Chapter 3
THREE
Marcus
Alexia spins around so fast she nearly slides off the car bonnet, flipping onto her stomach, the short pink shorts she's wearing riding even higher up her thighs, her long wavy hair catching on the breeze.
And there it is. That face.
The face that had literally stopped me in my tracks when I'd stared up at it earlier today.
It's been almost six years since I last saw her. And somehow she's exactly the same, but completely different all at once.
But I don't have too long to contemplate how my body is immediately responding to being mere metres from her again after so long, because she lets out a loud and frustrated groan at the sight of me.
"Well," I say, peering through the windows of my car. "I'm going to assume that greeting is for one of you, because frankly, no one ever reacts that way upon seeing me." Especially women, I add to myself.
Zachary scoffs. Rhys says nothing. Typical of them both, really.
Taking the cue from my roommates, my best friend's sister ignores me and sits up, folding her body from her flattened position on the car and tucks her chin in between her bent knees, facing away from me.
I try to ignore how the shorts have found their way even higher up. Not now, I tell myself. Later. No! Not fucking later.
"You guys gonna help me out here or what?
" I say, shaking the traitorous thoughts from my head, and push off my car, crossing the road towards the Riley house.
Well. The former Riley house. A week from now, a new family is going to be living here, and I'll never get to walk through those doors again, never bask in fifteen years of memories with Leon's family.
Not for the last time, I feel a twinge of regret that we hadn't decided to buy the house from Mrs Riley.
Behind me, two car doors close, so I guess we're all in this together after all. That's a good thing, because I cannot do this on my own. Nor should I. There will never be anything happening alone with Alexia Riley. Ever. Again. The end. Period.
She smells like my body wash.
That's all I can think of as I wait for a car to drive past before I cross the road to her car.
When she pushed herself off me earlier, I'd caught a waft of my body wash. It's weird, being affected by your own smell from a source you don't expect. Another thing to unpack later. No, Jesus. Not later, Marcus, get your shit together.
Zachary steps in beside me, and gives me a look as if he knows what I was thinking. But he can't. He has no idea. None of them ever have. And it's going to stay that way.
We stand there for a few seconds, staring at her, staring at her old home.
He gives me a nudge.
"What?" I hiss, elbowing him back.
"Say something," he murmurs back.
"I drove here. That was my part in this. You're the one who's good at talking to people."
He gives me a look that says something like "Not this person.
" And I know what he means. Alexia has a way of putting you off-kilter.
It doesn't matter that she's five years younger than us — it always felt like she was judging you, not in a bad way, reading you, weighing every word for its meaning, its impact. It was always unnerving as fuck.
And I've missed it.
"Fine." I side-eye him, and step forward, my back foot kicking out and catching him on his shin, slightly, totally, on purpose.
But before I can open my mouth and say anything, she turns her head, resting her cheek on her left knee, still staring away from us but now down the empty street.
"How did you know I was here?" she says.
Her voice stops me for a second, before I move up alongside her car. In the corner of my eye, I can see Rhys finally crossing the road, but he's staying back.
"Leon called," I finally say. "Asked us to check up on you."
She makes a half huff, half laugh. "Of course he did. But that doesn't explain how you knew I'd be here. I didn't tell him either."
I sigh, and lean my hip against the front grille of her car, and say, "Where else would you be, Lexi-Lou?"
The name slips out before I can stop it.
I don't even know if I'd have noticed that I said it if I hadn't noticed her stiffen.
If I hadn't been watching her so closely, I probably wouldn't have seen the way she stopped breathing, moving, even her hair seemed to suspend in the breeze.
It only lasts for a split second, but it's there.
She takes a deep breath. "Yeah, I guess I wanted to see it one last time."
The melancholy in her voice hits deep.
I know this house almost as well as she does.
Spent most of my teenage years in it, Leon's mum making enough food for all of us every night, in case we needed it, the back door always open.
When I didn't want to go home, I came here.
When I didn't have anywhere else to be, I came here. Where Leon was. And where she was.
"The house isn't going anywhere," I say, trying to be comforting. It must be the wrong thing because Zachary practically facepalms and I think I even hear Rhys try to stifle a groan from where he's standing practically in a whole different postcode, trying to look nonchalant.
Zachary steps up on her other side. She ignores him and turns back to stare at the SOLD sign.
"He means, you can come back and see it any time. All your memories will still be here, Lex," he says.
Another nickname, another stiffen. "But it won't be ours," she murmurs. "It won't be home."
"No," Zachary agrees. "It won't be, but there will be other homes."
She shakes her head once and then drops it back onto her knees.
Well, if our goal was to depress her to hell and back, congratu-fucking-lations to us.
"Lexi, come back to the house," I say. "You can stay with us for as long as you have to."
Zachary elbows me. Hard.
"What?" I mouth.
"Don't say 'have to', that makes her sound desperate!" he hisses. I roll my eyes and say, "As long as you want, need, have to. Whatever, it's a roof over your head. And Leon needs to know you'll be okay."
"I'm fine," she insists.
"You're sitting on a car bonnet staring at a real estate sign."
"People do that. I hear it's very meditative."
"Okay, well when you're done praying at the altar of Monroe Real Estate, Leon's room is yours for as long as it is required," I say.
"With you three living there? Y-you'll be there?"
And there it is. It's not the house. It's the house's inhabitants. Namely, me.
"Will I be living in my house? Yes."
She shakes her head. "I'm not moving into a house with three men I barely know," she says.
"You know us, Lex," Zachary argues.
"No, I knew you." I think I hear her murmur something like "or I thought I did" under her breath, but I can't be sure.
And fair point, I mean, it's been years since we saw her. Do we even really know who she is any more? She's lived a whole lifetime since she was last here.
"Guys, it's okay. I'll sort it out. It's not a problem."
I sit on the bonnet in front of her. "From where? Your car?"
She doesn't answer. I clock Rhys in my peripheral vision.
He's drifted, gone from the fence, and pacing back and forth on the footpath in front of the house.
I watch him pivot and come back towards us.
He stops in front of the car, not looking at any of us, tucks his hands into his pockets and says, "We'll leave you the house for the week.
It's yours. All yours. Leon promised it to you and we messed up your plans, it's only fair. "
She lifts her head. "You cannot leave your own house!"
Rhys shrugs. "It's fine, it's just for a week. If, after that you haven't found a place, we'll sort something out then."
She opens her mouth, but nothing else comes out. She turns to me, and I shrug. "Fine by me. Zachary?"
He nods once. "We've got plenty of options. It's not a problem."
She exhales and rubs her forehead. "Oh my god, guys, I am not kicking you out of your own house."
Zachary waves a dismissive hand. "You're not kicking us out. We're offering. If it gives you a place to stay, then we're happy to do it."
"One week," I say. "Stay for a week. Use that time to find something longer term. And if you don't, we'll figure the rest out then. One week."
She looks at me. And then at Zachary, who's giving her a soft smile and a "what've you got to lose" shrug.
Her eyes slide to Rhys. He moves his head a single inch and meets her gaze. And then he waits. For her to come to her own conclusion. It's extremely effective. I have tried to learn it for years and I don't have the patience.
"Is this really okay with you?" she asks, the slightest waver in her voice.
A pause. He barely breathes. And then he says, "Why wouldn't it be?"
Then he turns and walks back to the car.
She looks at the for sale sign one more time and then sighs.
"Okay. One week," she says, with a nod, as if trying to convince herself. "I'll stay at the house. And you guys don't have to leave. That's just—"
"Sweet? Incredibly generous? Superheroic of MCU proportions?" I offer.
"Idiotic," she finishes.
I don't argue. But I do wonder what changed her mind. It must've been my mad negotiation skills that our friend and business partner Hunter Monroe has been teaching me after watching his real estate mogul brother Elliot his whole life.
"One week it is! You're staying at the house for one week," Zachary says, and honestly, a little too loudly.
She slides off the bonnet. "And I'm buying groceries."
I follow my friends back to my car as she reaches for her own car door. "Oh, no, you don't have to—"
She spins and looks me dead in the eyes with her narrowed ones. And I shut my mouth. Guess she's buying the groceries.
We watch her get in her car, start the engine, and pull out into the empty street. "Well, I guess we've got a house guest," I say, clearing my throat. Now that she's not actually right in front of me the reality of the situation is starting to settle.
Zachary stops, his hand on the car door handle. "Not sure if we should make ourselves scarce or make sure she's not feeling alone tonight."
I shrug. "I guess we could maybe ask her what she wants?"
We both look at each other for a split second and then simultaneously yell, "Not it!"
Rhys groans from inside the car and drops his face into his hands.