Page 44 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

"Everything's confidential with you. You and I had a one-on-one last week that you called confidential. All we talked about was how I needed to stop putting my feet on your desk." She kicks her feet up in the air, crosses them at the ankle, and puts them on my desk.

"I do that for the comfort of all my clients," I say, grabbing a ruler from my desk and jabbing it at her feet. She stays put.

Priti looks up at Wes. “I’m bored. Let's go. Wanna go check his calendar for to see who his meeting’s with?”

"You will not!" I say. "That's in violation of⁠—"

"Employee confidentiality agreements," they both say in unison.

"Okay. So you won't be able to argue ignorance if I find out you did it and file a report.”

"Ten bucks it's that cute new intake he had on Monday afternoon,” Priti says to Wes, completely ignoring me. “He’s been a special kind of mood since.”

I open my mouth to tell her exactly how far off the mark she is, and that's the moment we all hear, "Oh, hello, I have an eleven a.m. appointment?"

Wes turns first. Then Priti. Then both of them, in perfect, horrifying unison, turn back to me with matching expressions of dawning delight.

Alexia's standing in the doorway, a thin folder against her chest, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else in the building. Anywhere else in the world. Her hair is pulled into a side ponytail and she's wearing a black woollen knee-length dress and ankle boots, that make me wish she was sitting on my desk, while everyone else was outside of it. And the door was shut, and I was kneeling between her⁠—

"Well," Priti says, interrupting my thoughts. "Better get back to my desk, important business to attend to, namely working out what to do with that extra ten dollars I suddenly have.” She stands, reaches over and pretends to brush something off my shirt. "He looks nice today, doesn't he? All ironed." She says it while staring directly at Alexia.

Alexia just frowns, confused.

"When have I ever not ironed my shirt?" I mumble, pushing her hand away.

"Hi! I'm Wes," Wes says, introducing himself. "This is Priti. We work with Rhys, unfortunately."

"Speak for yourself," Priti says, giving Alexia a very thorough look up and down. "I quite like working with Rhys. He's courteous and punctual, has impeccable handwriting, polite on the phone. And all the women in the department call him Pham the Fuc⁠—"

That's my cue.

I'm up on my feet and around my desk before she can finish, one hand on Wes's shoulder, the other on Priti's, steering them both out.

"Out," I say. "Both of you. Get back to work, Priti. And Wes, I want that application draft in my email first thing Thursday."

"But we were just being friendly!" Priti protests, laughing, letting herself be steered.

"Be friendly somewhere else."

I shut the door, but not fast enough to miss Priti mouthing something I choose to ignore, then turn to find Alexia watching me.

"Um, they seem...nice," she says.

"Yeah. That's one word for them." I sigh, patting the chair as I head back to my desk. The faster I can put a big wooden piece of furniture between us, the better. “Ignore them. They're just some colleagues making me question if I've been in this job too long."

I feel her eyes following me as I go.

"Do you not like your job? I would've thought it was perfect for you," she says as she sits.

I almost miss my chair. That's the second time she's surprised me with a question about myself. "Sorry?"

"I mean, you always wanted to counsel people. Not in the traditional sense, like as a shrink, but give advice in some capacity. Some way to help people see themselves in ways maybe they haven’t before."

"Did I tell you that?"

She shrugs as she reaches for something in her bag. "Not in so many words, but I guess over the years you must've mentioned something to that fact.”

I did. I mentioned it to her.