Page 14 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

With that, he grabs his phone off the counter, shoves it into his pocket along with his keys and walks out of the kitchen without another word or glance at anyone.

Silence descends on the kitchen, and no one looks at anyone else for a moment. And then I take his cue to leave.

"Thanks for breakfast. Leave the dishes, I'll do them when I get home later."

Marcus frowns. "No, you don't have t⁠—"

I give him a cutting look. Like the one I gave him yesterday when I said I'd contribute with groceries. He closes his mouth and nods. Well, at least I have that one weapon at my disposal.

Because I think I'm going to need it.

Living here for the next week with Marcus, Zachary and Rhys? I'm going to need every piece of armour I can muster if I want to get out in one piece.

Rhys is following me.

I don't notice it immediately. I'm too busy running through the orientation schedule in my head, eight thirty arrival, HR meeting to sign the relevant forms, introduction to the department head and project coordinator, lunch, meeting with some employee counsellor.

I'm almost halfway to Adelaide Uni when I stop at the lights and notice the dark grey Audi sedan in the lane next to me and one car back. Nice car. One I probably will never be able to afford, not if my chosen field of study continues to be my field of work. The light turns green, and I'm back to running through my intro-to-me spiel, which I'll no doubt have to give an ungodly number of times today. When I stop on Botanic Road at another light, the Audi is directly behind me. In the driver's seat, a guy sits, so tall I can barely make out the top of his head. But the eyes that stare at me through the windscreen and into my rear-view mirror are instantly recognisable.

Why is Rhys behind me? He left the house before me, sure, but only by a few minutes, and peak hour traffic's worse in Adelaide now than before I moved. Not too surprising he's heading towards the city. I realise I have no idea where he even works, I'd made it a rule not to listen when my brother talked about his best friends. Unless it was business-related, I chose to pretend they didn't exist.

If I had my way, I'd still be sticking by that rule. Especially when it comes to Rhys.

A horn beeps, and I look up to see the light's turned green and the cars in the next lane are already moving.

Did he just honk at me?

When I glance at the rear-view mirror, his hands are still firmly gripping the steering wheel at ten and two, and I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't move them from what he undoubtedly seems to think are government-mandated steering wheel hand positions to beep at me.

At the turn, he's right behind me.

When I veer left, to the road running along the back of Adelaide University, there he is.

I tell myself it's a coincidence. Adelaide is not a large city like Sydney or Melbourne. People can take the same roads to completely different places.

Except...

As I slow down, trying to see if there are any empty parking spots ahead, I expect him to pass me and continue to wherever he spends his work days. But he doesn't, he slows down as well, maintaining a steady two-car distance between us, until I spot a parking spot ahead. I speed up and turn into it, only to see him now turning his car into the empty spot right next to me.

What in all the...

Grabbing all my things, I quickly get out and stand next to my car, watching as he unfolds his tall frame out of his fancy clean car, and stops in front of it, leather briefcase in hand. We stand there in the early morning light looking at each other across our respective bonnets.

I wait for him to say something.

But he doesn't.

In fact, now that I actually think about it, he hasn't said a single word directly to me since... since...

Fuck.

I take a deep breath. "Do you... work at the university?"

Rhys frowns, eyes fixing on mine. It's the first time he's held my eye contact for more than a second. It's probably a good thing, because I'm finding it hard to look away.

"Yes," he says, but it sounds more like, "Duh."

Then nothing.