managed to say, his voice a tight, strangled thing he barely recognized as his own. "That's amazing. I'm... I'm really happy for you."
The lie tasted like ash in his mouth.
