once he’d considered where Ric’s hand had just been.
‘Um,’ he grunted, looking startlingly uncomfortable. ‘And that?’ He stared pointedly at Zach, on the bed.
‘That’s Zach.’ Kara glanced back at him regretfully. It rather looked as if the night of fun they’d had planned was now off. ‘He owns the Bunker. I mean Blackwater’s. It’s the restaurant at the head of the causeway, next to where you parked up.’
She assumed he’d arrived by car.
‘Nice to meet you, Kara’s brother.’ Zach offered a cheery wave.
‘Yeah, you too.’ Chris’ facial expression didn’t match his polite agreement.
Oh, lord, this was excruciating. The only thing that could possibly make it worse would be if her mother turned up…or Ric’s stalker…or his dead wife…OK, actually, there were quite a few ways things could go downhill from here, but that didn’t make this any less awkward.
Chris grabbed hold of her upper arm and turned her towards the bedroom door. ‘Kara, a word, please.’
‘I was kind of in the middle of something.’
He glared at her. ‘Not funny.’
She hadn’t meant it to be.
Oh, Christ! This was going to be ugly.
Chris guided her onto the landing, and pulled the bedroom door closed behind them. Then, clearly having decided they were within earshot of her guests, he ushered her into the squat bathroom.
‘When did you get back to England?’ Kara asked pre-emptively, sidetracking his inevitable rant.
‘What?’ Chris floundered. ‘Oh, about four hours ago. I collected the car from the airport and drove straight here.’
Kara refastened the belt of her dressing gown so that it concealed her body a little better. ‘You didn’t stop to see Richard? Aren’t you lovebirds anymore?’
‘It’s complicated. Look, Kara. Stop it. Never mind about Richard. What the fuck is going on with you? Seriously, explain it to me. I left you to housesit because you needed a place to crawl out from under Gavin Covey’s thumb and hide from Mum, but I come home to find you gangbanging my neighbours…’
‘It’s hardly a gangbang.’
‘It’s hardly what I expect to find my sister doing. I thought you’d be camped out in front of the TV, not recording porn.’
‘So, you’ve unrealistic expectations. That’s hardly my fault.’
Chris rubbed at the more than five o’clock stubble around his jaw. ‘What the hell has got into you? Are you putting that stuff on the internet?’
‘No! Uh…’
She raised her palms, fingers spread wide. In the past, she’d have squirmed and wriggled, but if her time on Liddell Island with Ric and Zach had taught her anything, it was that she didn’t owe anyone an explanation about how she chose to live her life. What she did in privacy, or otherwise, was her concern and hers alone, even if her cheeks were currently flaming.
‘The camera’s just for fun.’ Ric’s predominantly.
Judging by the puce tint to Chris’s face and the twin furrows wrinkling up his forehead, her brother believed otherwise.
‘Seriously, Kara, what the fuck are you doing?’
She sighed, lifting her shoulders at the same time. How many times was he going to berate her with the same question?
‘I was having the time of my life until you walked in. If you’re intending to turn this into a lecture, then you can fuck off back to the airport, because I’m not listening to it.’
‘This is my house, remember. That’s my bed you’re –’ he made a goldfish face as he strove to find the appropriate word to describe the activity ‘– that you’re doing whatever it was that you were doing.’
‘Shagging my boyfriends,’ she helpfully supplied. ‘And yes, they are that and not random strays I picked up on the beach.’
Chris caught a few more flies. ‘Does Mum know?’
‘Does she know you’re gay?’ Kara countered. Chris had jumped out of the closet at age fifteen, loud, catty and über-proud, but while most of the family had shrugged and accepted his revelation as no big deal, their mother had point-blank refused to accept reality.
To this day, she insisted that Richard, Chris’s on-off lover, was nothing more than a housemate. Moreover, she explained away Chris’s lack of romantic attachments as him being career focused.
Frankly, their mother was a bigoted dinosaur, which made her hard to love. Kara had rather enjoyed not having her breathing down her neck for the last nine months.
‘Anyway, why are you acting as if me dating Ric and Zach is some major surprise? I mentioned them in my emails, or didn’t you read those?’
‘I assumed you were bored and horny,’ he said scratching at his stubble growth. ‘I had no idea that you were for real.’
‘Well, I wasn’t bored. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying myself. I’m working for Ric, and I help Zach in the restaurant, so I’m pretty certain they’re not figments of my imagination. I’d have starved by now if they were. Nor would you have me squashed in here making such an enormous scene about nothing.’
‘I’m not making a scene,’ he protested, scrunching his face into a scowl. ‘I’m establishing facts. I’m concerned.’
‘That’s sweet of you.’ She patted his arm, faking gratitude. ‘However, now you’ve established them, can I get back to what I was doing?’
Chris’s jaw damn near hit the basin. ‘You’re…you’re intending to go back in there?’
‘Well, I’m certainly not intending to spend the rest of the evening hiding in here with you. I’ll try not to squeal too loudly if that’ll help. Make yourself at home. There’s plenty of food in the cupboard. No beer, I’m afraid, but there is a demijohn of cider in the porch, should you fancy putting some hairs on your chest.’
Given that Chris normally waxed every speck of hair from his body, she doubted it, which was probably a good thing, since the only thing worse than an overprotective baby brother was a drunk, overprotective baby brother.
After he’d managed to close his mouth, Chris glared at her, nostrils flaring. He wasn’t happy. Kara sighed, already anticipating another screech of ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ only for the screech of bed springs to turn both their heads back towards the bedroom.
‘They’re getting it on without you.’ Chris growled, turning the remark into an accusation.
‘So?’ Kara lifted her shoulders. Given her brother’s preference for loving other men, she couldn’t see why Zach and Ric making out would render him bug-eyed. ‘What’s the problem? We were having a threesome. It wasn’t all about me being in the
