Page 17 of Just Say (Hell) No
She closed the door behind her, closing out the warm darkness, and Nyree sat back, listened to the scrape of a tree limb against the metal roof, contemplated her easel, and said aloud, “Why is it, Pookie, that I’d rather paint a horrible dog like you than make money in a flash office doing a job I’m good at? And why doesn’t Victoria give Seb the heave-ho?”
Pookie’s pink tongue hung out of his mouth, he cocked his head at her, but he didn’t answer.
Nyree didn’t ask him why, once she’d pulled off the black silk robe, climbed into bed, and pulled the blue velvet coverlet over herself, she didn’t see her bank balance, and she didn’t see a dog wedding. She saw Marko Sendoa. Arms folded, legs planted, nose broken, and his energy pulsing red.
She didn’t have to ask. She already knew the answer. That nothing was ever over.
She didn’t want to close her eyes, because it would be right there. She’d be seventeen again. Humiliated again.
Face it. Face it, and move on. You’re notseventeen anymore. You didn’t do anything wrong except trust too much. Like nearly every other teenaged girl, until she learns the hard way.
She’d been halfway through her final year of school on the night when the Highlanders had won the semifinal against the Chiefs. She’d been on the field afterwards along with her family, the victorious players, and their partners, and the cameras had flashed and the microphones had come out. Not for her. She hadn’t had a partner. She’d just thought she did.
A long, puffy coat with a hood and tall boots kept her fairly anonymous, which was fine. The stadium was outdoors, her toes were freezing and her nose was running, and she was wondering how bloody long her mum would hang about before they could go home. What she wasn’t doing was looking at Josh Daniels. Not at his good-looking face. Not at his perfectly proportioned body.
She hadn’t wanted to come, but if she stayed away, he won. That wasn’t happening, so she was standing here even if she froze. Showing him he didn’t matter.
When she’d rung him after the match in Christchurch the week before and a woman had answered, she’d told herself she could’ve been anybody. That it was only eleven, and the boys were probably at a bar. Celebrating, that was all. When she’d rung again at midnight, though, nobody at all had answered. Or at one. Or the next morning. And when she’d texted, she’d got nothing back. Six times. For days on end.
Ghosted.
A wiser woman would have known what was happening days earlier, but she hadn’t been a wiser woman. Not then, because she’d done the whole bit. Curled in the corner weeping until her eyes had puffed up and her face had been blotchy. Cut the coasters from the bar where he’d taken her into tiny pieces and burned them in a bowl.
Now, she was over it. She was here. Josh was ignoring her? She was ignoringhim.Besides, he might be good-looking, but he hadn’t even played tonight, so what good was he? Not that he showed it. Instead, he was on the field with his teammates, laughing like he was somebody instead of a bloke wearing street clothes because he hadn’t been selected for the second most important match of the year and probably wouldn’t be selected for the final, either. Standing with a blonde.
A blonde who was clearly his actual girlfriend, from the way they had their arms around each other, and the way she was chatting with the other WAGs.
He wasn’t looking at Nyree. Anywhere but at her. The hollow feeling at the pit of her stomach, the burning shame that kept trying to reach her cheeks so it could fly its red flag—all of it made her want to stalk over there and slap his face. Hard. She wanted to tell his girlfriend, too.
Except that she didn’t want her stepfather to know.
She knew she’d been stupid. Stupid to have sneaked out to meet him around the corner from the house. Stupid not to have realized that sex in the team hotel and his car wasn’t glamorous and dangerous, it was proof that you were the girl on the side. Stupid not to know that men lied.
They hadn’t known she was behind them. That was how invisible she’d been. Angus Hamilton, the halfback. And Marko.
“Coach’s daughter,” Angus said to Marko. “Little Nyree. Would you bang?”
“Mate,” Marko said. “No.” Like he was repulsed.
She stood stock-still for fear they’d notice her. That they’d know she’d heard. Somehow, it would be so much worse if they knew that.
“I hear you,” Angus said. “I’d bang, though. Great tits. Weird face, but that’s why they invented doggy style. Danno was in there, did you hear? A for enthusiasm, he says. Ugly girls work harder, eh. If he’s not back next season, it’ll be even sweeter for him. Consolation prize, eh. Can’t unpop that cherry.”
They’d moved off, and Nyree had edged her way back behind the photographers as her feet had grown colder and the shame had burned hotter. She could still feel that creeping dread, the darkness that had dragged at her. In her jaw. In her chest. In the pit of her stomach.
She could feel it, but it was time to let it go.
Nothing was ever over? This was. It was ten years ago, which was too long to hold onto poison. It wasover.Josh Daniels wasn’t playing rugby anymore. The fact that she’d once had sex with him and that he’d told all his teammates about it so they could discuss her ugly face, her disgusting body, and her clumsy performance? That would have long since ceased to be anybody’s titillating gossip nugget.
As for her? She was nobody’s pawn and nobody’s fool. Not anymore. She was done.
Ella was still leaning against the door of Marko’s laundry room. Still trying to look tough, too, but she was running her thumb across the tips of her short fingernails. Back and forth, back and forth.
Calm,Marko told himself.Steady.He finished putting the lid on the cat box, shoved the bag of cat litter into one of the underutilized cabinets next to the washer, and said, “Right. Let’s go have that cup of tea and order a takeaway, and you can tell me about it.”
“I can’t drink tea,” she said. “Caffeine. It said on the pamphlet. Bad for the tadpole.”
“I’llhave a cup of tea, then.” He made it in his perfectly appointed, absolutely streamlined kitchen, phoned in an enormous order to the Thai takeaway, heavy on the meat and veggies, put kitten chow and water into two saucers for the furball, and thought,Cat dishes. After that, he sat on one of the swiveling chrome barstools beside his cousin, picked the kitten up when she decided she was lonely on the floor by herself and complained about it, and said, “First question. Does your mum know you’re here?”
