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Way to go, Mum, why not make me feel like even more of a total loser?
A puzzled frown appeared on his brow. ‘I get an hourly rate for looking after Aldo. That’s it.’
‘Then why did you decide to help me out with Jenkin?’ she asked.
‘Because the guy was a total arsehole.’
The terse explanation should have mollified her, but it didn’t. Especially when he lifted his polo shirt over his head. The sight of his eight-pack stretching enticingly round his outie belly button made all the oxygen suck out of her lungs.
Why does he have to be so freaking hot?
He rubbed his hands through his hair, making the short strands stand up in patches—the haphazard style made him look even sexier, like a model who’d been professionally rumpled for a Hugo Boss ad.
‘Well, just so you know, you didn’t have to intervene. I don’t need a babysitter.’
‘I believe you said that already.’ He had the cheek to sound snotty. ‘To your mum at top volume before she left.’
So he’d heard that, too, had he? The snakes took a greasy turn in her belly. ‘You shouldn’t eavesdrop on conversations that have sod all to do with you.’
‘I was the subject of that conversation. And it’s not like I could fail to hear it the way you were shouting.’
She decided to ignore that and the prickle of shame at the accusation. He knew nothing about her relationship with her mum, so he didn’t get to judge her. Even if he did have bionic hearing.
‘Just for the record, I was handling Jenkin fine on my own.’ Which wasn’t entirely true, but she’d be damned if she’d let him feel any more superior than he already did.
‘Handling that turd was my pleasure. No guy should ever speak to you like that. And if that’s the way your ex treated you—or let his friends treat you—I’m hoping you dumped him from a great height.’
The vote of confidence was so unequivocal and so unexpected, and so unlike the way any of her friends had reacted, her neck got hot. ‘Actually, I did.’
The snakes in her belly slithered smoothly away at his nod of approval. Until all that was left was a slight breathlessness.
‘I don’t suppose you managed to castrate him while you were at it?’ His terse tone was only half joking.
A smile flitted across her lips. ‘I wish.’
‘Me, too.’
‘Trey, why didn’t you come get me?’
Lizzie turned to find Aldo, dripping wet and shuddering, his hands clasped round his shoulders. The accusatory glare he was sending Trey was only slightly weakened by the way his teeth were chattering like castanets.
‘Hey, buddy, I’m really sorry.’ Trey grabbed a towel from the pile on the blanket, but as he dropped it over Aldo’s shoulders, her brother shrugged it off, the glare intensifying.
‘Get off me. You didn’t even tell Lizzie about my somersault, did you?’
Lizzie could see the storm clouds hovering, the prickly shrug a sure sign one of Aldo’s tantrums was fast approaching. The towel dangled from Trey’s fingertips and he let out a heavy sigh, as if bracing himself for the impact.
Lizzie rested her hand on Aldo’s rigid shoulder. ‘Of course he did. I watched you do it. It was great.’ She had less than a moment to contemplate the fact she had actually tried to avert disaster for once, instead of fuelling it, before Aldo turned his glare on her.
‘You’re lying. I know you are. You never watched, because I waited and you never even looked.’
He had her there, but before she could think of a way out of the white lie, Trey knelt, dropping to Aldo’s level. ‘I’m sorry, Aldo. I should have been keeping an eye on you, but that guy was saying mean things to your sister and I wanted to make him stop.’
‘Who cares if he said mean things to her? She always says mean things to me and you never do anything.’
Trey’s chin dropped and he seemed unsure how to react. What could he say? When it was true?
Shame stabbed into Lizzie’s chest. How hard had she made Aldo’s life in the past few years, and Trey’s in the past few months, with the endless sniping and needling?
