Page 133 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

She clears her throat. “But how is it different? Still essentially the same not-exclusive thing. I haven't given them up to be with you. So, why should I get to do it and you don't? That's not fair. And I... don't want to be unfair to you, Marcus. You've been too good to me.” She swallows hard, like there's something stuck in her throat. “So, if you need me to make it clearer, you're free to date whoever you want.”

I actually feel sick again. I grab her arm, to steady myself as well as the need to ground myself in the feel of her. “What are you doing, Alexia?”

She doesn't answer straight away, and I can see the words coming together in her eyes.

“I'm just saying, we never really talked about what our commitment to each other is, did we? I just kind of assumed it. It's not your fault, it's mine. I overreacted, I guess, that day I saw that text message on your phone. I forced you into this relationship, made you feel like you had to be exclusive.” She blinks and forces herself to look at me, but I don't trust what I'm seeing in her face. “But I'm not your girlfriend. You never said I was. I don't have girlfriend rights to you. Not when I'm not giving you the same in return.”

I have to let go of her arm so I don't accidentally squeeze too hard. “Wait. D-Do you not want me to be exclusive to you?”

She stares at me, not even blinking. I take a step towards her, so close that our chests are almost touching as I look down at her exhausted face. She looks so, so tired, my sweet girl. I should let this go, talk about it another time. But I won't be able to think about anything else if we don't sort it out right now. “Alexia, I asked you a question. Do you not care about me being with other women?”

I stare deep into her pupils, needing to read the truth in her eyes. When she tries to turn away, I stop with a hand on her chin.

“No. You don't get to turn away. I want an answer. Right now, Lexi. Do you or do you not want me to be with you and only you?” This time it's my turn to swallow, not sure if I can handle the answer. “Or could you not care less about the thought of me fucking another woman?”

There's a flash of hurt so deep it's like an explosion in her irises. I shouldn't have used such harsh words but I needed to know the truth about what she feels.

I sigh, and cup her cheek with my hand. “Baby. You do, you do care.”

“Marcus,” she hisses, that hurt suddenly flaring into anger. “This isn't about what I want. It's about what's right and what's fair. And I guess I just realised how unfair I'm being to you. So, I'm giving you an out. You're free.”

If we weren't in a hospital, it's possible that multiple structures would be destroyed right now. But I rein it in, take a deep breath as I swallow down the dread weighing in my stomach.

I step towards her and she backs up against the wall, holding the water jug between us. I brace both hands over her as I lean in so she can hear every word.

“I'm going to need you to listen really closely right now. I don't want a fucking out, Alexia. I do not want to be free. I don't need you to let me out of this relationship, or whatever you want to call it if you're scared of that word. You didn't force me into anything. You haven't asked anything of me that I've just been dying to give you. None of this is coming from me. Leon doesn't know about us, about me and you, that's why he was talking shit about other women who I have no interest in.” Something in my eyes dares her to look away, but she doesn't. “I will go in there right now and tell him about us. I will tell him every single last bit of it. I will tell him I never want to look at another woman again for the rest of my life. I want you and only you.” I take advantage of her full hands and take her face in mine, and I see her take a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed for just a second. “Burn these words into your brain. I don't want an out. I don't need an out. I am in, I'm ALL in. Every single part of me is so entrenched in you that I can't tell where you start and I end. And don't you dare fucking think otherwise about how I feel about you.”

Something in her face cracks. I feel the tilt of her head as she lets herself just be with me, and I think I'm through to her.

But then she steps back. “I can't have this conversation right now.”

“If not now, then when?”

“Maybe when my brother isn't lying in that room hooked up to a hundred machines, needing his friends to be his friends and not having to worry about his sister! And needing his sister to stop lying to him and hiding things from him.” The guilt in her eyes is like an icepick to the heart. She's carrying so much. “But not now.”

She brushes past me.

I brace against the wall, trying to shock my heart back into rhythm at the thought this could be over before we really had a chance to begin.

Leon's on Zachary's case when I follow her in, still struggling for breath. “What about you? Are you still looking for that elusive woman who just 'gets you'?”

“Who knows?” Zachary says with a practised nonchalant shrug. “Maybe I've already met her.”

Leon's eyes widen. “So what's keeping you from her?”

His eyes flick to Alexia for just a second, then away. I only know because I was watching him.

“Circumstances, mate.”

“Fuck the circumstances!” Leon says, suddenly the group's guru, having seen some sort of light on the operating table.

“Yeah, well. Sometimes the circumstances fuck you before you can fuck them back.”

Leon turns on Rhys next. “And you. Are you hiding someone from us?”

“You'll know about her when I'm ready to tell you,” Rhys says.

Rhys hears himself say it half a second after we do — unfortunately, a beat after Leon does. He's sitting up, mouth open, when Alexia makes a big show of dragging the blankets off him and fluffing his pillows.