Chapter 7
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.
I continue, "I mean, I never thought that..." I take a deep breath. "I'd almost be broken by having to face the difficulties of navigating all the stairs at Adelaide Uni."
He was ready for something else. I can see it, the rearrangement of his face from 'you can tell me' to 'what in the hell'.
It almost makes me chuckle.
"Stairs?" he asks.
I nod, seriously. "Yeah. I'm getting old. My knees barely made it through the day."
"That's what you've got. Coming back after six years, some of the most formative years of your life, and all you can talk about is that your knees aren't what they used to be?"
I shrug. "It's a legitimate concern!"
He shakes his head, disbelieving. "Fine.
As ridiculous as that admission was, let me give you a homecoming gift then.
Back of the Napier Building, there's a service elevator.
Should get you to most levels. Hardly anyone knows it's there.
Your knees will thank you. And in turn, you can thank me. By giving me the last Tim Tam."
He reaches for it, but I grab the packet and pull it towards me.
I narrow my eyes in suspicion. "Wait. How do I know you're not just telling me that to get the last Tim Tam?"
He gasps and grasps his imaginary pearls. It makes his shirt bunch up over his jeans, and I catch a glimpse of his toned stomach again.
Okay.
Well.
Shit.
I do not need to be seeing that right now.
It's been hard enough not reliving the feeling of his body against mine when he'd reached over me for my mug, his chest pressed against my back, his arm grazing my shoulder.
The visceral reaction I'm having to a two-centimetre strip of skin? It's a sign that I need to get out of here.
Now.
But I don't want to.
"I would never taint the sanctity of The Final Tim Tam by trying to steal it using unscrupulous tactics. How about this...you give me the last Tim Tam, and if tomorrow you do not find the service elevator I'm talking about, I'll owe you a whole packet."
"You'll owe me ten packets! One of each of the flavours. And I get to listen while you call your trainer and tell them that you ate a whole packet of Tim Tams by yourself and that you want them to work you extra hard this week."
His jaw drops open. Then his eyes narrow. "Wait...what's the name of what you're studying again?"
I grin. "I'm getting a PhD in Political Power and Conflict."
His eyes narrow further. "I feel like there's a power imbalance right now!"
"Not if you're telling the truth. You have nothing to worry about. I mean...we could just drop the whole arrangement, and I'll eat the last Tim Tam, right now!"
I raise it to my lips, but just before I can bite, he grabs it from my hand. He's cramming it into his mouth when I jump off my stool and use one of the self-defence moves Leon drilled into me before I moved to Sydney, twisting his wrist around as I turn and jut my hip into his stomach.
The Tim Tam falls onto the kitchen floor with a crumbly thud.
We both stand there, staring at it for a moment. Then Zachary leans over and picks it up and throws it in the bin.
"What? No five second rule?" I ask.
"What week is it?" he asks. "Like, of the month?"
"Er...second?"
He thinks for a moment and then shakes his head. "Thought so. It's Marcus's week for cleaning. If it were Rhys's or Leon's, I'd say we could risk it. As it is? I'd rather not."
I hold up my hands. "Enough said." I sigh, leaning onto my elbows and look up at him. "Guess I won't be getting ten packets of Tim Tams."
"You weren't going to anyway. You'll see tomorrow. And then I expect to get my own ten packets of Tim Tams to make up for you doubting me."
"We'll see about that." I scoff. "How do you know about the service elevator anyway?"
The look I get is scathing. "Er, I went there, remember?"
I do remember. I remember everything he ever told me. Buelt he doesn’t need to know that. “You went there for—" I tilt my head. "What was it. Four weeks?"
"Five. And a half," he says, sniffing in indignation. "And I came away with two things. Knowledge of the laziest ways to get around campus and a very thorough understanding of why I was better suited to hospitality."
"Do enlighten me."
"When you say something quippy and irreverent in class, they give you a failing grade." He takes a long dramatic sip from his mug. "In a bar, they give you a twenty dollar tip."
I laugh. And snort.
Sudden, unguarded, and loud enough that I clap a hand over my mouth immediately after. I need to stop being amused by the things he says, dammit.
But it's too late. Zachary's eyes light up at the sound and then he's laughing as well.
"What?" I snarl.
"I made you snort!"
"Did not," I exclaim.
"Did too. And it's just as cute as it was when you were ten."
I scrunch up my nose at him which just makes him laugh even harder, so I grab my mug of what's left of my tea and pretend to storm out of the kitchen.
"No, Lex, don't leave!" he calls after me. But I just flip him off over my shoulder and keep walking.
His footsteps follow behind me out of the kitchen, his chuckles causing a tingle to trickle up my spine as we make our way through the house.
I round the corner toward my room.
And stop.
Rhys is in his doorway.
Wearing a pair of white cotton pyjama pants.
No shirt. Ankles crossed, arms folded, shoulder and head tilted to rest against the frame.
His dark hair is tousled, falling over his forehead and left eye.
A smattering of scruff shadows his jaw. He looks like a sleepy god.
And I want to fall to my knees and worship him.
His eyes are already on mine when I'm done tracing the length of his body. His expression is the same one from his office this afternoon, guarded but simmering...something I can't quite name.
Something tells me he's been standing there a while.
Zachary comes around the corner behind me, still chuckling as he says, "Lex, I have an idea for what you can give me—" He stops when he sees Rhys.
"Oh. Hey, man. Didn't realise you were still up.
Hope we didn't wake you with our shenanigans," he says, giving me an exaggerated wink that sends butterflies into my stomach and makes me cringe at what Rhys might think of it, all at once.
"Was just grabbing a water," Rhys says, eyes not moving from mine. "But I didn't want to interrupt...whatever was going on in there."
"Always the gentleman." Zachary pats Rhys on the shoulder as he walks toward his room. "Well, kitchen's all yours now, bro." He glances back at me over Rhys's shoulder and gives me a grin that sends the butterflies into overdrive. Then he's gone.
I turn my attention back to Rhys and we stand there in complete silence, barely breathing.
Finally, Rhys pushes off the doorframe.
He walks toward me, hands in his pockets, eyes still trained on mine, until he's right there, next to me in the narrow hallway, his shoulder brushing mine. Then he leans over, slow and deliberate, and quietly murmurs, "Goodnight, Alexi."
And then he keeps walking to the kitchen, never looking back.
I stand alone in the hallway, my hand pressed to my throat, feeling my pulse race.
I listen to him move around the kitchen before I shake myself out of my thoughts and return to my room.
In the dark, staring at the ceiling, I think about the service elevator behind the Napier Building, and the Tim Tams, and the way Zachary made me laugh when I wasn't expecting it, and the way Rhys said my name, the way his shoulder felt against mine.
And I don't sleep for a very long time.
Marcus is back at the stove in the morning.
This time he's not arguing about the eggs, he's arguing with them.
At least, that's what it looks like from the kitchen entryway, as he shakes a finger at the simmering pot, saying things like "Don't make me tell your mum that you didn't behave," and "Do you want to fulfil your destiny as a breakfast food or not? "
It still takes me a while to adjust to seeing him.
Walking into a room and just having him be...
there. He's dressed much the same as he was yesterday.
Faded, worn jeans, but today he's wearing a sage green tee that stretches taut across the muscles of his back as he bends over the oven, pulling out a tray with a pair of oven mitts.
"Morning," I say. It comes out a little quiet. Shy. I wonder if I'll ever feel like I did when I was used to seeing them in my house all the time, like they were just a part of the furniture of the Riley house.
"Hey!" Marcus says as he spins around, tray still in hand.
It's not until then that I see what he's wearing over his work outfit — a frilly magenta apron emblazoned with the words Girls Just Wanna Have Brunch.
I stare at him as he puts the tray down on the marble island. Finally, my shock gives way to pure delight and I let out a guffaw. I point at his apron with one hand, the other covering my mouth.
He frowns, looks down at his front, then places his hands on his hips, striking a pose, bottom lip stuck out.