When I was finally convinced they would all be asleep, I grabbed the toothpaste from my bathroom, unplugged my alarm clock and carried everything out into the hall, wondering who I should get first. I decided to go for Hannah. She and Paige would get off a little lighter than Lisa considering they’d used washable markers.

Silently, I slipped into Hannah’s room and grinned, trying not to laugh. Hannah and Paige were both getting the same treatment. I grabbed her hair mousse from the side table and, as quietly as I could, squirted a large blob into my hand before teasing it into the top of her hair, making it stick up. Chuckling quietly at my handiwork, I set to work putting a blob of toothpaste on each of her fingers, before tickling her nose and cheeks with a piece of tissue paper. The whole time I recorded it on her cell phone as evidence, then sent it to myself after so I could keep a copy.

I looked down at her sleeping form, grinning at the toothpaste on her cheek, nose, forehead and neck. Perfect. Now I would do Lisa because her room was right next door. Before I slipped out of Hannah’s room though, I pulled the black sharpie from my pocket and headed around to her other side, smiling smugly as I wrote ‘Nate was here’ on the back of her neck.

I let her hair fall back down and silently congratulated myself for thinking of this. All three of the girls had long hair, and usually left it down. By writing on the back of their necks, it would mean that they wouldn’t be able to see it in the mirror. It could be days before anyone noticed.

Picking up the rest of my supplies, I headed into Lisa’s room next door. After giving her the same mousse to the hair treatment, I decided to skip the toothpaste prank in case it ruined the other thing that I had planned.

I grinned as I found her cell phone, setting her alarm to go off for 3:30 and then again for 5:30. I set her alarm clock for 4am, then I plugged in my alarm clock and set it for 4:30, but I hid it under the bed so she’d have to get out and look for it. The last thing I had was my dad’s digital watch, which I set that for 5am and hid under her pillow.

“Payback’s a bitch, Lisa,” I whispered, laughing as I snuck out of her room; just Paige to go now.

When I pushed on her door, it wouldn’t open. I frowned and tried again. The handle turned, but it didn’t open. Had the little sneak barricaded her door knowing I was going to seek revenge? I laughed quietly; trust Paige to think of that! She was definitely the one most like me. She’d won for the night. I’d just have to find some way of punishing her in the morning instead.

I headed back to bed with a grin on my face, pushing a chair up under my door handle, knowing that Lisa would be in here to throw water at me or something in a couple of hours when the alarm clocks started to wake her every half an hour. Sighing contentedly, I drifted into a peaceful sleep thinking about my girl.

A couple of hours later, as I thought, I was woken to the sound of angry pounding on my door and Lisa screaming at me because she couldn’t find the last alarm and it was apparently driving her insane. I had just smiled triumpantly and pulled the pillow over my head and went back to sleep with a grin on my face.

In the morning, I headed downstairs early. I needed to come up with something quick so that I could get Paige back in some small way. The only thing I could think of at short notice was to poison her coffee. I knew she had a lot of sugar, so I dumped the sugar into a bowl and replaced it with salt. Boring payback, but at least she would get something.

Ten minutes later, someone walked into the kitchen behind me. I smiled, expecting it to be one of my sisters; instead, it was my mom. I dropped my eyes to the floor and tried not to picture the sight from last night.

“Morning, Nate,” she chirped in her overly enthusiastic morning voice. She was always a morning person, the same as I was.

“Er, hey,” I mumbled, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. What the hell do I say? Sorry for bursting in last night and interrupting your… Wow, I can’t even finish that thought without heaving! “Sorry about last night,” I choked out.

She waved her hand dismissively. “No worries, we’re all adults now.”

“I thought I was until last night.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and shuddered as my mind wandered there again. Slapping my forehead with the heel of my hand, I tried to actually knock the image from my head. With my other hand, I pushed her phone across the counter in a bid to change the subject. “Thanks for the loan.”

“Sure. What was the emergency?” she asked, making coffee. When she reached for the sugar, I briefly considered letting her put salt in her drink as payback for the horrifying sight I was subjected to last night, but then I figured I couldn’t do that to my mom.

I put my hand over the top of the pot and shook my head. “You might want to go without today.”

“Payback?”

“Payback,” I confirmed.

“You’re mean to your sisters, Nathaniel,” she scolded, but smiled at the same time.

“Oh, come on, they deserved it! I scrubbed it again this morning and it still won’t come off,” I whined, rubbing my stomach absentmindedly.

Mom giggled but stopped when I glared at her. “Okay, it’s not funny,” she stated, hiding her smile. “So, what was the emergency with the phone?”

Phone sex. Dirty, slutty, nasty phone sex. “My battery died and I needed to speak to Rosie about something. As it turns out the situation kind of fizzled out, so what I wanted, didn’t happen anyway,” I grumbled, frowning and stabbing my cereal with my spoon.

Her eyes lit up as she snatched her phone from the counter. “So now I have Rosie’s number?”

I laughed and rolled my eyes. I’d already anticipated her reaction and had deleted Rosie’s number from the last dialled list.

“I can’t find it.” She scrolled through her phone, frowning.

“I removed it. I’m not letting you call her up and tell her all of my secrets, you’ll scare her away from me with your craziness.” I waved a hand at her in example of said craziness.

She pouted at me and put her cell phone down. “Aww, I’m just taking an interest in your first girlfriend. And, of course, I can’t wait to meet her and her little boy!” she gushed.

“Well, like I said, it’s early days.”

“But you really like her?” I could hear the hope in her tone.

I sighed. “Yep.”

“You’re crazy about her?”

“Yes, Mother, I’m crazy about her!” I replied.

She squealed and clapped her hands like a teenage girl. “Then I’m a nanny in spirit, at least. I can wait for the actual title to be handed to me when it’s official.”

I rolled my eyes and ate my cereal, ignoring her ramble on about how she was going to start buying toys to keep at their house ready for when he came to visit. The more excited she got about it, the more excited I got about it too. I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take Rosie to trust me enough to become part of their lives for real.

Half an hour later Paige came down the stairs, smirking at me cockily, obviously pleased with herself because she’d managed to escape the payback last night.

“Morning,” she greeted. “How’s the stomach today?”

I frowned at her and pulled my T-shirt up, showing her the pen that was clearly still there. “I can’t believe Lisa did that. I got her back good last night though.” I chuckled to myself, remembering her banging on my door in the night.

Paige chuckled darkly. “I heard her screaming at you. Alarm clocks in the bedroom?”

“And mousse in the hair.”

“Nice!” She held up her hand for a high five.

My mom poured her a coffee, setting some toast down in front of her. I watched with a satisfied smile as my sister heaped three spoonfuls of salt into her cup. Sighing contentedly, I leant back in my chair and waited to enjoy the show. Karma didn’t seem too bad when it wasn’t directed at me.

That evening, I headed over to Rosie’s place. By the time I’d skipped up the stairs to her apartment, she was already waiting for me with the door open, leaning against the doorframe.

Two days of not seeing her felt like a ridiculously long time. I walked straight up to her, grabbing her and hoisting her over my shoulder, laughing as she squealed.

“Nate! What are you doing?” she cried breathlessly as I walked into her apartment and closed the door behind me.

I grinned and spanked her behind gently. “I missed you, so I thought we could just dispense with the pleasantries and skip straight to the…” I trailed off and dropped her carefully on the sofa, smiling at her excited face.

“The…?” she prompted when I didn’t carry on.

I sighed and sat down onto the sofa next to her, taking her hand and bending forward, kissing her cheek. “Skip to the movie?” I suggested, trying to look innocent.

“And there was me thinking I was in for a hot make out session, caveman style. Now I’m kind of disappointed.”

Rosie stood up, so I gripped her hand, tugging gently so she fell into my lap. “Well I’m never one to disappoint,” I answered, moving my mouth closer to hers and wrapping my arms around her so she couldn’t escape. I flipped her onto her back and hovered above her. There was no way I was disappointing her in that way, she definitely had nothing to worry about in that department. I’d had a lot of practice. I’d had a lot of experience with what women liked and didn’t like, and I’d use all of that information to my advantage when I finally got her into bed.

She pursed her lips, pretending to think. “I suppose I could give you three attempts. If, by three times, I’m not fully satisfied then I’ll be requesting a refund,” she joked, stroking the side of my face.

“Okay, deal.” I kissed her softly to seal the deal.

I pulled out of the kiss just as it was getting a little heavy. Rosie chewed on her lip as she looked up at me a little nervously.

“I, er, just wanted to say thank you for the other night,” she mumbled. “Toni told me that she heard me begging you to stay and talk dirty to me. Apparently there was something mentioned about spanking. And I, kind of, vaguely remember trying to get your clothes off…” she trailed off, wincing as a blush covered her cheeks.

I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, you’re one horny little school teacher,” I admitted, blowing out a big breath as I remembered her saying those things to me.

“Sorry,” she chuckled. “I just wanted to say thank you for not doing that. I really appreciate it, and I know that was probably hard for you to walk away from if I was throwing myself at you like that.”

I smiled sheepishly. She had no idea how hard that was for me! “Yeah, you made it pretty hard.”

“I can imagine.” She giggled quietly before looking at me seriously again. “That really means a lot to me that you would respect me like that. Most guys would have…” She frowned, fingering the collar of my T-shirt. “Anyway, thanks.”

I shrugged. “It was only because you were drunk. If you beg me like that sober then I’m not walking away.”

I pushed myself up off her, more than a little proud of myself for resisting her advances. She obviously appreciated it. Maybe I would make a decent boyfriend after all.

“Shall we watch a movie and get takeout?”

By the time the movie finished, I was all over her. I had her pinned on her back on the sofa, every inch of my body pressed against hers as I kissed her deeply. I was so excited that I was slightly concerned I could blow my load any second.

Her hands roamed my back, her fingers digging into my skin, pulling me impossibly closer. I moaned into her mouth. I needed her so much. My body needed sex, it needed relief, and waiting was getting painful. I felt like some kind of sex-deprived junkie. Excluding the disastrous experience with Minnie last week, I hadn’t had sex in five weeks. I was actually a little surprised that I wasn’t shaking and sweating through withdrawal. That was the longest I’d gone without sex since I was about seventeen years old.

Rosie’s hands caught the bottom of my shirt, pulling it up awkwardly because I was lying on top of her. Getting to my knees and straddling her hips, I pushed myself up and yanked my shirt off over my head, tossing it onto the floor.

Immediately, Rosie gasped and then burst into a fit of giggles, covering her mouth as her whole body shook with laughter.

I frowned, confused. That wasn’t the usual reaction girls had to my body. Usually it was a swoon or a moan, never giggling…

“What?” I asked. Her eyes sparkled as she shook her head, struggling to breathe. “What, Rose?”

“What… the hell… is… that?” she choked out around her laughter, pointing at my stomach.

That was when it dawned on me. She’d just seen my little sister’s idea of body art.

I closed my eyes, sitting back on my heels, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me, removing me from this painful, embarrassing moment.

“It’s awesome, huh? I was trying it out before I make it permanent,” I said, trying to make light of this awkward situation.

She laughed harder, reaching out and tracing the letters with her finger as she chewed on her lip. “Nate, seriously, what on earth is this?”

I sighed dramatically. “That is a result of falling asleep on the beach near my sisters.”

She snorted and then burst into another fit of giggles. “Your sisters sound so funny!”

“Oh yeah, they’re hilarious. It’s not going to be too funny tomorrow when I turn up to work with ten other burly SWAT guys, and they see ‘Rosie’s bitch’ written across my abs,” I stated, scowling at my stomach hatefully.