Wayward Son (Jensen Family #3) (9 page)

Angel had caught her breath when Gavin emerged from the changing room.
She’d noticed his broad shoulders and his pecs were obviou
s even under the baggy t-shirts he wore to college, Kiera
had hinted at the sculptured body beneath his clothes but she hadn’t expected
to be knocked breathless by his naked torso, she felt herself flush as he
stepped into the shower
, thinking
,
h
oly shit h
e’s pretty…
oh, and now he’s wet and even prettier
.

The yummy mummies had also drawn a collective breath at the sight of him,
Angel couldn’t help but hear the comments of
,
“
b
loody hell, would you look at that” and “Why couldn’t Olivia be afraid of
the water
?
”
B
efore deciding enough was enough and she
really should go home before he noticed her gawping.

As the lesson ended, Gavin reached for Liana’s towel and after wrapping
her in it, lifted her out of the pool and into the arms of her mother
.
S
tepping out of
the pool, he went to talk once
more to the girl.

“That wasn’t so bad was it?”
H
e asked.

“No
,
” Liana shook
her head.

“What happens next week?” Liana’s mother asked.

“I’ll be here
,
” he told her
“I’m quite happy to get in the pool with her for as long as she
needs me
.
”

“That’s very nice, thank you”

“No problem, see you next week Liana
,
” he waved at the child as he walked away.

Arriving home, he called a hello to his father and step mother who were
pottering in the garden
,
before going
into the large kitchen.
By the time Paul had walked
up the garden after slapping his wife loudly on the bottom, Gavin was raiding
the fridge, placing items for a stir fry on the worktop with one hand while
plucking grapes from the large bunch on the fridge’s top shelf and loading
them into his mouth with the other,

“It seems that all I see of you lately son is your back side as your face
is always grazing in the fridge
.
” Paul greeted
his son
.

“I’m not grazing
,
” Gavin
protested but remained pretty much in the fridge
.
“I’m starving and planning on making us
all a stir fry
,
seeing as you
appear to be unable to leave your wife alone long enough to make your poor son
something to eat
.
”

Paul ignored his son’s comments
.
“You come home, graze, go out, come back, graze some m
or
e, sleep, get up, graze, go out.
D
o you see a
pattern emerging here?” He joked, cuffing his son playfully round the ear when
he finally turned to face him.

Gavin laughed
.
“For an
intelligent man, you really can be a moron. I’ll make dinner, you need to p
ut on something that isn’t straight out of the seventies
,
” he gestured to Paul’s hideous orange
and green shorts, his only item of clothing.

“Disgusting aren’t they?” Paul asked
.
“They had the desired effect of winding up the neighbours though;
you should
have seen the looks I got when I was
working on the front garden.
”

Muttering “I cannot believe you wore those in public.” Gavin
then addressed Paul.
“They also clash with well, everything
,
” Gavin told him
.
“And they make me want to vomit, hi
Suzanne
,
” he g
reeted his step mother.

“Hi
Gavin
,
” she replied. Turning to Paul, she
slapped his arm,
“
I think you left a hand print o
n my bum.”

Gavin saw his father grin and look down at his wife’s bottom
.
“Oh God
,
” he groaned
seeing his father’s intention
.
“Stir fry
won’t
take long
,
” he warned when
Paul guided Suzanne out of the kitchen promising to kiss her better.

“I’ll try to be quick
,
”
Paul
called from the hallway.

 “Hi Mum,” Angel looked up from her laptop
.
“Good day?”

“Yes, how was your work out?”

“Great
.
” Ange
l went back to her computer.

“Gavin Jensen, he’s a friend of yours isn’t he?”

“Kinda, he’s closer to Kiera really
.
” Angel answered her mother.

“He’s a lovely boy, very good with the customers, just goes to show it
sometimes pays to take a chance on someone
with a
criminal record
,
” Linda Palmer
mused as she walked away.

“Wait
!
” Angel called
after
her.
“He has a
criminal record?”

Her shoulders dropped as she realised her mistake.
“Yes, he hasn’t told you?”

“He hasn’t really said an awful lot about himself
yet
.
” Angel
confirmed.

“Oh, well, I’m sure he will when he settles in a bit more, I’m so pleased
I took him on, he was absolutely fantastic with this little girl this afternoon
.
”

“Yeah, he was, I saw him
,
” Angel paused
.
“What’s his criminal record for?”

“A
ngel, I can’t tell you that, its
confidential, I’ve already said far too much, you’ll have to ask him
.
”

Hmm, or get Kiera to
ask.
she thought digging into her pocket for her mobile.

Gavin woke with a start when his mob
ile jumped on
his bedside table.
R
ubbi
ng his eyes, he leaned over and slid open
the phone to find a message from Kiera
,
telling him that she wouldn’t be going
to college in the morning as she had developed food poisoning,
so he didn’t need to pick her up. H
e sent a text
back wishing her a spee
dy recovery then checked the
time, 3:45am
.
H
e slid from the bed and opened his
window a little wider in an effort to cool down, that’s when he heard the moan
followed by a deep throated chuckle. Leaning out of the window he looked down
into the garden and
the hot tub where the sound had
come from to see Paul lift Suzanne onto his lap where she began to grind onto
him, droplets of water falling from her full breasts as she gyrated.

Christ Dad, you must be powered by Duracell
.
Gavin thought, he turned away fr
om the window, his healthy respect for Paul’s sexual
prowess renewed, picked up his iPod, put in his headphones to block out the
noise and went back to bed.

During Biology the next day Quinn decided it would be a wonderful idea to
tease Gavin over his good
natured help for little
Liana at the health club the previous day.
He’d seen him making obvious efforts at flirting with Angel and it was
time to put this upstart in his place.
Gavin found it
easy to endure the digs, he knew he’d done the right thing and
besides, there was a net ball game going on i
n the court below the window.
Gavin managed to lose himself in the
view of long legged players in tiny net ball skirts and stupidly tight tops
jumping to stop the ball going in the net.

Quinn
began to change tac
t when Gavin refused to rise to his jibes, although he’d
promised Angel that he wouldn’t mention either Gavin’s helpfulness at the club
or his criminal record, he realised a change of course was required to get
Gavin to bite. He waited until Gavin turned h
is
attention back to the lecture on genetics before leaning closer to him and
whispering;

“You may be stupidly rich but you and I both know that you are nothing
but a common criminal, what did you do?”

Gavin frowned and looked at Quinn
.
“It’s none of your
business Sloane boy and
it’s in the past
,
” he hissed.

“I’m going to find out
.
T
hen I’m going to make you do whatever it
is that got you the record and get you kicked out of this college, fucking con
scum
.
”

Tired from having been woken in the early hours of
the morning and not really getting back to sleep, Gavin wasn’t thinking
straight and gave in to his temper, jumping to his feet, the stool he was
sitting on flying into the wall behind him, Gavin hauled Quinn to his feet and,
inches from his face growled
,

“Why don’t yo
u go fuck yourself you preppy ar
s
e
hole
.
”

“Mr. Jensen!” the lecturer, Mr. Benson bellowed “Kindly put Mr. Masters
back on his feet and go and wait in my office
.
”

Quinn smiled as Gavin released him, gathered his things and left the
room.

“Mr.
Masters, would you like to elaborate on
what just happened?” Mr. Benson asked Quinn once Gavin had gone.

“I have no idea why he blew up sir, he’s a psycho
.
” Quinn shrugged.

“Take your seat Mr. Masters
.
”

Still smirking, Quinn picked up his stool and sat, gl
ancing over at Angel he saw her frowning at him and knew
he’d have some serious sucking up to do later.

“Right Gavin, what was all that about in my lesson?” Mr. Benson walked
around his desk and sat in his lush leather chair, regarding the boy sitting
opp
osite him.

Gavin was sitting on the edge of his chair, his head in his hands; he
slowly raised his head and looked at his teacher.