Page 117 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

“I know. And you'll never know what it did to me.” He drags a breath into his lungs and runs a hand through his uncharacteristically tousled hair. “But just so you know, I'm not always put together, Alexia. When it comes to you, I'm barely holding it together. I'm a collection of broken pieces, and the sum of all of them is one hopeless, desperate, empty man who doesn't function properly without you.”

I sigh, every part of me feeling wrung out. “What happened this morning, Rhys? Why didn't you drive me to work?” I say, not caring about the desperation in my voice.

He sighs. “Because I walked past your door when you were in the shower and Marcus and Zachary walked out. It was clear they'd spent the night in there with you. And I... I couldn't handle it. In that moment, I couldn't breathe. So I had to leave.”

“But what's changed between this morning and now?”

“Nothing. Just the knowledge that it's my problem, not yours.” The words come out rough, almost angry, all of it aimed at himself. “But I've realised one thing. I don't know how to not be close to you. So I'm just going to stop trying.”

I almost reach for him but I don't. I'm not sure if he's ready yet.

“Now.” He clears his throat, visibly hauling himself back together. “Tell me what's actually wrong.”

So I do. I tell him how I was already upset about him cancelling on me. Then the way Craig had acted. The issue with my submission, and then my rental in Sydney. And the memories of the weekend, flashing back at the most inopportune moments.

With everything I share, something shifts behind Rhys's eyes. Stormy, angry. I'm barely done telling him what Craig had said when he moves for the door, and I catch his wrist.

“No. Rhys. Can you just stay with me right now? I need you,” I say, letting the last of the barriers I'd built around my feelings for him break away.

Every instinct to leave flees from his body and he's wrapped around me again.

“Tell me what you want, what you need,” he says instead. “Tell me what I can do for you.”

I lift my arms to grip his back, feeling the muscles under my fingertips. “Just — stay. Please. I just need you.”

He nods, dropping his chin down on my head, rocking me gently.

We're just standing there when I remember something. “Why are you here? Were you really waiting over an hour?”

He lets out a little exhale. “I've been waiting for you for the better part of a decade.” He says it so simply it nearly undoes me all over again. “Something tells me I'll be waiting the rest of my life, one way or another. But I was waiting because I saw the email from the guy at the admissions office — he forwarded it to me too. And I thought you'd need someone to talk to. I'm sorry I cancelled our standing appointment. I failed you. Both privately and professionally.”

I let the words sink in before asking what I've wanted to know since the day he waved that envelope in my face.

“Why are you saying all this now?” I pull back enough to see his face properly. “Is it because of the other guys? Because you feel—” I don't quite know how to finish it. “Left out? Because whatever's going on with them isn't about you, Rhys. It has nothing to do with you and me. It's not a competition.”

He doesn't look at me, turning to the door. “Do I love the idea that you've been with not one but two of my closest mates?” A short, humourless laugh. “No. But it's not because it's them. I just don't love the idea of anyone touching you who isn't me.”

I open my mouth but he stops me. “But if I get to touch you like this—” He turns back, one hand coming up to trace my cheekbone, achingly light. “Or like this—” his hand slides down my arm, around to the small of my back, “—or pull you in like this—” he does, hard, until there's no space left between us at all, “—or breathe you in like this—” his face drops into my neck, and I feel the breath he takes, unsteady, like I'm something he's been starving for, “—then I guess I can live with the fact that they get to too.”

His forehead drops to mine. “But if it were up to me,” he says, so low I feel it more than hear it, “it would always be me. Always me standing this close. Always me being the one who gets to kiss you like this.”

And then he does.

And there's not a single part of me that thinks about pulling away.

THIRTY-ONE

Rhys

I kiss her like there's nothing left in the world but the two of us. Like if someone offered me another fifty years of living without her versus another five seconds of having her exactly like this, I wouldn't waste a single one of those five seconds deciding.

It's tender and it isn't, both at once, my mouth still finding the salt of her tears at the corner of her lips before I pull back just far enough to kiss them away properly, one cheek and then the other.

“You're really kissing me.” She's looking up at me with the sweetest look of wonder in those gorgeous eyes. “Why?”

I laugh, low and a little dark. “Yes, I'm kissing you. Is that okay?”

“Don't you dare stop, Rhys Pham.”