chapter 1

I sometimes found comfort in the silence between us, it was a convenient place to hide when neither of us knew what to say.

"I just wish you told us you were leaving today," she said. Her voice sounded defeated, which made me want to apologise.

"It was all very unexpected, Mum," I responded, leaving more silence to fall between us.

In all honesty, I knew I was moving days ago, I just didn't want to tell her or my brothers unless I had to. I couldn't bear any guilt they would place on me for moving out of home - but I had my reasons.

"I can get off work and come and say goodbye?" She suggested. I could hear the hope in her voice.

"No, it's okay, I'll be gone by the time you get here." It pained me to say it, but I knew that if she knew I was leaving, she would have tried to convince me to stay.

She sighed into the phone as her response.

A creak in the hardwood floor signalled Emmett's arrival. He leaned against the door frame with concern laced in his eyes.

"Look ma, I've got to go. We're about to leave," I said, my eyes on Emmett.

"Okay, Ali." She sighed again. "Be safe, tell Emmett I said hi."

"Thanks, I will."

"I love you," She spoke.

"You too." A slight pause before I responded. I hung up and put my phone into my pocket.

"You okay, kid?" Emmett asked, his eyebrows turned inwards in concern.

I nodded my head, looking around the empty space that was once my room. Bear wooden floor, white walls and single metal frame bed in the corner. My room - absent of life.

"We ready to go?" I asked, smiling at Emmett.

"Only three more boxes to go at the front."

"Yay," I said, with relief. I walked out of the room with Emmett. We put the remaining boxes in the boot of his large black ute and jumped into the front passenger seat.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked, putting his keys into the ignition.

I turned to him; his eyebrows pulled together with worry. A look I had become familiar with.

"I've never wanted anything more. I've got the job close by, I can pay the rent for a couple months," I paused, looking at Emmett. "You and I both know that I need this."

He nodded his head, turning on the car completely.

"You do need this," he smiled. "I can't believe you've lived with a single bed for this long," he said laughing, which made me laugh in return.

Emmett has this infectious laugh that could make a room full of people smile.

Emmett had been my next-door neighbour since we were toddlers. Emmett is almost double the size of me in width and height, with dark skin, dark eyes and hair shaved into a buzz cut. Being a rugby player, his body was lean with muscle and the mere sight of him would scare any stranger, but his heart was gold. His mother, five sisters and himself were more of a family to me than my own family. Without them, I don't know where I would be today.

Emmett was a year older than me which meant he started school earlier and finished school before me. When Emmett graduated, he was offered a scholarship to play rugby union with one of the best universities some distance away from home. So, he and two other of his friends from university decided to rent out a place together and that's where he had been all year. A couple months after I graduated, he extended the invitation to me, and that had been the plan ever since. Now, a year later, here we are, driving to the new place.

"When do you start work up here?" He asked.

"On Tuesday. I'm excited," I said with genuine excitement.

When Emmett asked if I wanted to live with them, I said yes immediately, but I needed a plan. The first thing I did was look for jobs available and thankfully found a job I loved quite quickly. I would be working as a bartender at a bar called the Bar. The only thing I was missing out on was my own car.

"Are you sure you're ready?"

"When am I not?" I joked, nervously picking at my dark maroon nails, but I could sense his unease.

"I'm fine, really." I looked towards him; his eyes glued to the road.

"Okay," he said with certainty. "You just worry me sometimes."

"I worry you all the time," I laughed and watched as his firm mouth tipped slightly at the edges.

I let my hand hang out of the window, making waved in the wind with my hand and dozed off hallway through the trip.

"Wake up!" Emmett shoved my arm hard, forcing me into the door.

"Ow, you bastard!" I shoved him back.

"Don't. Hit. The. Driver!" He said in between each hit. He laughed, fending me off with one arm.

"Why'd you wake me?" I was annoyed. My heart was racing from being abruptly awoken from my nap.

"We're almost there."

"How long was I out?"

"Almost a decade! You've left me kind of lonesome in here," he stated with his lips puckered which made me laugh.

"I'm sure you managed."

"Barely."

He rounded a corner and began slowing the car down, my eyes dragging around the scenery. The house was in the heart of the area, everything that one could need was a couple blocks away.

"There!" Emmett pointed at the house.

It had a four-step brown porch rising to the house and running across the front. The brown brick of the one-story house looked strange against the white outline on the windows, but nevertheless it was beautiful.

Emmett pulled up into a small parking lot next to the house and parked next to two unfamiliar cars in the parking lot, which reminded me that I needed to find a car soon.

Emmett had already unbuckled his seatbelt and jumped down from the car, heading towards the back to retrieve my belongings. His smile was broad which made me smile in return. I could feel an excitement radiating off of him as I grabbed the two closes boxes towards me.

"Come on, it's going to be fun with you around." He nudged my shoulder softly, careful not the knock over his tower of boxes.

I followed him up the steps and had to put the boxes down to open the door, but other than that we made it inside with ease.

"You know you could have just kicked the door down," I laughed making him laugh too.

Emmett put the boxes down on the floor and I followed pursuit.

"Hey, Zac!" Emmett practically shouted. I looked at Emmett to see who he was looking at only to follow his eyes to a person in front of us.

He was attractive. Very attractive. His face was angular with those type of features that were meant for magazines or posters. With high cheekbones and a layer of dark stubble, he looked like he was in his early twenties. His skin was tanned, and his brown hair fell down in soft waves on his forehead. It looked soft to touch.

He was standing there holding a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, wearing grey sweatpants and a loose white t-shirt that couldn't conceal his broad shoulders.

I looked away quickly.

Zac dropped his spoon in his bowl when he looked back at me. His eyes travelled down my body like he was assessing me, and I resisted the urge to turn a full three-sixty for him.

Not that there is a lot to assess.

I knew I was good looking, but I wouldn't say I was attractive. I'm short with more curves than I needed, with un-tameable dark brown long curls and beady dark brown eyes to match. There was nothing special about me. I was the girl next door - your brothers' best friend. If it weren't for my curves kicking in and the slight cleavage I possessed, I would never have been noticed by any guy.

"Did you just wake up?" Emmett said with a smile on his face.

"Yep," He smiled, and I swear I almost lost my balance. "I probably would have still been asleep if I wasn't so God damn hungry!"

Emmett laughed, and I watched him laugh with the same adoring appreciation. He had this throaty laugh that was so infectious that I couldn't help but smile myself.

Emmett looked down at me with the faint remain of a smile, "Ali, this is Zac." He looked between us. "Zac, this is Ali."

"Ah! Fresh meat." Zac nodded and spooned some serial into his mouth.

"Nothing like you've ever tasted," I laughed, awkwardly.

Zac spurted his milk out of his mouth and began to cough, milk dribbled down his chin as he tried to contain a smile.

"You okay?" Emmett asked with concern in his voice and smile on his face.

"Yeah, just wrong pipe," he laughed.

"Is this all your stuff?" Zac asked after a moment of laugh-coughing. One of his eyebrows raised waiting for my response- I wish I could do that.

"There's some more in the car," Emmett spoke first.

"Okay, let's go get it," Zac spoke cheerfully. He placed his bowel onto the island in the kitchen and I followed pursuit out the door to the car to retrieve more boxes. Two trips later and all the boxes were placed on the floor of my new room.

Emmett had told me that this house was very symmetrical. When you walk in through the front door, the kitchen sat to the right and the dining room was to the left. Our bedrooms were all connected together in a 'U' shaped corridor that shaped around the back of the house, each of our bedrooms were located at each corner and in the centre of the 'U' was the living room. Towards the back strip of the corridor was the laundry room along with some linen closets. My room was to the front right of the corridor, only a wall away from the kitchen. I was grateful to have this room because Emmett's room was only down the corridor from me, a bathroom in between.

My bedroom was beautiful. There was a white four posted bed with a queen-sized mattress that sat directly in the middle of the large room, along with a white bedside table. The large window to the left were concealed in floral drapes and there were doors infused into the wall on my left, indicating a wardrobe. The walls were a white cream colour and the floor was hard wood, it was a strange mix but for some reason, it made the room look welcoming.

I loved it.

"I told you it was a nice room," Emmett said from behind me.

"There's a lot of room," I said, looking from the boxes on the floor dispersed across the wide-open space, it was probably double the size of my last room.

Emmett nodded in agreement. "Okay, let's start on the bed sheets." He began searching for the box with my bedding items in it and we got to work.

He took one side of the bed while I took the other, trying to push down the sides of the tight sheet, but Emmett was struggling.

"Push it down that way," I said. "No- the other way- stop!" I laughed as Emmett lost hold of the sheet and the two top sides sprang back.

"You're hopeless," I laughed making him laugh in return.

After another minute of getting a sheet and my maroon doona cover and pillows on the bed we were complete. It felt more like home with my familiar doona cover, but not entirely. I still felt like an outsider.

"It will feel more like home soon, Ali," Emmett spoke. I swear, sometimes he can read my mind.

"How did you know I was thinking that?"

"Because I thought that when I first got here," he smiled. "I mean, the guys are great, and I get along with them well, but it was different to home."

I smiled up at him. Home for me wasn't really home. I was so grateful to get away when I had the opportunity, if anything I just feel like an intruder.

"I just feel like an intruder," I spoke my thoughts. I was so dependent on Emmett for everything.

"Hopefully, you won't feel like that for long," he smiled a goofy smile and opened his large arms open to me and I allowed him to engulf me into his arms.

A knock on the door pulled us apart.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," Zac smiled a half smile, but his eyes held no humour when he said it.

"Nothing at all, what's up?" Emmett replied.

"I've just had the greatest idea in human history," Zac said as he walked into my new room. He sat on my bed kicking his feet up and laying back onto the poster of the bed. He slowly rested his arms behind his head as he looked between Emmett and I standing at the foot. Seeing him on my bed gave me dark thoughts, and I smiled to myself, brushing the thoughts aside quickly.

"Is that a rare occasion?" I laughed, making Emmett chuckle.

Zac licked his lips before responding with a smile soon stretching on his mouth, my eyes were keeping focus on his lips.

"We're going to the Garden of Eden tonight," Zac said as if a matter of factly. He puckered his lips and looked at the both of us for a response and nodding his head enthusiastically.

"What's the Garden of Eden?" I asked, making Zac sit up on my bed.

"It is the place of Gods' creation," he said with the straightest face humanly possible.

"Is he over-exaggerating?" I asked, looking at Emmett.

"Only slightly," Emmett smiled.

"We are going, Emmett! Or so help me God I will drag your black ass to kingdom come," Zac declared making Emmett holler out a laugh.

"We have to see with Burney," Emmett spoke between laughing. "But you have to stop with the biblical references, dude it's old."

"Amen," Zac crossed his heart in response.

"OH, MY GOODNESS!" A voice from the other room screamed, then followed the sound of a door closing.

Zac and Emmett looked at each other and spoke in unison, "Burney."