I want to punch him, so I retreat upstairs with Esme and put her down for a nap in the cot that’s already migrated to my bedroom. For her sake, not his. Though, I’d give my brother my bed in a heartbeat. My whole house and everything in it.
I’d give him my patience if I had any.
Newsflash: I don’t.
I get in his face the second I’m back downstairs. “Fucking tell me.”
“She’s been knocking off that dickhead from the gym.”
I search my brain for anyone and everyone Sab’s complained about. It’s a short list. My brother’s a nice bloke—nicer thanme—and one name sticks out. “Dwaine? With the disco pump arms?”
“That’s the prick. She’s been banging him for two years.”
Two years.I do the maths and my stomach drops. “That’s longer than you’ve been together.”
“Yup.”
“But…” I glance at the ceiling.
Sab grimaces. “Yup. But it’s okay. I checked. She’s mine.”
“How did you check?”
“DNA test when Char was “at her mum’s” for the night. I felt fucking unhinged when I was doing it, but it was okay in the end.”
My heart retreats from the wild gallop it leaned into while I contemplated losing Esme.Sablosing Esme. “That’s?—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sab growls. “She’s my kid, and I wouldn’t have cared if the test had said any different.”
I don’tdoubt him. Not for one second. But I’m not naïve enough to believe it would’ve been that easy. Nothing ever is. “What are you going to do?”
Sab lapses into muttering in French. I give him the mental space to do it, all the while knowing I won’t leave his side, andof course, it’s the moment I hear Bhodi’s car pull up outside.
Rudy hears him too. He likes Bhodi and he goes to the door to whine and wait on the mat, assuming Bhodi will at least knock to say hello.
But I know he won’t. Sab’s van will put him off, and a wrench twists my stomach.
I miss him, I realise. At some point over the past month or so, he’s become a non-negotiable in my life.And we’ve barely kissed.Because we’refriends.
“That the hot lodger?”
I retune to find Sab has hauled his spurned self off the couch and moved to the window, and it annoys me that he can see Bhodi and I can’t. “Mind your own business.”
Sab swivels to face me. “You’re banging him, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” I rise and drag Sab from the window. “How did you leave things with Charmaine?”
“I punched her fancy man. She called me a closet bender.”
“Why would she say that?”
Sab sighs. “Because I told her once upon a time that I’d happily fuck a bloke if I ever met one that turned my head. I was drunk, and I forgot about it. She used it as an excuse to go running back to Captain Roid. Then she got knocked up and knew it was mine, so…I guess she only stayed with me because of Esme.”
“That’s the only reason you stayed withher.”
