Chapter 4: Little Red Riding Hood Shows Up
The Duncan House
"Adam!"
Teddy snapped out of her daze, caught the amused look on Adam's face, immediately understood what he was doing, and groaned.
"Alright, alright."
Adam held up a hand. "Teddy, we'll do it your way. I'll take Charlie for the first two hours, then you take over."
This was America, after all. Even as the oldest, Adam knew there was a limit to how much an older brother could interfere in his sister's budding love life.
"Then the living room is yours and the basement is mine!"
Teddy pushed her luck, eyes darting hopefully. Everyone in the house knew the basement was the best spot.
"Not a chance."
Adam shut that down immediately. "Living room only. You can study in there, or we all study together. Your call."
"Living room. Fine."
Teddy pouted. She wasn't the rebellious type — she knew when there was no room to negotiate. Besides, she didn't have anything too scandalous in mind. Mostly.
Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang.
"I'll get it! I'll get it!"
Teddy jumped up and sprinted to the door, then stopped herself just before opening it. She pulled a small mirror out of her jeans pocket, fixed her hair, checked her expression, took a breath, and then opened the door. She leaned against the frame and gave the visitor her best smile.
"Hi, Spencer."
"Hi, Teddy."
Spencer was tall, reasonably good-looking, and carrying a backpack. Adam could tell from across the room that it was completely empty.
Sure, kid.
"This is my brother Adam. Adam, this is my friend Spencer."
Before Adam could get a word out, Teddy spun around with a pointed look. "Adam, weren't you going to take Charlie somewhere? Go ahead — we need to study."
"What's the rush?"
Adam ignored her and turned to Spencer, whose expression carried the exact same carefully neutral smile Adam himself had perfected over the past year. He recognized a fellow performer immediately.
"Did you bring any books? I can lend you one if you need it."
Spencer's smile froze.
"We have books!" Teddy elbowed Adam hard and gave him a look that could have melted asphalt. "Adam. Charlie. Basement. Now."
"Fine, fine." Adam looked at Spencer one more time and said pleasantly, "Make yourselves comfortable. Charlie and I will be right downstairs." He paused. "Sound really carries up through the floor, by the way."
Spencer laughed — a short, dry, uncomfortable sound. The warmth in his eyes dropped noticeably.
Adam headed downstairs with Charlie on his hip.
The Duncan basement was a full walkout — typical for houses in this part of Texas. It was big enough to be its own living space, and Adam had claimed it the moment he'd gotten his bearings in this life. No way was he sharing a room with Gabe.
The second floor had three bedrooms. Bob and Amy had the master. Charlie had the nursery next door, with a baby monitor linking to the master bedroom — standard American setup, keeping the parents close without anyone actually sharing a bed. Teddy had ended up in the attic room on the third floor after losing the basement dispute, which she was still not fully over.
The basement was Adam's domain. Bed in one corner, TV and gaming setup along one wall, and his music gear taking up a solid third of the space — guitars, a secondhand drum kit, an amp that his mother had requested stay at low volume after 9 PM.
Gabe had tried to move down here twice. Adam had shut it down both times without much drama. He was the oldest. Some things weren't up for debate.
"Okay, Charlie. You sit here and be good. Big brother's got studying to do."
Adam settled Charlie onto the couch with her favorite toy and opened his textbook.
People liked to say American students had it easy — laid-back classrooms, no pressure, all freedom. That was true for some. But for students actually trying to get somewhere, the reality was brutal. A 4.0 GPA required the kind of discipline that most people didn't want to think about up close.
Adam needed that 4.0. He needed a good university. He needed medical school after that. The whole plan started here, with high school, with these textbooks.
The body he'd inherited from PJ Duncan was not working in his favor academically. PJ's educational history could be generously described as minimal. Teddy used to joke to baby Charlie that she had a solid shot at graduating high school the same year as her big brother — and it wasn't entirely a joke.
Adam had spent the entire past year just catching up to where he needed to be going into ninth grade. Starting from scratch on the American curriculum, which was structured completely differently from what he knew, had been its own particular challenge.
He'd managed. Barely. But high school GPA was cumulative and it started now, which meant there was no more room for barely.
He genuinely didn't mind studying. Compared to everything else he'd had to do in the past year, sitting quietly with a textbook felt like a vacation.
Studying is great, he thought. Studying is calm. Studying does not have feelings or schemes or an unsettling ability to read people.
He turned the page.
Upstairs in the living room, Teddy and Spencer sat side by side on the couch with a textbook open between them. Neither of them had looked at it in several minutes. Their eyes kept drifting toward each other. When they met, both looked away quickly.
"I need a pencil."
"I have one."
Long pause.
"Actually, I think I left mine at school."
Teddy produced a small mirror from somewhere and touched up her lip gloss. Spencer pulled out a travel-sized breath spray and used it, then casually breathed in Teddy's direction.
Teddy inhaled, smiled, and leaned slightly closer.
Ding-dong.
Both of them jumped.
"I'll get it!" Teddy shot Spencer an apologetic smile, then marched to the door considerably less happily than she'd answered it the first time.
She yanked it open. "Yeah?"
"Hey — is Adam Duncan home?"
A girl about Teddy's age stood on the porch in a red hoodie so bright it was practically its own light source. She had an easy, self-assured smile. "I'm Juno MacGuff. I go to school with him."
"Oh." Teddy looked her over for a moment.
Poor girl, she thought privately, thinking of her brother's history with women and his general talent for chaos. She has no idea what she's walking into.
"Come on in."
End of Chapter 4
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