My Brothers Best Friend [18+]

Chapter Thirty Five

I am a grown woman. 

Sometimes it's easy to forget that. 

When I turned sixteen I felt twenty and as soon as I turned eighteen I felt seventeen again; once I was an actual adult I realised how young adults really are. 

But I am grown. I have a degree, I have a job, I (usually) live independently. I may not be the most exciting woman in the world but damn it I'm still a woman. 

Matt can smash as many plates as he wants, but that won't change the fact that he doesn't get to make my own decisions for me. He doesn't get to choose who I date or what I do in my free time or when I should convey his very unhinged messages. 

He's unhinged. 

He's fucking insane. 

He thinks he can control any person as long as he pisses them off enough that they follow his every lead. 

Maybe that's why Skye still seems to cling to his presence; she knows that he refuses to let her go because of the late night visits to her bedroom. There's an in, so he can't have fully let her go. Stringing her along like he could do it forever. 

Get out of my fucking hair. 

I need him out of my hair. I need him out of my business and out of my personal space. 

As if trying to talk through our problems is that much of a hindrance to him, he'd rather just invite the girl over who decided to ruin our relationship over a couple of extra hours together. 

"Ugh," I growl, stomping my feet beneath me. 

Noah snorts. 

"Still not ready to share?" 

"He is infuriating," I spit. "And rude, and so- entitled!" 

"Maybe a few more minutes to calm down, then," he teases, stroking my thigh before his hand returns to the steering wheel. 

We've been driving around aimlessly for almost ten minutes and I am yet to calm down. I'm not even trying to calm down - if anything, I'm replaying the conversation with Matt over and over in my head and cursing the very day he was born. That's calming. 

Calming would be Matt being rightfully upset that we'd kept it from him, but deciding to be a grown up and not trash the kitchen. 

There are not enough insulting words in the world to even begin describing his outburst. How is my older brother still the child in our family? The man is an accountant and he can't even settle an argument without smashing a plate.

The window opens a dash when I accidentally lean my elbow on it, a sudden burst of cold air shooting into the car. I jolt in my seat, Noah's hand returning to my thigh once more. 

"He is a child," I finally murmur once the window is closed again. "A big man child who you wound up." 

Noah just says, "he was already wound up." Which is true, really. But still. 

"You made him worse."  

"He was going to get worse anyway, love. There's literally nothing we could've said to save him wrecking the place- he'd already decided how the conversation was going to go. I'm not going to beg him to forgive me if he's not in the mindset to listen." 

"So you'd rather just piss him off more?" I laugh. 

"Makes me feel better," he winks. "We're almost here." 

I look around, recognising nothing of the street around us. Red brick residential houses tower over us at either side, the road seeming too small to fit two lanes, yet no traffic comes towards us.