Unsuitable

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.”