Page 33 of Grin and Bear It

“Thanks for doing this.” He shot Cole a look. “Seriously.”

“No problems. Thanks for working on my plumbing.”

“You’ve got all new taps now,” Tyson said, stepping forward and that wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable thing, now that my assumptions about his sexuality had been corrected. I don’t know why. He was equally off-limits straight as he was gay. “Nash has added some arrestors to your pipes that will help displace some of the water pressure, stop the water hammer.”

But as I was getting all that good news, Colleen came waltzing in the front door.

“Hey, there’s a bunch of cars… Oh, hello.”

I saw the gleam in her eyes as she took all three of them in, something deeply curious growing there.

“These are the uncles of two of my students,” I told her. “Tyson, Lin and Cole, this is my flatmate, Colleen.”

“A pleasure,” she said, striding over, hand outstretched. They shook it politely, but then turned right back to me. “So what’re they doing here?”

“I was helping the boys with some of their work and the guys were replacing our taps. We shouldn't have any more issues with water.”

“But you’ll call us if you do,” Lin urged.

“Yeah? A bit of tutoring for new taps? What does a girl have to do to get some new carpet and to stop the front door from sticking?” Coll was joking, mostly. “I bake a mean banana bread.”

“We offered,” Cole replied, but he stared at me, not her.

“What, really?” Now I had her looking me up and down. “Please, for the love of god, tell me you said yes.”

“Coll—”

“This place smells like an old lady’s vagina, which will no doubt be a fine thing when I’m an old lady, but not right now.” I stiffened as she fixed the guys in her sights. “El’s single—”

“Coll—!”

“I’m fairly sure she could do that swirling thing with her tongue on your—”

“If you don’t shut up right now, you’re not going to make it to old age,” I hissed at her. “These are my students’ guardians.”

“And guardians don’t like head? I thought everyone did?” she hissed back much more theatrically.

“Ahh… sexual favours aren’t needed,” Tyson replied smoothly, even though the other two shifted restlessly before he turned to me. “But the offer stands. You’re helping us out a lot, working with the boys. And for us, working on a place like this is a lot easier than trying to understand what’s going on in a teenage boy’s head.”

“We’ll see.” I kept things non-committal as I handed over the bags, Coll watching the three of them go.

“What the fuck…?”She breathed that out as the front door was jerked closed. “This morning I find you actually awake and ready for work and then when I come home we have proper running water, which is good because the house is full of hot tradies.” She turned to fix me with her gaze. “What the hell is going on?”

“I got upset last night, then drunk after I left Derek at the restaurant,” I told her, staring at the door.

“Oh, El—”

“And then when I was wallowing in self-pity, I tried to ring you to bitch about it and instead I drunk-dialled the boys’ guardian.”

“Fuck. What?” She peered at me owlishly. “Nah, no way. Way?”

“Way,” I replied with a nod. “And I heard this deep manly voice telling me it’d all be OK, and somehow it was. That’s how the shower got fixed last night.”

“You confessed all your shitty relationship woes to the new dads of your students? And they just so happen to be the hottest slabs of man meat to walk in that door. Then they offered to renovate your whole house.” She grabbed me by the shoulder and then steered me over to the fridge, opening it up, her face lighting up when she saw the gin cans. “Fuck yes, G&Ts!” She opened one, took a quick sip and passed it to me, then went back for another one for herself. “Now start again and don’t leave anything out.”

Chapter18

The next morning I woke with a groan. Not from the alarms this time. It was Saturday, thank the gods. No, this was a hangover, though not from gin, and I felt it as soon as I tried to roll out of bed.

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