Page 25 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

She rolls her eyes but reaches out and takes one.

We eat in silence for a moment. Comfortable.

"Leon texted from Port Lincoln," she says. "Said the site's promising."

"We heard the same thing. With a photo of his hotel bathroom, of course."

"Ah, yes, for his bathroom review account," she says with an incredulous chuckle. "Do you know one of his posts got five million views?"

"'Know'? He made me link to it from all of the bars' social media accounts! Because that's what screams 'Have your Hens Night here!' — a man crouching next to a urinal with a clipboard. He's got a whole rating system. Flushes out of ten. He gave a pub in Gawler a 4.2 and they put 'as reviewed by Leon Riley' on their website. Like he's the Michelin Guide. For bathrooms."

She spits out the tea she's just sipped, all over the kitchen island, then covers her mouth, still laughing, but also horrified.

"Well, I'm glad it wasn't my Silver Needle you were drinking. That would've been $50 worth!" I tease, grabbing the tea towel and wiping down the island. "Huh. Guess I didn't finish work that early after all. This is literally what I'd be doing if I was still at the bar."

She pokes her tongue out at me and grabs the other tea towel, wiping from the other end, meeting me in the middle. I take both towels and ditch them in the sink.

She takes another Tim Tam.

I look at her. The way she's settled onto a stool now, relaxed, biting into the chocolate biscuit. Mug loose in her hand. One foot tucked behind the other ankle. Messy bun so loose, tendrils of curly hair frame her whole face.

I should let her go to bed.

I don't.

"Can I ask you something?" I say.

She looks up, shrugs.

"What did you actually think it was going to be like?" I keep my voice easy. "Coming back, I mean."

She goes still.

I wait.

What if she mentions me as a reason she didn't want to ever come back.

What if she doesn't.

SEVEN

Alexia

"What did you actually think it was going to be like?" Zachary asks, his voice warm and earnest. "Coming back, I mean."

It's a good question. One I don't really have an answer for. Well, not one I'm willing to give him.

Because the truth is, I thought coming back would be easy, that the years I'd spent hardening myself against even the slightest mention of them would make all this simple, that they'd be nothing more than strangers to me now.

But that first run-in with them proved I'd just been lying to myself, and the last ten minutes have proven it again. Right now, it's just me and Zachary, talking like we always had, like nothing had ever happened, or almost happened, between us. And when I think of him, I'm not drowning in what-ifs and why-nots.

So, yeah, I can't tell him that.

Instead, I take the second-to-last Tim Tam and pretend to be deep in thought.

"Well," I say, "I can tell you that coming back here has been more confronting than I expected."

He stills. His mug halfway to his mouth.