Page 71 of Just Say (Hell) No
She hummed, and so did her heart. “SoundsveryMaori. The world, and your place in it. Humility. Mana.”
“Yeh. You may like her. My grandmother. I’ve been thinking I should take Ella home to see the family for a few days during the bye next week. You could come, if you like, if you can get the time off. Whenever it works.”
He said it casually. She said, “Uh, Marko…”
“Or not,” he said. “Whichever.”
She would have said something, though she wasn’t sure what. But they’d arrived, onto a street already lined with cars. She had too many things bouncing around in her brain, so she focused on one. Finding a carpark.
After that? Showtime.
The beginning went about the way Marko expected. The wedding was being staged in terraced gardens that might have been pretty if they hadn’t been filled by too many excited little dogs, and a few big ones, chasing each other around and barking at a pitch humans shouldn’t have been able to hear. He was watching where he stepped as he followed Nyree along a winding path, and not just because he didn’t want to squash somebody’s pet.
About twenty kids were milling about, dressed like miniature wedding guests, below a white arbor bedecked with dozens of what looked like real pink roses, set in front of rows of white chairs. A couple boys were throwing a ball for a corgi, who would run after it for a few meters and then lose the plot and start licking himself in a manner better suited to the wedding night than the ceremony. To the right, a group of men was hanging around by the food table, probably because that was where the beer was, looking decidedly less dressy than their wives, who were done up like it was… well, a wedding. In other words—boring.
On the other hand, the day was breezy but warm, the sea was spread out before him in all its sparkling blue glory, the sailboats were returning from their regatta with their colorful spinnakers unfurled before them, he’d just had smoking sex with the woman of his dreams, not to mention his fantasies, and he was planning on doing it again tonight. Also, it looked like there was food on that table, not just beer. And a four-tier wedding cake that didn’t count, because he and the boys wouldn’t be eating it.
And, of course, he’d just invited Nyree home to meet his family, and he didn’t seem to be having second thoughts. He was either in a good mood, or he’d gone round the bend. Or both.
He was pondering the economic rationality of buying a full-blown wedding cake for a dog party, because it was easier than thinking about how out of control his life was becoming, what with the daughter of the coach, the kitten, the pregnant cousin, and the cousin’s apparent new love interest. Also why the hell he’d risked going out on the edge like that with Nyree the first time, except that he hadn’t seemed able to help it and she’d seemed to love it, what with how much noise she’d made and the way her forehead had banged against the mattress and all…
At which point he got sidetracked.
That was when the trouble began. First in the form of his hostess, an improbable blonde in a tight pink skirt suit, who was made up like she was about to do a photo shoot. Which she probably was, since Marko had caught sight of a bloke wandering around with a professional-looking camera. Nyree whispered, “Mother of the bride, I presume. Also the groom,” in a suspiciously choked voice, and then the vision was upon them.
“Nyree!” The blonde took Nyree by the arms and kissed her cheek. “You lookamazing.And I’m so glad you brought your friends. Everybody’s so excited. Hi, everyone. I’m Savannah. Ooh. Champagne. Hang on a tick.” She was off again, coming back with an unopened bottle and four plastic glasses, each caught in a pink-taloned finger, and another blonde behind her, carrying more glasses.
“Sorry about the awful glasses,” Savannah said with a laugh that suggested this wasn’t her first bottle. “Harold said we’d never get the shards of glass out of the garden otherwise.” She handed the bottle to Marko and looked up at him with a flutter of extravagant lashes, and he thought about Nyree’s bare face and the way he could read every one of her emotions on it. When he’d come home, for example, and she’d looked up from her phone because she’d felt him there, and he could have sworn he could see all the way to her heart.
Savannah asked, “Would you use your muscles to open this for me, pretty please?” and he jerked his mind back to the task at hand. She giggled and said, “The cork still makes me scream, even after all this time. I’m so silly.”
He eased the cork out of the bottle, and to say she watched him do it would be putting it mildly. He’d swear her pupils dilated. Nyree introduced the rest of the party, and some of the other mums, who displayed a distinct tendency towards the blonde and overdone, made their impractical-heeled way across the lawn and were introduced as well. They were followed by the dads, trying to look like they’d just happened to stop by, but actually looking like they were dying to talk rugby strategy. Territory most familiar.
Marko poured champagne, but muttered to the others, “Watch it,” when he handed theirs over. “And go easy on the beers, too.”
Kane didn’t look happy to be reminded. But then, if Kanedidn’tgo easy on the beers, the Blues could have that bit of extra edge over the Crusaders on Saturday night. So he said, “Except you, of course, mate,” Kane looked at him narrow-eyed, and he laughed.
Definitelyin a good mood.
Nyree’s friend Victoria, meanwhile, who stood half a head taller than any of the mums and had a sardonic gleam in her eye, tossed her glass back in three swallows, stuck it out for a refill, and told Marko, “Fill it up. I can tell I’m going to need it.”
After that, it was like a rugby match that had got away from you. Like you were on the back foot and couldn’t catch up. Nyree got swallowed up by another group, and some bloke had a hand on her back—herbareback, because that dress dipped low, showing the wings of her shoulder blades—in a way Marko didn’t like at all. Kors had wandered off with Ella. Marko should be keeping an eye on them, but for the moment, he was trapped.
To his left, a mum was saying to Kane, “You’re sotall,”as if he’d never heard that before. “How do you go through doorways? And beds must be a nightmare.” Yeh, that was subtle. After that, a bloke was asking, “How d’you think you’ll go against the Blues on Saturday?” and Kane was answering, “I think we’ll win.” In Marko’s own private hell, Savannah was saying, “You’re all so much bigger than you look on TV.Everywhere.”And, yes, she had her hand on his arm.
Marko said, “Relative proportion,” and she looked blank. He explained, “Most of us are a fair size, so you don’t notice the contrast. Nyree’s brought her portrait for you, by the way, but she’s left it in the car. Unveiling after the ceremony, she said. It’s pretty special.”Eye on the prize, mate.
“Oh, I can’twait,”she said. “The kids are so excited. And, ooh, I need to go get the dogs ready. April.April.”The glass-carrying blonde turned from Kane with reluctance, and Savannah said, “Be a love and get everybody settled. We’re about to start. Wait until you see Precious’s darling gown. You’ll just die. And—oh. Niall. Ring bearer.”She headed off, her heels sinking into the grass, calling, “Coo-ee!” and waving one arm above her head until a boy of about eight quit kicking a soccer ball with his mate and came towards her, reluctance in every dragging step.
He didn’t realize Nyree was back with him again until she was saying quietly from his elbow, “She’s not nearly as silly as she seems. Or she is, but she’s…”
“Trying to be happy,” he said. “Yeh.”
“No harm in her,” Nyree said. “Unless she really did feel your muscles.”
He laughed. “She did. But I wasn’t the only one getting touched.”
“Ugh,” she said. “I know. Maybe you could stick closer to me.”
