Imitating a Fae Queen
By Joanna Reeder
(c) 2021
Chapter One
“What’s up with your boyfriend, Aria?” my brother asks the second I take my earbuds from my ears. Now they dangle from my pocket.
My heart lurches. “Sterling? What about him?” I pray Ian doesn’t hear the rise in my pitch. I set another stoneware plate on the table and tuck a paper napkin along the left side before moving on to the next place setting.
“C’mon, Aria.” Ian leans on the kitchen’s doorframe with his arms crossed and a smile, but it’s forced. I worry he knows too much and is about to tell me he knows my boyfriend’s secret. “What new kid, who not only arrives in the middle of a first quarter but months after football tryouts, is suddenly the starting running back?”
This is about football? I should have known.
“Are you mad because he’s new?” My voice returns to normal. “Or because he’s a junior?” And you’re a senior. I swallow the last part of my thought, not wanting to hurt Ian. But he’s quiet.
I grab the pile of silverware in the center of the table and busy myself with placing forks. My back is to my brother, but I don’t turn and face him. I’m hesitant to catch him in a moment of vulnerability.
“Seniors should have priority,” he says.
“Especially a senior who has been working hard for that slot since he was a freshman?” My tone is kind, but I realize too late that it sounds pitying. At least he doesn’t suspect the other thing about Sterling. He’s just here to complain that the world isn’t fair, as usual. “It’s not like I had any control over it. You’re right. The world isn’t fair, and some people just have more natural talent than others.” I say it to cover any chance that Ian discovers the truth, the real reason Sterling excelled in tryouts. I realize too late that it was mean.
“Don’t patronize me.”
I spin to mend the widening rift. My blonde ponytail whips from its usual place over my shoulder around to my back. By the time I turn, Ian is gone.
Great. Now I’ve ruined things. After six months, I was finally starting to feel comfortable in this house. Ian isn’t actually my brother. He’s my foster brother, and I want nothing more than to have a family and feel like I belong. My shoulders hunch as I set the rest of the forks and knives.
I shuffle into the kitchen. I can’t even meet the eyes of my foster mom, Lindsey, when I fetch the thick glasses from the cupboard. Luckily, Lindsey has her back turned since she’s pulling the lasagna out of the oven. I slip back to the dining room to finish setting the table and manage a happier look when I walk back for the salad and bottle of dressing.
When I return and set down the salad bowl, Ian is already sitting, picking at a piece of French bread. I pull out the bench to sit across from him right as Blake, my foster dad, walks in from upstairs and helps Lindsey carry the rest of the food to the table.
I don’t glance at Ian, worried I’ll see a daggered glare if I do and then get questioned by the parents. We’ve never fought before, but I fully expect he will ignore me for the rest of the weekend or at least rest of the night.
“Are you going to the party tonight, Aria?” Ian asks after we pray thanks for the meal.
I’m floored at the sudden change in his attitude. “I—I uh…” I stammer and look at Lindsey as if she might have the answer.
She doesn’t speak but looks expectantly at me. I sense an identical expression coming from Blake.
I turn to Ian to avoid them both. “Actually, I think I’ll stay in tonight,” I say. “Lindsey rented that horror movie, so I think I’ll just watch it with her and Blake.”
“We have the movie for forty-eight hours, Aria,” Lindsey says, reaching out as if to pat my hand. But then she pulls back. She looks too young to be the parent to two teenagers because she is. Aside from a few gray hairs, Lindsey could be my older sister. Although, with her dark hair and deep olive complexion, we look nothing alike. “We could wait and watch it tomorrow night instead.” She glances at her husband across the table.
He looks too young to be a dad to teenagers too.
When they couldn’t have kids, Lindsey and Blake King fostered older kids. The ones most families didn’t want. Ian came to their home when he was thirteen. The King’s adopted him when he was fifteen, so he gets to share their name.
Lucky, I know.
Ian is eighteen now, only a year older than me, but as lucky as he is now, he remembers foster homes better than I do.
“Yeah, we can wait if you want to see it,” Blake says. “You should go to the party.”
“Your boyfriend is going, you should too,” Ian adds. I want to stomp on his foot or kick him in the shin beneath the table. But I don’t. He could have called Sterling by his name, he didn’t have to use that title.
“Boyfriend?” Lindsey’s voice brightens as she straightens.
“Did we know you have a boyfriend?” Blake asks, failing at sounding blasé about my relationship status.
“It’s… I mean, you know him,” I say. Know is a fluid word. Sterling has been to the house once.
“Is it that new kid?” Blake asks, gesturing with his fork and talking around his food. “The one with the hero hair and killer arm? If he’d moved in a few months sooner, I bet he would have replaced Matt Green as starting QB.” He makes a grunting sound when he says the football position.
Ian stiffens, but Lindsey doesn’t seem to notice as she stifles a laugh. “Hero hair?”
“Yeah, it’s always like…” Blake gestures with his hands above his head. “C’mon, you’ve seen it!” He drops his hands when Lindsey laughs again. “Even after taking off his helmet, it’s like…” He looks to me for help.
“He does have pretty amazing hair,” I admit and feel heat rush into my cheeks.
“C’mon, Linz,” Blake says. “His hair is just… strange how it’s never messed up.” He snaps his finger. “Like that Stefan character on The Vampire Diaries.”
“Sterling doesn’t have a hair and makeup team,” I argue, trying to cover up my unease by sounding annoyed.
“Then maybe he’s an actual vampire?” Blake wags his eyebrows and then winks.
My stomach lurches. Close but not quite. I roll my eyes to hide my panic. “You binge-watch too much TV.”
“I might, but who is always bingeing with me?” He flashes all his teeth at me.
I fail to duck my head before smiling too.
“So, you two are dating?” Lindsey asks, changing the subject.
I stuff my mouth with a large bite of noodles, meat, and cheese. When I nod, I add a shrug and keep my eyes downward. “It’s just casual,” I say after swallowing, hoping the words sound casual too.
“Where is this party happening?” Blake asks. “Are you going, Ian?”
Ian shrugs. “I might make an appearance.” He tosses his fork on the plate. “Actually, I’m not that hungry.” He pushes himself away from the table and stands up.
“I’ll save a plate for you in the fridge,” Lindsey says, watching his retreating form with a worry-line between her eyebrows.
Ian waves a hand in response and takes the stairs two at a time.
“What’s going on?” Blake asks Lindsey, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
“I don’t know, he seemed fine a minute ago,” she says.
“I’ll go talk to him,” I say, also standing. I drop my napkin next to my plate and head upstairs.
Ian’s room is dark except for the glow of a small screen he focuses on with a controller clutched in his hands. He’s killing zombies today. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” he says without looking up. “It’s not your fault your boyfriend is a natural and I’m not.”
I wish I could just tell him Sterling isn’t human. Or at least not completely human. There is nothing fair about the way he made the football team. I also wish I hadn’t been the one to point out that some people have more talent than others. Some people meaning Sterling, and others meaning Ian.
But I can’t tell him.
“Maybe I’ll ask him to quit,” I say.
Ian whips around. “Why would he do that?”
“I dunno.” It sounded stupid the second the words came out. “I think he’d do it if I asked.”
Ian whistles low. “Aria, please don’t tell me Sterling Firell is so whipped over you, he’d actually quit the team if you asked?”
Wrong answer. Sterling and I aren’t that serious. We can’t be. We’re too different.
“Even if he would,” Ian says without waiting for me to answer, “don’t ask him. We need him. We might actually take state this year. He and Green make a good combination.”
I nod, grateful I don’t have to ask Sterling to quit because I am a little worried he would. I’m also grateful Ian seems to have accepted him as a teammate, instead of pegging him as competition. Again, I can’t tell him, but Ian would think it’s funny knowing Sterling went out for the team because he wanted to be involved in something my brother was into. I don’t think he thought much about football before that. He just wanted to get in good with the family and all.
I smile. Sterling will get a kick out of Blake’s hero hair comment.
“So, we’re good?” I ask Ian, who is absorbed in maiming zombies on screen again right as the doorbell rings. “Did we survive our first sibling fight?”
“Ha!” He glances over his shoulder with a mock-smile on his face. The teasing one. “You call that a fight?”
“I have nothing to compare it to,” I say a little sadly.
“Yeah, I guess I always thought kids like us were too broken for stupid sibling fights.” His tone is morose too, but while my comment is from a lack of memories, he refers to too many traumatic ones.
Ever since I joined the family, Ian has always been the dream big brother. Aside from tonight, of course. He is always looking out for me and making sure I’m comfortable at home. Lindsey and Blake worried that bringing a seventeen-year-old girl into a house with their eighteen-year-old adopted son would be a problem. And not just any girl but one who suffered severe memory loss in a recent car crash. Despite that, Ian has always doted on me and teased me like I imagine a brother would a sister. At least from what I’ve seen in movies and books.
“Challenge accepted?” It comes out more questioning than intended, but I hope it does the trick.
His mock-smile is back. “More sibling fighting? Again, that wasn’t an actual fight.”
“Aria?” Lindsey calls from downstairs. I hear her climbing the steps. “Aria, your—Sterling is here.”
Ian turns to me with one eyebrow lifted. “You want me to treat you like a sister?” He drops the remote and rubs his hands together. “Get ready to be embarrassed, Little Sis.”
I laugh as I try to beat my brother to the door.
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