Lingerie Wars (Invertary 1)

Betty made a choking sound from her armchair by the changing room, as Lake felt his stomach sink.

“What do you

think?” Rainne said. “Should we talk to Caroline about making this an annual thing?”

Betty gave Lake a look. He could practically hear her think. As much as she liked to torture Rainne, Betty didn’t approve of stringing people along. She’d made that clear every time she nagged him about the shop. Lake rubbed his hand over his chin. The hopeful look on Rainne’s face made him want to run.

“Look, Rainne,” he said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

The last thing he wanted was to hurt his sister, but this couldn’t go on. He didn’t want to run a lingerie shop and she wasn’t capable of doing it.

The bell above the door rang and he turned to see his parents. Perfect timing as usual. Betty gave them the evil eye, but even that didn’t boost his mood.

“Eric, Joyce!” Rainne bounded over to them like a big puppy.

There were hugs all around. But not for Lake.

“There’s a lot of people out there,” his mother said. “Eric and I have printed up some leaflets to hand out to the crowd. Otherwise this is a wasted opportunity.”

She waved a leaflet headed Stop The Greed. Lake watched as Rainne’s smile faltered. She heard the same message he did—supporting their children wasn’t reason enough to make the trip worthwhile. He clenched his jaw.

“Glad to see you’re getting into the spirit of things,” Betty said dryly.

Rainne turned towards Lake.

“What was it you wanted to tell me?” she said.

Lake looked at his naive sister, with her trusting smile, and his heart sank.

“It can wait,” he told her.

At this rate, he would never tell her. Betty frowned. She did not approve.

“No,” Rainne said. “This isn’t the first time that you’ve said that to me. You obviously have something to tell me.”

He glanced at his parents. His mother’s eyes had narrowed as she took her position against the enemy—him. His father looked like he was doing calculus in his head. As far as Lake could see the man might as well have stayed in the bus.

“I’ll tell you another time,” he said.

This wasn’t a conversation for his parents.

“No.” Rainne took a step towards him. “Tell me now.”

Her eyes had darkened. She was picking up on his signals with that uncanny intuition of hers. She knew he was hiding something.

“Let’s go through to the back room,” he said at last.

“Here,” Rainne said, being stubborn for the first time in months. “These are our parents—surely we can talk in front of them?”

Maybe you can, Lake thought.

“Fine,” he said. There was no getting out of it. He took a deep breath, but made sure no one saw him do it. “I’m putting the shop up for sale on Monday.”

The colour drained out of Rainne’s face, which made her multi-coloured hair all the more luminous. His mother smirked. As far as she was concerned, Lake had handed Rainne back to her family.

“You’re what?” Rainne’s voice was barely a whisper.

Lake ran a hand over his hair.