Two Menards together.

Gary waited impatiently for Lil to arrive. He was a bundle of nerves, hoping that Lilian actually listened to him for once and didn’t bring Bernice with her. It was only when he saw his sister's pale blonde hair rounding the corner, looking for him by herself, that he finally relaxed a little. Gary waved Lil over to him from his spot next to a juice bar, and she started to make her way toward him.

Lilian had a frown on her face when she reached him. She was annoyed at having been dragged away from a cute outfit she’d just found to come and deal with whatever Gary was about. She asked, “What are you doing, and what is with that towel around your neck? You look daft.”

Gary grabbed his sister's wrist and pulled them back away from the food court and into the amenities hallway.

“Gary!” Lil yelled, but he didn’t let go until he’d dragged the pair of them into the disabled toilet cubicle together and locked the door behind them.

“Lil, you’ve got to help me!” Gary pleaded.

“Have you gone mad? Are you on some kind of ****?” Lil vented at the rudeness coming from her brother.

Gary didn’t answer with words but pulled the towel away from where it had been covering his neck.

“Are those…?” Lil gasped when she saw the hickies Gary had been hiding.

It got worse as Gary lifted up the t-shirt he’d been wearing.

“Oh, you dirty cheating son of a bitch!” Lilian cursed and started striking Gary. Hammering her fist into the very bite marks he had just shown her.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!’ Gary yelled in pain. “I fucked up, Lil! You’ve got to help me. Bernie can’t find out.”

“You go away for two hours and have sex with some slut, and I have to help you? I should tell Bernie right now!” Lil reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone, ready to ring Gary’s poor, unsuspecting girlfriend right then.

Gary grabbed her hand, holding her phone before she could do anything. “Please, no, Lil! It was a one-time thing! It will never happen again, I promise.”

“Gary! I broke up with Steve for doing the exact same thing to me, and you want to help me cover this up for you?! Urgh! You men are all the same. You’re nothing but worthless piles of trash. I’m never going out with another one of you as long as I live.”

It was painful to hear his sister talk to him like that, but it was what he needed to hear. She was right.

“Lil, please. I’m ****. I love Bernie. I don’t want to lose her.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Lil shook her head furiously, but the anguish in Gary’s voice had opened up the tiniest chink in her armour. She stopped shaking her head from side to side at last and looked at the pleading eyes of Gary. “Who was it?”

Gary hung his head in shame as he admitted, “Laura.”

“The one you went out with a couple of times months ago? You’ve been seeing her this entire time behind Bernie’s back?” Lil was incredulous.

“No! I hadn’t seen her since. I went to her new house just then and… things got out of control. I’m never going to see her again! I promise.”

“Oh, Gary! I’m so unbelievably mad at you.”

Lilian had folded her arms in front of Gary and was staring daggers at him.

“But you’ll help me?”

“I can’t believe I’m going to do this… but you’ll have to get rid of that towel. You look stupid, and that’s the first thing Bernie is going to look at.” Lilian started to fish around inside her bag for some items. “I’ll put some of my foundation on you to cover up the hickies.”

“What about the bite marks on my chest?”

“Uck! Pig,” Lil spat. “Don’t let Bernie turn the lights on in your room tonight. Don’t have a shower together. And whatever you do, don’t take your shirt off in front of her.”

Gary nodded to every order coming from Lil. Bernie would undoubtedly want to stay over at their house again tonight. It had been their thing when Lilian and Gary’s parents were on their cruise.

“And you smell like slut, too. Here, wear some of my deodorant instead. It’s better than stinking of skank pussy,” Lil said as she clouded Gary in a mist of perfume. The aerosolised particles caused him to grimace when they touched his broken flesh.

“Thank you,” Gary said sheepishly. It had been so much to ask his sister. Especially with everything that she’d gone through with her ex-boyfriend. Gary hadn’t even considered Lilian’s feelings about that when he’d asked her to help in his desperation.

They left the towel in the bathroom's trash as they made their way from the cubicle and back towards where Lil had left Bernie in the shops. Gary tried to act cool and natural when Bernie made to hug and kiss him when they arrived. He didn’t even flinch when she touched him, and his upper torso lit on fire.

“You smell like Lil,” Bernie noticed immediately once they had finished their kiss.

Gary froze, and it was up to his sister to step in and save him. “Sorry. I caught him in the spray when I was freshening up, coming back."

He held his breath for Bernie to say something more, but she accepted it easily. Bernie interlaced her fingers with Gary’s as they started to hold hands, and they continued with the girls' shopping trip.

Lil retrieved the cute little dress that Bernie had been holding for her and said pointedly at her brother. “I think Gary wants to buy this for me.” Her hard eyes as she looked at Gary informed him that he would absolutely be paying for it.

Later that night at the Menard house.