Page 101 of Just Come Over
She smiled, but said, “Kids. Babysitter. You may not realize how important that is. And that’s the other thing we need to talk about.”
“The babysitter? I’m paying her. Driving her home, too. Drivingyouhome, but not yet. It can’t be much past ten. We have time.”
“You didn’t get your steak yet. We should heat it up.”
She sat up, and not like a languid woman stretching out. More like a Jack-in-the-box. Was there a reason she was dragging the conversation away?
He hadn’t paid enough attention before? He was paying it now. “And the reason you’re talking about that, instead of talking about rings and dates and moving in with me, is...”
She dragged a hand through her hair, mussing it some more. “It’s not what people will say, whatever you’re thinking. It’s the kids, and maybe...”
“It’s you,” he said. His heart, which had been somewhere up there in the stands, took a dive that nearly gave him vertigo. “I did speak too soon.”
“Yes. No.” She sighed. “I feel it, too. I don’t have your courage. I never have. I don’t have your mana.”
“Don’t say that.” It came out rough, and she jumped. “It’s not true.”
“I’m scared right now,” she said. “By the thought of making the move. Of telling the kids. Of taking the leap.”
“Of believing.”
She didn’t answer, and that told him everything. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said, after searching around inside himself for a while. “And if you don’t know the right answer, you don’t answer at all. But I know one thing. It’s a rugby thing, though, like most bits of wisdom I’ve got.” He was sitting up, too, and had her hand again, because maybe it would help.
She was scared? He was here.
“I’ll take rugby wisdom,” she said.
“There’s more than one way of being strong, then,” he said. “There’s being the player who has the magic moments that can turn your momentum around in a heartbeat, yeh, or the one who comes off the bench and finishes up with so much flash, the public asks why he isn’t starting every time. And there’s the bloke who doesn’t do any of that, the one who does his role every single game and never has a bad one, and makes the team better. The one who’s as strong in Minute Eighty as he was in Minute One. It’s not because he’s not tired. It’s because he trained harder and he cared enough to do the boring parts of that, but it’s also because he’s got the kind of will that pulls his body along with him, and that when somebody else would say the tank is empty, he finds more in there, and he gives it. And because he won’t let his mates down.”
“Which is you,” she said.
“It’s who I tried to be in rugby. It’s not who I’ve been in the rest of my life. It’s who I want to be with you, though. I want to be that man who’s as steady during the hard parts, when the tank’s empty, as he was at the beginning. And none of that is my point. I didn’t do it for the money, or for the glory, but the money and the glory were there. You haven’t done it for either. You’ve done it because it’s who you are, and because it had to be done. You’re still doing it. Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
“No,” she said. She wanted to hear, though, and he needed to tell her.
So he did. “I see the player you can trust to give until his heart bursts. The one who plants his feet, puts his head down, and gets stuck in. I see that fella in the front row who’ll never win Player of the Year and never be the one scoring the try, whose nose will be broken too many times, and who’ll play on through every one of them. A woman whose van breaks down on the side of the motorway, and who gets up the next day at five to start again. The teammate I can trust to be there with me in Minute Eighty, the one who’ll empty the tank. I see the one with mana. And that’s the one I want beside me.”
She was crying. Silently this time, silver streaks down her face, her expression twisting with it. Not trying to be beautiful, and beautiful anyway. Belly deep. He said, “People are going to say you’re lucky, because people can be bloody stupid. You’re not going to be the one who’s lucky. That’s going to be me.” He grabbed for a box of tissues from the drawer and handed it to her. “So if that one’s solved, tell me the next one.”
She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, tried to laugh, and said, “My mum would be so horrified. I’m sitting up in the most unflattering way possible, showing you my stretch marks and my tummy, I’m blowing my nose, and my eye makeup’s streaking all over the shop. And you’ve just told me I’m not flash. Doubly horrified.”
He smiled. “I’m not the most polished fella myself, in case you didn’t notice. I told you I wouldn’t say it right, didn’t I. Tell me the next thing, though. I feel I’m on a roll here.”
This time, shedidlaugh, but said, “Isaiah. I was a bit preoccupied earlier this evening, but you must have heard that, too. We need to go slowly. He’s not like Casey. He’s not a fast adapter. He needs stability.”
He lay down again and sighed. “OK. I can’t argue with that one. So what do you want to do?”
She came down over him, to his surprise, kissed his mouth, and smiled into his eyes. “Do you know—that could be my favorite thing you’ve ever said to me. Thanks.”
He tried to manufacture some outrage. “After all that? Minus the rugby part, comparing you to a front-rower, I’ve said more beautiful things in one night than I have in forty years.”
Now, they were both laughing. “Nah, boy,” she said, “I loved it all. But ‘What do you want to do?’ ranks right up there. You’re still married, for one thing, and an engagement wouldn’t look good for you anyway, never mind the part with Dylan, which is a pretty big part. But what I want to do? I want to hold your hand at home, to cuddle with you on the couch when we’re watching a movie with the kids, and to give you a kiss when I see you. To tell Casey and Isaiah we’re going on a date and let them get used to it, but hold off on the ring and the date and the moving-in part of it.”
“What about the ‘getting you pregnant’ part of it?”
“Zoomed straight there, didn’t you. Maybe we could think...” She considered. Another thing he appreciated about her. Normally. When he was getting his way, at least. “That pregnancy takes nine months. Worst case? We’ve got nine months to get Isaiah used to the idea.”
“No,” he said, and her head whipped around again. “That would be the best case.” He smiled at her, then put a hand down low on her belly, where a few stripes showed the effort it had taken her body to carry Isaiah. Like his much-broken nose, the knuckles that didn’t look anything like they had twenty years ago, the scar on his forehead, and all the rest of the trophies he carried on his body. The price you’d been willing to pay, because nothing that good came easy. Women could be warriors, too. He rolled over with her, pressed his lips to one of those lines, and said, “Good things come to those who wait, eh. I reckon we’ll wait, then, and I’ll do my best to settle for feeling engaged. And possibly buy you a ring and try to think of a more memorable way to offer you my heart and hand than blurting it out in bed. Meanwhile, let’s heat up those steaks. If I’m going to keep you interested in our quasi-engagement, I could need my strength.”
