“Funny.”
He glanced over his shoulder and gave me a devilish smirk. “It was worth a shot.”
Fuck.
“You’d get such a surprise if I dropped my pants,” I taunted, throwing a rolled-up pair of socks at his head.
He deftly caught them midair. “Not as big as the surprise you’d get if I dropped mine,” he shot back.
My mouth fell open and he winked.
“Now, get off that pride and joy of yours and show me where you want the dressing table area.“
“Fine. Oh wait! Yay, I forgot I had these,” I practically cooed with glee, as my gaze landed on a pair of itty-bitty jean shorts. “I can’t wait to wear them again.”
“Wear them?” Joey cocked a brow. “You’re telling me those are shorts?”
“They sure are,” I confirmed, climbing off the bed to hold them up to my waist. “Shit,” I grumbled in dismay. “I think they might be too small now.”
“They didn’t fit you when you were ten,” my brother mocked from the doorway, where he was holding a pile of his own clothes. “They’re hardly going to fit you now –not with that fat ass you’re dragging around after you.”
“You mean this ass?” I replied mockingly while slapping my ass. “The one your pervy friends keep trying to get a look at?”
“No, they don’t,” Kev argued. “They don’t even like you.”
“Uh-huh.” I rolled my eyes. “Sure they don’t.”
“My friends have better taste in girls,” Kev spat, which caused Joey to chuckle. Turning to glare at him, my brother demanded, “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, lad.” Shaking his head, Joey continued to measure the height of my floor to ceiling with a measuring tape, marking off certain parts of my wall with a pencil as he worked. “Nothing at all.”
“He’s laughing because of how hilarious your denial is,” I pissed my brother off even further by chiming. “Because he knows damn well your buddies are only too happy to get a close up look of this bad boy.” I tapped my ass again and choked out a laugh when my brother threw his pile of clothes at me.
“You’re literally the female version of Shrek,” he hissed. “You don’t even—
“And don’t forget these babies,” I interrupted, giving my braless boobs a jiggle. “Isn’t that right, Joe?”
“He doesn’t agree with you,” Kev snapped and then turned to Joey and asked, “Do you?”
“Your sister’s right, Kev,” Joey said with a sigh. “Trust me, lad, you might be in her year, but I’m in her class, and they’re looking.”
I grinned in victory. “See?”
“Only because she acts like such a fucking tease,” Kev hissed, barging into my room, and snatching the shorts out of my hand. “I don’t know how Paul puts up with you.”
“Hey, give those back,” I ordered, chasing my brother around the room. “Oh, you wouldn’t dare,” I whisper-hissed, when he yanked my bedroom window open and dangled my shorts over the window ledge. “Put the shorts down, fuck face.”
“Make me, fatty.”
“Oh, you’re a dead man,” I warned, lunging across my mattress, only to get there a second too late.
“Noooo!” I cried out, shoving my brother out of my way just in time to see my rediscovered shorts land on the roof of our garden shed, before blowing away once again only to reach their final destination in a pile of Spud’s shit in our garden.
“Wear them now,” Kev taunted smugly. “When they’re covered in one of Spud’s giant shits.”
“Oh, you think you’ve won, huh?” I arched a brow, challenge accepted. “Well, just you wait and see, little brother. I look forward to wearing nothing but the skimpiest bikini I own when I come downstairs tonight during your weird sleepover with your even weirder buddies.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” His eyes bulged. “And who are you calling little brother? You’re like three minutes older than me, dickhead. Also, they’re not weird sleepovers,” he said, before turning to Joey to explain. “We watch pay-per-view.”
“Porn,” I interjected with a snort.
“Hey.” Joey held his hands up. “Whatever works for ya, lad.”
“Wrestling,” Kev corrected, face turning purple. “We watch wrestling. It’s a sport, in case you haven’t heard, Aoife.”
“Fat lot you’d know about wrestling,” I snickered. “Unless it comes in the form of a video game.”
“As opposed to you,” he sneered. “The Olympic fucking champion of lying on the flat of her back like a slut.”
Bullseye.
Ouch.
“Hey,” Joey warned, turning to glare at my brother. “Come on, Kev. Don’t say shit like that to your sister.”
“What?” Kev threw his hands up. “Have you not been listening? She’s a complete—“
“I’m a virgin, wank-stain!” I screamed, feeling that one hit a little too close to a nerve.
“Yeah,” Kev snorted, with a shake of his head. “You’re a virgin, and I’m Santa Claus.”
“That’s it,” I snarled, choosing violence, as I lunged for my brother. “Make your peace with Jesus, dick brain, because I’m about to become the only child I should have been before your shitty egg gatecrashed Mam’s womb!”
Like two gladiators poised for battle, we lunged at each other.
Prepared for my onslaught, Kev swiped a clothes hanger off the floor and flung it at me. “Oh, bring it on, fatty-bang-bang.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that, sir-wank-a-lot,” I snarled, bending like one of the fellas from The Matrix to avoid a hanger to the face.
“You mean like this?” Kev hissed, spearing me to the ground with a loud thud. “How’s that for a wrestling move?”
“You…won’t…defeat…me,” I strangled out, as I attempted to use my hips to buck him off my chest. “And…you…called…me…fat.“
One minute, my brother was sitting on my chest, and forcing me to slap myself with my own damn hands, and the next he was pinned to my bedroom wall.
“The hell are you doing?” Kev wheezed out, as Joey pressed his forearm harder into his throat. “Lynchy, stop, I can’t…breathe…”
“You think it’s okay to touch her like that?” he snarled, completely livid. “You think I’m going sit back and do nothing? I don’t fucking think so, asshole—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Joey, stop!” Springing up, I raced over to them. “Let go,” I instructed, grabbing ahold of his arm. “Joey, let go. It’s okay. He wasn’t hurting me.”
“He put his fucking hands on you, Molloy,” he roared, shaking with temper, as he continued to put pressure on my brother’s windpipe. “I saw him with my own goddamn eyes.”
“We were just playing around,” I hurried to explain, as I slid between both boys, and forced him to release his death grip on my brother’s throat. “That’s what we do, Joe. It’s a game we play.”