Page 35 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

I close my eyes, and rub my forehead.

"And there it is," Marcus cuts him off.

When I open my eyes again, Rhys is already half way to the door.

There is nothing wrong with the fourth one, despite the guys putting the landlord through the wringer and literally breaking out the measuring tape to make sure the kitchen was built to code, once they couldn't find anything else to criticise.

Finally, when they congregate in the main bedroom, all I hear is Zachary quietly saying, "Look, it's...perfect. I'd live here if I could."

Marcus is reluctantly agreeing when I step into the room.

I'll be fucked if they're going to have a meeting about the apartment I'll be living in.

Rhys gives them both a hard look and says something too low for me to hear, but it instantly has an effect — both start emphatically nodding.

The three walk towards the door and past me, all saying, "No."

Marcus and Zachary are already at Rhys's car by the time I make it out of the perfect apartment, apologising profusely to the landlord and asking him not to give the apartment away before I call him back.

Rhys, on the other hand, is just standing there on the footpath, with his arms crossed and his keys in one hand, staring at the apartment entrance, waiting for me to emerge.

When they see me, Marcus and Zachary push off the car and join Rhys on the footpath. Nobody says anything. The afternoon has gone dark and pink at the edges, night encroaching.

I take a deep breath, to calm my anger more than anything, before I open my mouth. And then I let it out.

"What the hell is wrong with you all? This one is perfect. I'm not going to be buying the place. I'm only going to be living there for three months. I probably won't even be unpacking my suitcase. Who cares if the kitchen laminate is peeling a little? I'm not even going to be opening that drawer! You guys have gone too far. I appreciate your...loyalty, or whatever it is, to my brother, by helping his sister find a place, but I can do this myself!” My hands have thrown themselves so far over my head, they’re practically out of the earth’s orbit. Marcus glances at them in amusement, and I’m not thinking of wrapping them around his neck. I drop them down. “So please...just...let me do this. It's going to be better for us all. You can't be wanting some random in your house cramping your style either."

The look that passes between them lasts barely a heartbeat, but apparently said everything that needed to be said. And then Rhys says, "We're done."

Confusion fills me. “Here?”

“Here. Everywhere. We’re done,” Rhys repeats, saying more in that one sentence than he has all day.

“I-I don’t understand,” I stammer.

Rhys takes a beat and I can practically feel the inward eye roll. “We've decided. You're coming back to stay at the house."

I open my mouth but he doesn't give me the chance to say anything.

"If you don't want us living there with you at the house, fine. We'll find somewhere else while you're staying there. But I'm done wasting my afternoon on this." He looks at the terrace behind me and then back at me. "You're not living in any of these places. That's not happening. End of story. We're all too busy for this shit. Let's go. "

I glare back at all three of them and stay rooted to the ground. It takes more than I want to admit to not stomp my foot but I manage it. "I'm just going to find somewhere myself," I say.

"You could try," Rhys says as he opens the driver's car door.

"I don't get a say in this?"

Zachary picks up my bag from where I flung it in my anger and opens the passenger car door for me. "Come on, get in the car, Lex. We'll go somewhere and talk about this properly."

Only because screaming at each other in the middle of the street is hardly the impression I want to be giving to my prospective landlord and future neighbours, I follow him to the car.

I yank the back door open and slide into the seat. Marcus makes a sound that might be a laugh but it turns into a cough when I glare at him. He rounds the car and slides in next to me, apologetic.

I stare at the back of Rhys's head as he starts the car and pulls into traffic, murmuring all sorts of made-up ancient curses. Every time he checks his rear-view mirror — and being such a cautious driver, that's often — his eyes find mine for just a second before he looks back at the road.

Finally, I force myself to face forward and watch Adelaide slide past the window, thinking of all the ways I'm going to make them pay for this.

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