Braxton House
"I'm sure Kyle was just having a bad day, or even a bad week. It can't have been easy on him when Victoria broke up with him." Ricky says after Brax explained everything from that morning.
"How can you make any sense of his behaviour?" Brax asks.
"I'm not saying it makes sense, there's just probably a logical reason as to why he's been acting the way he has. I think a good place to start would be you both sitting down and talking about it properly so you can work through it." Ricky says.
"You don't think I have been trying to do that to find out why he was ignoring me?"
"Okay, then why don't you first deal with this situation between Phoebe, Casey and Denny?" Ricky suggests. "Just make it known that you won't be accepting behaviour like that towards them when they've done nothing to upset her."
"You know that will be talking to a brick wall, and then she'll probably start being bitchy towards you next?" Brax asks.
"And you don't want her to be horrible to me as well?" Ricky smiles. "But I do get where you're coming from. If we knew her better, we may know what to do, I just don't think there's a best way to approach this right now."
"Well something has to happen. It's like she's trying to drive this family apart and I'm not standing for it." Brax says, trying to think of what he could do when the front door opens, Kyle and Phoebe walking in.
"Hi guys." Ricky smiles, giving Brax a sly nod to do it now.
"We need to talk." Brax says, staring at Phoebe.
"I've just come to get changed and then I'm leaving." Phoebe says, about to walk into the hallway when Brax blocked the entrance.
"I said we need to talk." Brax says a lot firmer.
"About what?" Phoebe asks, staring straight back at him.
"If you've got an issue with us being Kyle's brothers, or even an issue with our partners, you have to deal with it yourself. I don't want to hear from them saying you've been trying to break them up again, or you are really going to regret not leaving the Bay when your stay came to an end weeks ago. I don't care what your issue is with anyone in this family, keep it to yourself or back off. No one is forcing you to stay here." Brax glares, and he could see Ricky in the corner of his eye smiling at him.
"I don't know who the hell you think you are talking to me like that, but you need to mind your own business. If I've got an issue with someone, I'll tell them and I don't give a shit what they think of me for it. And quite frankly, I don't give a shit what you think. If your brothers are so insecure in their own relationships that they've got to go running to you the second someone tells them a few home truths, then maybe it's not their relationship that needs fixing, it's their head." Phoebe retorts, and Kyle could tell she wasn't about to back down no matter what.
"The only thing that I can see that needs fixing is your view on everyone else. Everything around here was great and everyone was happy right up until the day you turned up. And I know for a fact that Kyle and Victoria never would have broken up if it wasn't for you, and I think he can do much better than you. You're a narcissist who doesn't care about the feelings of anyone else. But what I don't understand is why you're trying to break Casey and Denny up. Do you have a thing for Casey, is that it?" Brax laughs.
"You don't know what you're talking about." Phoebe shakes her head as she folds her arms.
"Then what's your problem with them being together?" Brax asks, and he couldn't help but laugh as silence followed. "Did you just get back with Kyle to be close with Casey, knowing he'd never be with a chick like you?"
"Brax, that's not fair." Kyle mutters.
"Why do you want to be with someone like her when she's clearly in love with someone else?" Brax asks his brother, wanting him to be happy and he knew that would never happen with Phoebe.
"It's not like that, is it Phoebe?" Kyle asks her.
"Of course not." Phoebe says. "I'm starting to think your family is trying to turn you against me already."
"How dare you!" Brax snaps, Ricky rushing over to hold him back as Kyle pulls Phoebe away. "You're the one who is tearing this family apart and I won't stand for it. If you don't like how things are around here, then get the fuck out of my house!" He shouts.
"Phoebe, let's just go." Kyle says, hating that she had caused an argument with another one of his brothers, but he put it down to her being stressed over moving to the Bay.
"No, Kyle. And I will not be moving out without you, so let's go pack our stuff up. We're clearly not welcome here." Phoebe says, about to walk to their room when Brax stops her.
"Kyle will always be welcome in this house and he knows it." Brax glares, too wound up to notice Kyle agreeing with him.
"I'm not moving out, I love living here with my brothers." Kyle says.
"I'm not running late for my appointment, we'll be talking about this later." Phoebe says to Kyle before storming out of the house.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know she would get that aggressive towards you." Kyle says to his brother.
"Is she always that demanding?" Brax asks.
"Not all the time. She's had a huge change moving here from Melbourne without much thought, it's just stressing her out." Kyle lightly shrugs.
"Nah, I'm not believing that. Something tells me that's normal for her." Brax says. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" Kyle asks.
"Because your 'girlfriend' is a scheming dog who is breaking this family apart. Did you know Casey and Denny are moving out because she's trying to break them up?"
"They're moving out?" Kyle frowns, having never gotten the message when he saw his brother earlier that morning.
"Yeah, it doesn't look like they'll be staying here very often, if at all." Brax says as Ricky's phone goes off, so she goes outside to answer it. "Listen, I know you've barely spoken to me for a while now, but I want to know now, is Phoebe like that towards you in any way? And you can trust me, I can help you." He says, and Kyle merely stands there before shaking his head.
"She's just having a bad day."
"Why is everyone around here 'just having a bad day'?" Brax groans.
"Huh?" Kyle frowns.
"Nothing. So everything's okay in your relationship? Cause you've not been yourself lately and I'm starting to become worried about you." Brax says.
"You don't need to be, I'm fine. I'm just trying to get used to the fact that things are moving pretty quickly with Phoebe, but everything's okay."
"You know you're not convincing me."
"Well that's unfortunate because I don't have the energy to be convincing you of my honesty or whatever." Kyle shrugs.
"Fine, can you just promise that you're not going to ignore me anymore? We're brothers and I'm starting to feel like you're a stranger now. It shouldn't be like that, not after we didn't know about you for years." Brax says, just wanting Kyle to start trusting him again, even though he wasn't sure why that trust was lost in the first place.
"Sorry if you're feeling like I'm a stranger now, but I'm not. I know I've always got you on my side, I thought you knew that."
"You seem to have changed your attitude from the guy that basically told me to demote you." Brax says.
"Yeah well sometimes you can be really annoying." Kyle lightly smiles. "Don't get me wrong, I like working at Angelo's, but my brother also being my boss isn't the best."
"So you don't think having free food and booze isn't the best? Cause I can stop that perk if you're really not liking it." Brax says, feeling like this was going to be good for them now and he could have one less thing to worry about.
"No, that's the best perk of the job!" Kyle quickly says. "Although Heath still doesn't know about me getting free food and booze, so I think that's best kept between us for a little longer."
"Are you still charging Heath for stuff?" Brax laughs as Kyle nods. "Wait, so that safe in the office that's got his name on is his?"
"Yeah, I wanted to see what all of his money added up to cause he's always in there buying stuff."
"And what're you going to do with that money once you've finished your experiment?"
"I'm not really sure yet. Vic said to save it all up and one day if Heath and Bianca were going to have another kid, to give it back towards the baby." Kyle says, briefly glancing down. "Anyway, I'm going to go for a shower before my shift." He says, walking into the hallway before Brax could say anything else, and his brother could notice how down he looked mentioning his ex.