‘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 middle.’
‘It’s a problem, if you’re coming between them.’
‘Excuse me?’ She was planning on coming with them, if he ever let her out of the room. Whether that was while she was in the middle or some other place wasn’t really important.
Chris blocked the exit with his body.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, what is your damage?’ Kara blurted, getting in his face, despite being a foot shorter.
‘Were they lovers before you came along?’
What! What the hell did that have to do with anything? ‘Yeah.’
‘I can’t believe you’d do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Sabotage an existing relationship. What are you doing, trying to make them less gay?’
‘Fuck you. You’re talking out of your arse, Christopher North. You don’t know a damn thing about either of them. That’s some assumption you’re making. For starters neither of them is gay. They both like men and women. Ric’s been married before. Just because you have a narrow view of the world doesn’t mean everyone else has.’
‘I have a narrow view…’ He spluttered inarticulately. ‘Babe, you’re either deluded or just a complete fucking idiot. Straight guys don’t muck around with one another’s dicks.’
‘I never said they were straight.’
‘Kara, trust me, there is no middle ground. It’s one or the other. You’re obviously a crutch with which they’re clinging to normalcy.’
‘Fuck you,’ she spat. She darted underneath his arm and sprinted across the landing. Chris followed, but she slammed the bedroom door in his face and slid the bolt.
He hammered against the wood. ‘You’re making an enormous mistake, Kara. I thought you might have grown some sense since you left dickbrain, but you’re being just as stupid as ever.’
‘Fuck off, Chris.’
‘It’s my house,’ he repeated, but after a moment, he stopped banging and she heard him stomp down the stairs.
Kara turned her back to the door and closed her eyes. Shit! What was his problem? He’d never been like this with her before. Chris normally took people as they came. She was sure he had friends who swung both ways. It wasn’t as if the concept was alien to him. So why was he trying to suggest she was some sort of interloping queen bitch? Christ, the only reason Ric had agreed to deepen things between himself and Zach was because she was around too.
‘Problem?’ Zach asked.
Kara rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. Her two lovers were sitting side by side on the bed, extremely naked.
‘He’s come home with a stick up his arse. He’s not normally like this.’
Chris was usually the one member of her family she could rely on not to be an utter prick. He’d been the one to support her and offer her refuge when she’d cancelled her wedding at the last moment, while everyone else was banging on about her having made the biggest mistake of her life.
‘Where’s he been?’ Ric rose from the bed, still eager for action if the wood he was sporting was anything to go by. Curiously, he headed over to the camera to turn it off, rather than towards her.
‘New Zealand.’
‘It’s a long flight. Maybe he’s jet-lagged.’
‘Maybe.’