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notwithstanding. But Lola clearly had no intention of letting him off the hook. So with a muttered, “Hell,” Deke turned his baseball cap backward on his head and climbed the stairs. He followed the trail of water down the hallway, through Lola’s bedroom, right into the master bath where Fitz was wringing the hem of her shirt.
    “Geez, Fitz.” He was about to make some snarky comment about her letting the boys run roughshod over her, except when he looked down to see her white shirt was now entirely see-through, all he could see was the girls.
    “Really?” she snapped when she looked up and saw him standing there, his eyes where they absolutely shouldn’t be. “You’ve judged about eighteen thousand wet T-shirt contests. You can’t honestly tell me this isn’t anything you haven’t seen.”
    Well, no. That didn’t make it better, though.
    “Sit your ass down and help me.” She pointed to the spot next to her as she sank to her knees by the tub where the three boys were now playing happily. “I can’t believe Lola does this every night.”
    Given the amount of dirt covering all four of Lola’s boys on a regular basis, Deke was pretty sure that wasn’t true. In fact, he could have sworn he’d seen Lola just hosing them down one night before putting them to bed.
    But reassuring Fitz was a physical impossibility at the moment. She’d just straightened up and it was clear the white bra she was wearing didn’t hold up to the water any better than her T-shirt had. He cleared his throat and stared hard at the wall behind her. Nudging her to the side, he took the shampoo she was handing him, while very specifically not looking down. “I can finish up here. Why don’t you, uh...”
    Damn it to hell, his eyes went straight to Fitz’s chest again, completely of their own accord. And because it was Fitz, she was well aware of the transgression and totally pissed off. Hell, Deke was ready to knock his own head into the wall, much less wait around for Nate to do it.
    Or Fitz, given that her eyes had gone narrow and her face got all pinched up. Unfortunately, it was accompanied by her folding her arms across her chest in a way that emphasized precisely the thing she was pissed at him about.
    Why did women do that?
    “Look,” he said, trying to wrestle the situation into control. “I have no clue, okay? It’s like a short circuit somewhere.” He turned his cap back around so it was covering his eyes and leaned forward enough so he couldn’t quite see her. Waving his hand out vaguely behind him, he managed to finish his thought, even though it was beyond pathetically done. “Just, um, go get some dry clothes on. Give a guy a break.”
    “I would be happy to ‘give a guy a break,’” she muttered. She elbowed him in the gut so he’d move over, leaving no doubt in his mind what kind of break she was talking about. “But you can’t even be in the same room with all three of them at once without having a panic attack. Do you honestly think I’m leaving you alone with them in a tub full of water? You can’t be serious.”
    Leave it to Fitz to notice that. He was pretty sure even Lola had no clue the triplets scared the crap out of him.
    Fine. He gave the shampoo back to Fitz and then lathered up the first one’s hair.
    “Uncle Deke is not serious,” one of them said.
    Luke? Maybe that one was Emmet. Deke wasn’t entirely sure.
    “Uncle Deke is a goofball,” another answered. Except in the cute, high-pitched voice they all had going on, it came out sounding more like “poof ball.”
    “Gee, thanks, Dude,” Deke muttered. Christ.
    With a smile so sweet it made even Deke want to lay at the kid’s feet, the third one looked at Fitz all dreamy-like and said, “Auntie Fitz is very serious. I love Auntie Fitz so much.”
    Deke was pretty sure that one was James, because his hair was a mass of dried up shampoo bubbles. Deke was also pretty impressed, because Fitz, who had been ready to kick some