Page 17 of Better than Famous

SUTTON

Ben walked out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel, complaining before he even fully entered the room. "Brenna, I told you I was fine for⁠—"

His voice died in his throat. His gaze bypassed his sister entirely and slammed into me.

He stared at the hair spilling over my shoulders. The dish towel stopped moving in his hands. For a single, suspended heartbeat, his impenetrable mask fractured. A flash of pure, stunned awe crossed his features—a look so intense and unguarded it sent a jolt straight to my toes. He was finally looking at me, stripped of the itchy armor.

Then, the tactical reality of the situation caught up with him. His eyes darted from my exposed hair, to the brown wig discarded on the cushion, and finally to his sister, who was currently standing like a statue holding a casserole that was about to fall to the floor.

He let out a long, heavy exhale and tossed the towel onto a chair. The protector visibly slammed back into place. He stepped squarely into the room, positioning himself to block the brunt of his sister’s stare. "Brenna, put the food down before you drop it."

"B-Ben." Brenna’s voice came out strangled and high-pitched. She ignored his command, shifting the casserole dish so she could lift a shaking finger to point directly at my face. "Ben. Who is that?"

"That’s Kate." He stood with deliberate casualness between us. "Kate Green. She’s staying in the guest room for a couple of days. Her car went into a ditch on Route 1 on Tuesday."

Brenna lowered her finger, but her unblinking gaze didn’t waver. She stared at Ben, then back at me, then back at Ben.

"Kate," she repeated, the name sounding utterly ridiculous in her mouth. "You’re looking me in the eye and telling me her name is Kate."

"Yes." Ben’s voice took on that protective, firm edge I had come to rely on. It was his paramedic voice. "She’s had a rough week, Bren. Don’t be rude."

"Rude?!" Brenna let out a high-pitched, hysterical laugh. "I’m not being rude, Ben, I’m just seriously doubting my own vision right now! Do you have any idea who that is?"

"Yes, I know who she is." Ben’s voice dropped an octave, becoming a low rumble of warning. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking at his sister not with confusion but with a stubborn refusal to engage. "She’s my guest."

My stomach plummeted. I tried to stand up, to intervene, to stop this train wreck before it went completely off the rails, but my legs felt like lead. "Ben, wait."

"It’s okay," Ben said, glancing back at me with a reassuring nod. "I’ve got this." He turned back to his sister, his stance immovable. "She’s recovering, Brenna. She needs quiet, not an interrogation."

Brenna blinked rapidly. She stared at her brother for a long, agonizing second. "An interrogation? Ben, look at her!"

"I have looked at her," Ben said, his tone flat. "I see a woman who is bruised, exhausted, and stranded. That is all that matters."

"You cannot be serious," Brenna said, her voice rising steadily. "You think she’s just some random woman named Kate Green? Ben, that is Sutton Vale! The singer! The biggest pop star on the freaking planet! I have her latest album in my car right now!"

I closed my eyes. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. The jig was up. The charade was over.

"Brenna," Ben said, and there was a hard, dangerous edge to his voice now, a command that brooked no argument. "I don’t care if she’s the Queen of England. Right now, she is under my roof, and she is hurt. I am not going to harass her about who she might look like or who you think she is. She’s a person, not a tabloid story."

Brenna blinked at the lasagna dish in her hands as if she had forgotten she was holding it. She marched over to the coffee table, set it down with a deliberate, heavy thud, and then straightened up. She reached into her yellow raincoat pocket and pulled out her smartphone.

"Ben," she said, her voice dropping into a deadly calm. "I love you. You are a hero. You save lives. But you are being willfully, aggressively blind, and I am performing a reality intervention."

"Put the phone away," Ben warned.

"I will not," she said. She marched over to him and shoved the bright screen directly into his face. "Look at this picture."

"I don’t need to look at it."

"Look at it!"

Ben didn’t sigh. He didn’t roll his eyes. He just stood there, staring at his sister with a jaw set like granite. He barely glanced at the screen. "Okay. It’s Sutton Vale on a red carpet. What is your point?"

"Look at the mole on her neck," Brenna commanded, tapping the glass. "Look at the scar on her left eyebrow from when she fell off a stage in 2018. Ben, it is her."

Ben didn’t lean closer to the phone. He looked at me.

"I know that," Ben said quietly.