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  And he’d had eleven interviews and eleven other parents had decided against him, despite glowing references. How likely was it that his gender had a lot to do with that decision?

  “Reece stays on the list until there’s a reason other than his sex to take him off, or another candidate does better.”

  “Them’s fightin’ words, Aud,” said Joe.

  Merrill shoved plastic containers in a plastic bag ready to throw out. “Are you sure?”

  She shrugged. No, not sure, but Reece had so far given her no reason to distrust him, and keeping him on the list wasn’t a big deal. “Joe really says merry hell?”

  “He really does.” Merrill looked at Joe with such fondness, Audrey suspected he’d be saying it tonight. “He’s going to make the best dad, after he learns about paper towels.”

  Joe furrowed his brow in pretend annoyance. “Hey, a guy in the throes of passion can’t be held accountable for what he says.”

  Merrill tied a knot in the top of the plastic bag. “Or what he licks.”

  Audrey laughed. “Oh, too much.”

  “Okay, I’ll never lick the microwave turntable again, but it was good gravy.”

  Merrill considered that. “I’ll forgive you. I’ll never mention it again and I’ll let you leave off the raincoat if you admit you cried during The Notebook.”

  “No fair.” Joe made a production out of sighing. He looked at Audrey. “The things a man has to do for merry hell.”

  Merrill came around the table and slung her arm over Audrey’s shoulder. All the better to gang up on Joe.

  He looked at them, shook his head and closed his eyes. “Okay, okay, I cried.”

  They hooted so loudly Audrey thought they’d probably woken Mia. She braced for a little voice from down the hall and Joe said, “Well I did, it was a bloody sad movie.”

  5: Family Affair

  “But why?”

  Reece grinned at Flip across the kitchen counter. “Because I asked you to.”

  “But why?”

  He knew she could keep this up all day. It was a being ten years old thing. He had to be strategic about catching her out. “Because this is another job interview and I really want this job.”

  “But why?”

  Beside Flip at the breakfast counter, Etta rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Reece, why are you letting her do this?”

  “Because I’m going to win, and do you have to swear?”

  “That wasn’t swearing,” said Etta. Sixteen was the age at which knowing how to swear like a builder’s labourer and take the Lord’s name in vain was important. But if Etta did it Flip would, and Flip was a ten year old. No way. But it was another battle he had to pick.

  Flip said, “But why?”

  “Because you love me, Flipper, and you’d do anything for me.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Flip said, then her eyes popped and she head butted the counter. “Ooh!”

  Reece lifted his palm to Etta and got a no enthusiasm high five. Etta kept her eyes on her phone screen and dangled her hand off her wrist like a limp fish.

  “Hah, that was too easy, Flipper.”

  Flip sat and pouted. “Oooh. I don’t want to come with you.”

  “You don’t want an afternoon at the beach watching Sky’s volleyball. I guess there are jobs you can do around the house instead.”

  “All right, I’ll go, but only if everyone does.”

  Etta typed something on her screen. “I’m not going.”

  Great. He needed Etta to watch Flip while he was talking to Audrey. “Ett, please. If you love me...”

  She didn’t look up. “I don’t love you.”

  “You know how you need someone to teach you how to drive and Mum said in your dreams...”

  Now she looked up. “You dick, you’d welch?”

  He grinned at her. “Yeah, no tactic too low.”

  “You stink.”

  “That’s because I used your moisturiser.”

  Flip giggled and Etta opened her mouth to complain but Neeva slipped in behind her and put her hand over Etta’s mouth. “Shut up about it. If he gets this job it’s a sleepover.”

  Etta’s eyes widened and she shook Neeva’s hand off. Not easy. Neev loved a good wrestle.

  He‘d expected this. It was time to move out for good. But the whole Sky thing was complicated. “Oh, no. No girl germs in my bedroom.”

  Neeva popped onto the stool next to Etta. “You won’t even know about it.”

  “Like I won’t know by the knickers and wet towels Gin would leave on the floor.”

  “That’s true. Gin is such a slob,” said Flip, with all the wisdom of someone who’d had to pick up after Gin as punishment far too often.

  “Anyway, I have to actually get this job for that to even be an option.”

  “Mum said she’d give you a reference,” said Neeva.

  He groaned. “You can’t have your mother give you a job reference when you’re twenty-seven.”

  “But why?” said Flip, and the rest of them groaned.

  Neev popped Flip on the back of the head. “Dork.”

  Flip held her hands out in front. “No, seriously, why can’t your mum give you a reference?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” he said to anyone who was still listening.

  Etta put her phone down on the counter. “So how come you need us to be at this interview and how come it’s at the beach?”

  “This is a play date so we can suss each other out. I want Audrey to see I’m a good guy with a loving family. So she can picture me fitting into her family.”

  “That’s hella creepy,” said Neev.

  “It’s whacked. I didn’t have to take my family to my job interview at Macca’s,” Etta said.

  Neev put her head on Etta’s shoulder. “But you’re going to get me a job there when I’m old enough, right?” Etta flicked her shoulder and bounced Neev’s head off. “Ow.”

  “Looking after a kid isn’t like serving a burger.” Working for Ronald didn’t get you out of bed several times a night, didn’t ruin your ambitions for a love-life, despite the crap uniform and the smell.

  A blue light flashed on Etta’s phone and she picked it up. “Have you ever actually served a burger?”

  “No, Ett, but you never changed a nappy either. That was all on me.”

  Flip leaned over the counter and grabbed his wrist in a sudden panic. “If you tell that Audrey Hepburn woman you changed my nappies, I’ll call you Flop in front of her.”

  He peeled her little claws off. “I won’t tell her.”

  “What if we wreck it for you?” said Neev. “We should leave Gin at home.”

  Reece grunted. “There is that. But you won’t, because you’re my family and you love me.”

  All three of them put index fingers to open mouths and made gagging sounds that could probably be heard next door. “Classy.”

  Neev said, “We might not be able to help ourselves. We’re like all powerful wreckers of things.”

  Reece looked at the screen of his own phone in case there was any last minute text from Audrey. “Try to hold back for an hour.”

  “Might not be possible. Gin and me, we have self-control issues,” said Neev.

  He pocketed the phone. “I’ll give you self-control issues.”

  “No, you’ll give one of us your bedroom on the nights you sleep over,” said Etta.

  Neev and Etta high fived. Full on enthusiasm. The twins shared a room and so did Etta and Flip. Getting their grubby bums in his bed had been part of their scheming since he moved back home and Etta’d had to shift back in with Flip. She still carried a grudge about it.

  “That’s not even an option.”

  Etta took a photo of him. “But why?” She showed it to Neev and they both laughed.

  He made a grab for the phone and missed. “Don’t fricking post that anywhere. When I move out, you toss a coin for who gets my room.”

  “Mum says she wants to turn it into an office,” said Flip.<
br />
  Etta posted the pic. She turned her phone to show him. It was mostly shirt and chin. “You’re never moving out. Like never. You’re too old to live at home. And you’re not even ashamed about it.”

  This time he snatched the phone. The caption said, ‘What kind of dweeb lives at home at twenty-seven? My brother, the loser.’ If he deleted it, she’d only do something worse. For a whole month she’d tried to take shots of him in the shower. She was after dick shots for some Tumblr site called dicks for girls, that he was not cool enough for and was appalled she knew about. He’d foiled her by wearing his Speedos.

  “Why can’t you live with Sky like a regular boyfriend?” she said.

  “Why can’t you mind your own business?” he said. So lame.

  “But why?” said Flip.

  Neev bopped her on the head again.

  Etta took her phone out of his hand. “You making us come to your interview is putting us in your business.”

  He hung his head, a play for sympathy. “I can’t believe I actually need you guys and you’re making it so hard on me.”

  “You’d fall down dead if we made anything easy for you,” said Neev.

  “That’s true.”

  “Why don’t you live with Sky?” Neev prodded. “You like, love her and stuff.”

  If only it was that easy. Sky was tired of waiting for him to commit to moving in. But if he did, it was... jeez, it was too hard. “Why live with one woman when I can clean up after five?”

  Neev mimed fat old man. “Ho, ho, ho.”

  Etta smirked.

  Flip said, ”What’s a wet dream?” and everything got very quiet, horror movie before the stupid blonde chick goes out where she was going to get killed quiet. “It doesn’t have anything to do with mermaids, does it?”

  Reece groaned. “Nothing to do with fish or the ocean. Etta will tell you.” Let’s see how dicks for girls girl cuts it on that.

  Etta shook her head and glared at him. “No, I won’t. You want me to come to your weirdo job interview you explain it.”

  “She’s ten, Etta.” He looked at Flip, looking at him. How the stuff did they get here?

  “I’ll tell her,” said Neev.

  “You’re thirteen, how do you even know?”

  “I’m fourteen and I can read.”

  “Somebody tell me,” said Flip. “Is it just for boys?”

  The three of them looked at him with eyes that could probably tell he wore blue undies and at the same time would be grossed out to learn he did. He was thinking of a way out of this when Flip whispered, “Is there blood?”

  Ah, shit, one of them had been telling her stories. Etta kept her eyes on her screen and Neev made a detailed study of a tea stain on the counter. Which meant it was probably Gin. The whole menstruation thing was Mum’s gig, but you couldn’t live with five women and not become more expert than your average guy about the curse, and Flip was worried.

  “No, Flipper, there’s no blood. It’s not about that. It’s something that happens, mostly to boys and it doesn’t hurt.”

  “They wet the bed, don’t they?” She wouldn’t look at him.

  “Not exactly. It’s not piss.”

  Neev giggled. Etta said, “Don’t get into me about swearing.”

  Flip’s face was bright red. “You don’t have to tell me.” But he could see she was imagining all sorts of shit. Did he even want to know what Gin had told her?

  “You know how boys have sperm,” he managed to say without going falsetto. She nodded.

  Neev said. “Gross,” and Etta snickered.

  “Sometimes when they’re asleep some might come out.” If he used the word ejaculate, that’d only bring more carry-on and he’d be here all day explaining. There wasn’t enough embarrassment in the world for that.

  Flip’s face was pink. All the girls were like Mum, pale, blonde and skinny with brown eyes, where his hair was so dark it was almost black and his eyes were green, but there was something about the shape of Flip’s face that made them at least look like they might be related, and he could still occasionally blush exactly like she did.

  “Out of where?” she whispered.

  “Of their wang,” said Etta.

  Neev shrieked and slapped her hands over her mouth and Flip’s face turned scarlet. Reece thought she might cry. “Jesus, Etta.”

  “Jesus, Reece.”

  Neev flung her arms over her head, twinkled her fingers. “Jesus loves you.”

  He palmed his face. “Jesus says you have half an hour to get ready to go.”

  They scattered, because no McGovern girl ever went to the beach without slathering herself in sun cream, even in winter, because a freckle was death. He still had one McGovern girl to check on.

  Gin was sitting on the back step. She’d have been able to hear them, but she’d made no move to join them or get ready. She was having one of her bad days, which meant she either came so he could keep an eye on her or Etta would need to stay home with her.

  “Hey buddy. Is it bad?”

  Gin looked up from her ereader and nodded. “My chest is really tight.” Her puffer was on the step beside her so he knew she’d used it, but she wasn’t tense and her shoulders weren’t around her ears.

  “Give me a number?” The number system and his familiarity managing Gin’s asthma was what helped him get the job with the Flannery’s.

  “I dunno. It’s just tight.”

  She wasn’t wheezing. He looked at her closely. Her lips were pink. “There’s ice cream at the beach.”

  She shrugged. He let that sit for a minute. “What did you tell Flipper about wet dreams?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Probably not. But you freaked her out. Don’t freak your baby sister out. It’s cruel.”

  “Etta freaked Neev and me out all the time.”

  “Yeah, all the time.” Neev sat on the step above. They were three wise monkeys with Gin on the bottom, Reece in the middle and not much wisdom between them. “Remember when she told us you could get pregnant if you wore thin undies and sat where a boy sat.”

  Gin nodded. “We used to wear double undies.”

  “Oh man.” Reece slapped his hand on the stair railing. “That’s why there was always so much extra washing.” The twins giggled. “You know that’s not what happens.”

  “We know,” said Gin. “Please don’t be embarrassing and explain how babies get made.”

  “Ask Mum anything like that, not Etta. She can’t be trusted.”

  Neev yelled, “Etta. Etta.”

  From inside the house came an angry, “What”

  “Reece says you can’t be trusted.”

  “Shut up.”

  He stood up and yelled. “Reece says car in ten minutes.” He looked at Gin. “Coming?”

  Neev reached past him and stroked Gin’s ponytail and Gin nodded, twin magic at work. He hustled them up the stairs and locked the door. Then it was out the front door, car, cruise the beachfront looking for a park and then they all had an ice cream before walking to the end of the beach where the kid’s play gym and the volleyball courts were. They were early, which was the plan. He didn’t need late as a strike against him, especially as Audrey had made this a test by asking him to pick the meeting place.

  Sky was already playing a game, but she blew kisses. Polly was waiting. They clasped hands while the girls climbed the sandstone retaining wall to watch the game.

  “Kiddy fiddler,” Polly said while they were hand in hand, elbow to elbow.

  Polly went to pull away and Reece held him. “Shit. Don’t even joke about it.” He didn’t feel so oversize with Polly, they were matched in height at least, but like Sky, Polly thought he should be doing something else with his life. Unlike Sky, Polly had a reason to be annoyed Reece choose child care over building houses. It was Pollidore Home Building Services that he did labouring jobs for, and Polly’s dream that together they’d take over from his dad.

  He jerked Polly a little closer a
nd said, “Fuckwit,” low and hard in his ear. They stood in the middle of the main promenade walkway, a tight spot of dark menace in the sunshine, while skateboarders and kids on scooters, weekend dads with prams and dog walkers moved around them, but Reece wasn’t letting Polly go till the guy eyeballed him and he knew that joke was never being made again.

  He saw it; contrition, grudging acceptance, centre in Polly’s dark eyes. “All right, Mary Poppins.”

  He relaxed his grip. “Watch where I put my umbrella.”

  “More worried about what’s in your carpetbag.” Polly pulled away. Etta was ogling them. She couldn’t have had her face in her phone now? This was supposed to be a good idea, a way for Audrey to connect with him as a responsible person with a loving family and respectable friends. He had a feeling he’d buggered this.

  Worst case he could pretend he didn’t know them.

  Polly sat beside Etta on the sandstone wall. “Wazzup, homie?”

  “Skive off, old.”

  Polly scoffed, “Old.”

  Reece laughed and leaned against the wall next to Polly.

  “Only an old man would call me homie,” said Etta

  “And the skive off thing, what’s that about?” said Polly.

  “Reece has elephant ears and he doesn’t want me to swear even though he does. He’s like Double Standard Dude. He should have a cape and tights.”

  Reece grunted and exchanged an eye-roll with Polly. Etta and Polly were like a game of dodgeball. Until she turned sixteen Etta had idolised Polly, but sixteen was a whole new bag of mess and now she was either in love with him or hated the guy’s guts. At sixteen, life had handed him baby formula and nappy rash ointment. Reece had no idea what was going on with Etta, but she thrived off verbally smacking Polly every time she saw him. Polly rolled with it. Reece had been glad to hand over parenting to Charlie where Etta was concerned.

  “Since when do you do what Reece says, homie?” said Polly.

  “Hah, this’ll be interesting.”

  “Since we’re on Double Standard Dude’s family and friend’s job interview.”

  In front of them the lead of a small white yappy dog got caught under the wheel of a stroller. Reece went for the dog, while Polly lifted the stroller. They untangled dog, owner, stroller, screaming babe and harassed mum and went back to their places on the wall. Whole thing took less than a minute.