Rachael didn't react except to frown as her eyes shot daggers at me.

“Does your girlfriend know you're banging her best friend?" she accused a little hotly.

I smirked and splayed my hands out openly.

“Sam knows everything.”

The newcomer processed that, giving me a furrowed-brow expression that looked exactly Like Sam's whenever she mentally processed something. I chuckled and gestured towards the formal living room, asking politely,

“Can I get you something to drink?"

Rachael eyed me carefully and cocked her head to the side like a bird.

“You know what? I'm glad Sam's not here yet. You and I need to talk."

Instead of going home, Zofi decided to stick around and be part of the subsequent conversation out of an interest in protecting Sam. I think she worried I might say the wrong thing or otherwise give away too much information to the enemy. I was a male after all, and therefore easily misled by a beautiful girl. And Rachael was a gorgeous busty blonde used to getting her way.

That said, my loyalty to the BTC gave me the steel spine I needed to deflect many of Rachael's questions. With Zofi curled up against my side, her long legs tucked up beneath her while the lissome brunette wrapped herself around my Left arm acting rather... well... more expressly affectionate than she usually acted, it was more than obvious that my relationship with Sam was not an exclusively monogamous one.

But beyond that, Rachael wasn't getting anything out of me about the

BTC.

Some things, I could tell her. Was Sam imposing? Not at all. Did she really have her own room? Of course. Was I gay? Obviously not, especially the way I kept struggling to keep my eyes from dropping down to Rachael's cleavage.

Was I prepared to let Sam stay through summer until we all went off to college? Of course. Did I love her? Yes. Would Sam come home if their dad stopped being such a stubborn arsehole?

"Well..." I smiled and shrugged before finishing, "That one you'd have to ask Sam yourself.”

It wasn't a one-way conversation. Zofi had her own questions, and once

Zofi got started, so did I.

Why was Rachael here? The girls' ‘Mummy’ had called in reinforcements.

Had the ‘stubborn arsehole' changed his mind about cutting Sam off for rejecting her Stanford acceptance letter and going to hated Cal

Berkeley instead? Well, no. Why did Sam and Rachael never really get along?

“Well...” Rachael laughed and looked away for a moment before finishing, "That one you'd have to ask Sam yourself."

“I intend to, but what do YOU think?" I pressed. "When you first came to the door and I said that Sam had talked about you, your response was rather doubtful. You seem perfectly aware that your relationship is a little strained."

The gorgeous blonde sighed. Her right leg was crossed over her left knee with her hands interlaced atop the right knee, and she looked down at her thumbs for a moment, watching them flip-flop which thumb was on top. After a deep breath, she regarded me coolly and stated, "The short answer is that she's always been jealous of me. I've had everything she ever wanted, and she's always struggled to measure up."

“Not that you ever helped her," Zofi chided with more than a hint of bitterness. I got the impression Sam had bitched about her older sister to Zofi many times.

Rachael sighed. "I'm five years older than her. By the time she was in eighth grade I was already in college. I had my own life, my own things to deal with--"