An Endless Summer(17)

Pfft, what did I care what I looked like? It was only Sean.

Sean, who was now leaning into the alcove, his body mirroring mine. He wore a navy blue Bonds singlet that exposed the taut curves of his tanned biceps, and navy shorts with boots and socks that my eyes flicked to with a bemused smile.

“I bet you get a nasty sock tan.”

Sean looked down at his boots and then back up at me. He then leaned over and pulled down his sock and revealed, sure enough, a paler strip of skin.

“Holy crap!” I said and shielded my eyes. “I’ve been blinded.”

“They’re not that white, smart-arse,” Sean said defensively. He looked down with a frown and studied his ankles.

“Hey, it’s okay, I understand. Occupational hazard.”

Sean’s eyes narrowed. “Is this why you had to pull me aside? To check out my tan lines?”

My smile slipped away from my face as I remembered why I had called him in.

“No!”

“Are you sure? Because I can show you some other tan lines if you want …” Sean moved to slowly peel his singlet up over his chiselled stomach.

This time, I was momentarily blinded, but in an ‘Oh my God!’ kind of way.

After I had stared open-mouthed and let my eyes trail over the wall of flesh, my mind worked to form a coherent sentence before he completely took his top off.

“No! No, it’s all right, I don’t need to see.”

Didn’t I?

Sean shrugged and let his top fall back into place with a smug smile. Oh, he thought he was so clever making all the girls speechless just by the flex of a muscle.

Well, not this girl.

I had been momentarily intrigued, but that was it.

I plastered my best ‘I’m so bored right now’ expression on my face as we stared one another down. Sean’s eyes were lit with a silent knowing that made me want to lash out and take that smug look off his face.

“I can’t pay you for this,” I said, in all seriousness.

“That’s all right, that preview was a freebie.” He winked.

My arms flew by my sides and I exhaled in anger as I stomped my foot.

“God damn it, Sean, can’t you be serious for one fra—”

Don’t say fracking, don’t say fracking. “For just one minute?”

Sean’s brow curved. “Did you just stomp your foot?”

I fought the urge to do it again; it was a knee-jerk reaction after every frustrating, smart-arse retaliation.

It took every ounce of my strength to control the anger that threatened to consume me. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

“What I meant was, I can’t pay for you to fix the balcony, Sean,” I said. “Not right now; I have to get my head around so many things and at the moment I don’t want Dad knowing about it. I was going to tape it off and put signs up. No one walks up there anyway and you said the rest was secure, it was just that one beam, so I think it can wait a bit … right?”

“What are you trying to get your head around?”

“What?”

Was he actually asking a serious question? Sean looked stern; his smile had gone

“What’s there to get your head around?” he asked again.

I scoffed. “Look at this place! It’s disgusting; do you honestly think that a gaping hole in the verandah roof is going to drive people away? No! They’re already away. One look at this place from a distance does that, let alone stepping inside.” I stopped talking, knowing I had already said too much. It was one thing to voice what I knew to be true; I didn’t want to talk about the embarrassing state of the Onslow with anyone else, though.

I wanted to sweep it under the carpet, stop everyone talking about ‘the Hendersons’.

You know the mother ran away from Onslow and the father went mad and chased her. Now the spoilt, nasty daughter is back for the summer.

Oh, I could just imagine what they were all saying, and it bothered me – really bothered me. I wanted to show them, show them all. But I had to do it my way, and that meant on a tight budget and didn’t involve a builder and scaffolding.

Sean didn’t say anything for the longest time. I thought maybe for once I had rendered him speechless but then, just as I thought I would glory in the possibility, he broke the silence.

“Who said I was charging?”

I stilled. “What do you mean?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not charging you for repairing the balcony.”

I must have looked dumbfounded and I could see he was now pleased with himself for rendering me speechless.

Once what he had said had registered in my brain, I wasn’t thankful. I was angry. “Thanks, but I don’t want your charity.”

Sean’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Charity?”