Page 10 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

When she pushed herself off me earlier, I'd caught a waft of my body wash. It's weird, being affected by your own smell from a source you don't expect. Another thing to unpack later. No, Jesus. Not later, Marcus, get your shit together.

Zachary steps in beside me, and gives me a look as if he knows what I was thinking. But he can't. He has no idea. None of them ever have. And it's going to stay that way.

We stand there for a few seconds, staring at her, staring at her old home.

He gives me a nudge.

"What?" I hiss, elbowing him back.

"Say something," he murmurs back.

"I drove here. That was my part in this. You're the one who's good at talking to people."

He gives me a look that says something like "Not this person." And I know what he means. Alexia has a way of putting you off-kilter. It doesn't matter that she's five years younger than us — it always felt like she was judging you, not in a bad way, reading you, weighing every word for its meaning, its impact. It was always unnerving as fuck.

And I've missed it.

"Fine." I side-eye him, and step forward, my back foot kicking out and catching him on his shin, slightly, totally, on purpose.

But before I can open my mouth and say anything, she turns her head, resting her cheek on her left knee, still staring away from us but now down the empty street.

"How did you know I was here?" she says.

Her voice stops me for a second, before I move up alongside her car. In the corner of my eye, I can see Rhys finally crossing the road, but he's staying back.

"Leon called," I finally say. "Asked us to check up on you."

She makes a half huff, half laugh. "Of course he did. But that doesn't explain how you knew I'd be here. I didn't tell him either."

I sigh, and lean my hip against the front grille of her car, and say, "Where else would you be, Lexi-Lou?"

The name slips out before I can stop it. I don't even know if I'd have noticed that I said it if I hadn't noticed her stiffen. If I hadn't been watching her so closely, I probably wouldn't have seen the way she stopped breathing, moving, even her hair seemed to suspend in the breeze. It only lasts for a split second, but it's there.

She takes a deep breath. "Yeah, I guess I wanted to see it one last time."

The melancholy in her voice hits deep.

I know this house almost as well as she does. Spent most of my teenage years in it, Leon's mum making enough food for all of us every night, in case we needed it, the back door always open. When I didn't want to go home, I came here. When I didn't have anywhere else to be, I came here. Where Leon was. And where she was.

"The house isn't going anywhere," I say, trying to be comforting. It must be the wrong thing because Zachary practically facepalms and I think I even hear Rhys try to stifle a groan from where he's standing practically in a whole different postcode, trying to look nonchalant.

Zachary steps up on her other side. She ignores him and turns back to stare at the SOLD sign.

"He means, you can come back and see it any time. All your memories will still be here, Lex," he says.

Another nickname, another stiffen. "But it won't be ours," she murmurs. "It won't be home."

"No," Zachary agrees. "It won't be, but there will be other homes."

She shakes her head once and then drops it back onto her knees.

Well, if our goal was to depress her to hell and back, congratu-fucking-lations to us.

"Lexi, come back to the house," I say. "You can stay with us for as long as you have to."

Zachary elbows me. Hard.

"What?" I mouth.