Page 67 of Just Say (Hell) No
Nyree took a step back. “Because I live here. Why areyouhere? How did you find me? And how did you get here? Never tell me it was on the team bus.”
“Your friend, landlady, whoever, told me where you were, of course. And I borrowed a car from a mate. Also of course. You haven’t answered your mum’s texts, or mine, either, for days. Answer me. Why are you with him?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Because he needed somebody to stay with his cousin while he was gone, maybe? Because I’m an adult who can make her own choices? Because I needed to paint? Because it was my best option, and it seemed like it would work out for everybody? Oh—Ella, this is Kane Armstrong. My stepbrother. Who thinks he’s in charge of my life.”
Marko said, “What?” just as Kane said, “That isn’t why you’re here. I have eyes. And I told you to ask me first.”
“And I toldyou,”Nyree said, crossing her arms under her breasts, which was going to show Kane that she didn’t have anything on under that dress, and that, yeh, thatwasbeard burn—“that I’m an adult now.”
“Who’s sleeping with bloody Marko Sendoa!” Kane said, not sounding like an easygoing fella at all. “Who is not any kind of good bet. If you put him up on the TAB, he’d be forty to one, and you’re not the one. How much does he love my dad right now? More reason than one to take a woman to bed, and some of them aren’t very nice. Which you should know. No rugby players. I mean it. Especially not him.”
“Wait,” Marko said, stepping forward. He looked at Kane, and then he looked at Nyree. He looked at herhard.She met his gaze, but he could tell it was an effort.
“Oh, shit,” he said, as what you might call a montage of images flashed across his mind. Of a sunny terrace in Dunedin and a shy girl in specs. Of a lanky Kane warning him off. Of rugby matches and the coach’s family in the stands, and of laughter in the sheds. “You’re Grant Armstrong’s daughter.”
The dismay, first. How could he not have known, spectacles or no? Nyree was a common enough name for a Maori girl, and she’d changed, but how could he have forgotten her eyes, her voice? After that came the anger. That was coming in hot.
He kept his voice absolutely controlled. Absolutely level. It wasn’t easy. “We need to talk. Now.”
She said, “Kane—”
“Bugger Kane,” Marko said. “Inside. Now.”
“Wait just a bloody minute,” Kane said, stepping forward. “You don’t talk to her like that.”
Marko turned on him, and Kane didn’t step back. “I’m not going to hurt her,” Marko said, enunciating every word, fighting for that control. “I’m going to talk to her.”
“He’s going to yell at me,” Nyree said. “You probably don’t want to hear it, Kane.”
“Marko doesn’t yell,” Ella said from behind him.
Kors said, “That’s because he doesn’t have to,” and Marko wished everybody would quit giving their bloody opinion. And that Nyree would do what hesaid.
Which she did not. She crossed her arms again and said, “I was about to tell you. I had my mouthopento tell you. And before that? I had my reasons.”
“What reasons?” he asked. “What possible reason could you have not to tell me that your dad was my coach for thirteen years? You may not know what that means. Why don’t you let Kane tell you?”
“Let’s see,” she said. “Why didn’t I tell you? Oh, I know. How about this? ‘Coach’s daughter. Little Nyree. Would you bang?’”
This time, her eyes didn’t drop one bit. She stared at him like she was sure she’d scored a point. What point, though?
“You don’t even remember,” she said. “You listened to Angus Hamilton tell you all about it, all about me and how… awful I was, and you don’tremember?How many chats like that have you had? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Oh.He said, “Whoever told you about that didn’t tell you the rest of it.”
“Yeh, right,” she said. “Nobody told me. I heard you.”
“No,” he said, “you didn’t. If you had, you’d know that I told him to shut up. You’d know that the skipper and I—all the leadership group—shut that down fast. And why d’you think Josh Daniels didn’t come back? Because we told Grant we didn’t want him back.”
Nyree’s mouth was working, and all of a sudden, she sat straight down on the concrete of the driveway, put her elbows on her knees, and rested the heels of her palms on her forehead. She said, without looking up, “You told Grant about me. Oh, that’s just wonderful.”
“What?” Marko said.“No.Don’t be an idiot.”
She looked up at Kane. “But you knew.”
Marko was fairly sure Kane was deeply regretting his decision to come find her. Nyree didn’t let him off the hook, and finally, Kane said, “I heard, yeh. Later.”
“So…” Ella said. “What? Who’s this… Angus. Josh. Whoever?”
