Page 2 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

I close the door behind me, and leave behind the only thing I ever wanted.

ONE

Alexia

Present Day

The thing about staying in someone else's house is that everything is... different.

It's a universal truth. The sounds, the smells, the location of things, the textures — all just not quite right. At the ripe old age of twenty-four and ten and a half months, it's a fact of life I've become accustomed to.

As it turns out, though, I'm not remotely prepared for the bathroom acoustics at my brother's place.

This becomes blatantly obvious about six minutes into my shower, as I launch into my rendition of All By Myself.

Two syllables into a performance that would make Ms Dion wipe away an emotional tear, I finally understand why my parents kindly, but firmly and repeatedly, suggested I concentrate on my academic studies.

Doesn't stop me performing for an audience of one, though.

"~All byyyy myselllllffff," I warble into the showerhead. "~Alone at Big bro's house, squatting because my accommodation fell through. But it has hot water and a stocked fridge and I am a full-grown adult person who can handle a minor inconvenience with grace and fortitude, and also this body wash smells freaking incredibleeeeeee~—"

I hold the last note, gripping the showerhead mic, pouring my all into my relatable, poetic lyrics.

When I'm all but fainting from lack of oxygen, I rip the showerhead away with a flourish and take a deep bow, ignoring the shampoo lather stinging my eyes.

See, I tell myself, life isn't so bad, right?

The situation in question: squatting at my brother Leon's house after being offered a last-minute research associate role starting at Adelaide University tomorrow.

After getting the call at precisely 4:59pm on Friday, I ran home, shoved everything I could fit into a single bulging suitcase and two tattered grocery bags, and jumped in my car, supremely confident I could turn up at Mum's and she'd welcome her baby girl home with open arms. Three hours into an eighteen-hour drive, I remembered our family home had sold a month ago and Mum was now halfway round the world on a singles cruise, enjoying round-the-clock mimosas with her best friend.

A frantic FaceTime call with Leon, while going 110km/h down the Sturt Highway, calmed me down some. His house, the one he shares with his best friends slash business partners slash the last people on earth I ever want to see again, would be empty for at least a week while they checked out a business prospect upstate. I was welcome to stay as long as I needed.

Fifteen hours, three rest-stop naps and way too many chicken-salt-suffocated petrol station hot chips later, I arrived, retrieved the hidden key, punched his birthday into the alarm console (really, Leon? Your birthday?) and passed out fully clothed in his absurdly tidy bedroom.

Now I'm clean and ready to face the sharp left turn my life has taken.

Well, almost.

First: caffeine.

I wrap a towel around my body, twist another round my hair, and step out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam.

Leon's lived here with his three best friends for four years. When he first told me they were building a house together, I gave him a look that expressed exactly how much confidence I had in him and his three idiot mates not burning it to the ground within six months. Hard not to, given the chaos they'd caused blowing through our house growing up. But time's proven me wrong.

"Woah," I say, under my breath, looking around the kitchen.

The open eating and cooking area is... perfect. Which shouldn't surprise me, considering at least one of them does this for a living. A sliver of cold trickles down my spine at the thought of Marcus, who owns his own construction company and is, if The Advertiser is to be believed, "one of the young upstarts to watch in Adelaide's construction industry." I catch my own scowl reflected in a cabinet's glass door and fling it open harder than I should.

It shudders. I wince, hoping said young upstart installed sturdy hinges. It holds, and I reach in for a plain mug, bypassing the one that says I Screw For A Living. No question who that one belongs to.

"Just a girl... looking for a tea baaaaag. Where's a girl meant to get a little jiggle it action?" I sing, spinning around, mug in hand.

Hope arrives in the form of an elaborate hot-drinks station at the end of the bench: a row of coffee-bean dispensers, an industrial grinder, two coffee machines, one that looks capable of taking me back to November 5, 1955, and a mahogany-and-brass tamping station that cost more than my last month's rent. Clearly Zachary's work. Zachary who parlayed his love of the beverage into two Australia’s Bartender of the Year awards and now manages, and fronts, the multiple bars he owns with my brother and the other two. If I kept exploring, I imagine I’ll find an even more impressive liqueur display somewhere in this house. What there isn't, however, is any green tea. Good thing I travel with a collection.

I'm halfway across the kitchen, back towards Leon's room to retrieve my precious tea satchel, when the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

I freeze. Ears pricking.