Living With Boys

six // i was scooby doo

No one had bothered to tell me that Will was attending our shopping expedition. Why would they? I had never been privy to the decision-making elements of their little squad. As much as they had all—Will, especially—once made me welcome in their friend group, I had always been on the periphery. Like some sort of mascot.

I was Scooby Doo.

"What did you expect, Isabelle?" Kai said from the front seat, peering through the rear vision mirror to frown at me. "That I would drive all the way down just to hang out with you? Of course not. Will is my number one, forever."

I looked to Valerie, tucked comfortably in the passenger seat, for support. "Thanks, babe," she said, drily, to my brother. At my look of disbelief, she shrugged. "He's always liked Will the most. I don't take it personally."

This wasn't exactly true. Kai and Valerie were equally as nauseating as Will and Kai. I was fairly confident Kai's love was equal opportunity for both of them. With a few extra opportunities for Valerie, I supposed, but I wasn't particularly inclined to think about that if I could help it.

Kai had seemed surprised when I asked him why Will was coming, as if his best friend's presence was a foregone conclusion that I should really have expected. While he'd covered his confusion with his quip about Will's position as his favourite, it was the first time I'd seen any indication from my brother that he might suspect that something between Will and I was not quite right. Valerie's wince at my question suggested that she, at least, was not entirely in the dark.

But while Kai was protective of me, I wasn't certain that that protectiveness extended to cover Will. After all, Will was his number one, forever.

For good reason.

"Would either of you have missed a canyoneering trip in the Philippines to stay back at the hostel with me when I had severe food poisoning?" Kai asked, accusatorily.

I only considered this for a moment. I fucking loved canyoneering. "Probably not."

"He had explosive diarrhea at the time," Valerie offered. "Just, as a caveat."

"Ew, no," I said. "Definitely not."

Kai looked to Valerie for her answer, and she offered him a lazy grin in return. "You already know I wouldn't. I totally went and ditched you to go canyoneering with Jamie. This is why I don't begrudge your homoerotic friendship. He's nicer to you than I ever will be."

"Who has a homoerotic friendship?" Will asked, sliding into the seat beside me in one fluid motion.

"You and Kai," Valerie said.

Will grinned. "So true, man."

Kai's lips twitched upward, and he reached into the backseat to give Will a high-five. Will gripped his hand back, and they maintained a healthy few seconds of eye control, and I groaned. "Do you need me to get out so you two can bone in the backseat, or are we good to go?"

"Don't offer, Isabelle," Valerie warned. "They'll take you up on it."

"Fuck off," said Kai, cheerfully, but he slid the gearshift into drive and pulled out of the driveway. "All right, are we starting at Salvos?"

Unfortunately, I owned virtually no furniture. Despite Zara's attempts to donate some of the things from our shared apartment and my old bedroom, that would have been a shameless daylight robbery, given that Zara and her parents had bankrolled all of it when we first moved out. If I'd taken it, Zara would have had to replace it all for whoever next moved in with her.

I couldn't afford to pay for entirely new furniture, and I didn't have the money, or time, to buy the materials to make it all from scratch either. But I could buy rundown second-hand furniture and flip it, which would give me a project to fill all the hours of my day that used to be consumed by Zara and Barney and all my friends from Sydney.