Page 1 of Just Come Over
“I told you it was going to be ninety dollars,” Zora Fletcher’s son, Isaiah, informed her. “It’s ninety-two, actually, so I missed two dollars. We were only supposed to spend eighty. If we put back the pineapple and got the other kind of oil, it would be eighty-three. That’s closer. Or else we have to only spend sixty-eight next time.”
The cashier, a comfortable lady of middle age, fortunately didn’t sigh. She may have had to put back the olive oil herself a time or two in her life, Zora suspected. She told her son, “We’ll do ninety-two for now. And next time, I’ll believe you when you add up.”
He grinned, showing off a couple missing teeth. “Even though I’m eight.”
“Butverygood at maths.” As she swiped her EFTPOS card, she thought yet again that, whatever her dad had said, she’d been right to sell the house. She didn’t need that stress.
The cashier handed her the receipt and said, “Careful out there. We could get a tornado, they say. A cyclone’s enough to be going on with. There’ll be trees down, that’s sure.”
“Lucky I made my deliveries earlier today,” Zora said. “It was blowing hard enough then. A good night to stay home.” They headed to the door, and she told Isaiah, “Zip up,” as a shopper ran in with a shopping bag held over his head.
There wasn’t an anorak in the world that would protect you from this, but they pulled up their hoods all the same. The wind came at them like a shrieking animal, and the rain slapped against their bodies in waves. She was gasping, and Isaiah was laughing. “It’s like being on a tall ship,” he shouted. “One that’s about to wreck!”
She had to laugh, too. He was right. It was an adventure, a spot of excitement, and they were barely five kilometers from home. February, the height of summer, and only six o’clock in the evening, but the Auckland sky was dark with storm, the carpark of the Mount Albert Pak ‘n’ Save swirling with sheets of water. “Run!” she shouted, and they headed down the path between the aisles of parked cars. Why were you never parked close when you needed it? She was gasping by the time they turned into their aisle, and their spot was all the way at the end. Isaiah had the trolley now and was out ahead of her. She was shouting, “Slow down!” and reaching for him when a gust of wind swirled into them from behind and sent him and the trolley flying forward, straight at a silver SUV that had just turned the corner.
Everything happened at once. She was leaping after Isaiah, shouting his name, slipping and skidding to one knee on the wet asphalt, feeling the pain of it only dimly. Isaiah was hauling back on the loaded trolley, pulled by its momentum and the wind, and the SUV was stopping with a rocking jolt, faster than she’d have imagined it could. Which was followed by a second jolt, as the front of the trolley smashed into the car’s bonnet and Isaiah bounced off the trolley’s handle, staggered, and looked back at her.
White face. Open mouth. Round eyes. “Sorry,” he said. She saw it more than she heard it, the shape of the word on his lips, his hand clutching at his skinny chest, and she got to her feet and went to him, and tried not to shake. He was all right. He was allright.
The rain and wind drowned out everything else, except the man who erupted from the driver’s side like a thunderbolt. His anorak was unzipped, his ink-black hair, on the long side, was plastered to his head with rain, and he looked, at that moment, the size of two men, with the strength of three.
Very much, in fact, like Rhys Fletcher.
Exactlylike Rhys Fletcher.
Who didn’t like her in the first place, wasn’t meant to be in Auckland in the second place, and whose obviously-latest-and-greatest model of... oh, brilliant, it was a BMW—now had a sizable dent in the front, in the third place.
And who was, in the fourth place, her brother-in-law. Or he had been. Once.
Rhyswasn’tshaking. He was shouting. Call it his happy place. That had been a bad moment, when he’d slammed his foot practically through the brake pedal and known he wouldn’t stop in time.
“Are you all right?” he yelled at the kid, who had scrambled backward to his... mother? It was hard to tell under the anorak hood. She wasn’t very big. The way she had her arms around him, though, she had to be his mother.
She asked, “Rhys?” He heard that voice, saw the way her hand went up to her hood, like she was about to touch her hair, her habitual gesture, and thought,What? No,even before he registered the face. The one he’d seen in too many dreams.
“I’m OK,” the kid—his nephew, Isaiah—said. “I’m sorry about your car. I didn’t mean to hit it.” Behind him, a sedan pulled up with an impatient splash of water and a screech of brakes and hooted.
Oh. They were all standing in the middle of the carpark, and his SUV was blocking the road.
He told both of them, “Go get in your car, out of the wet. I’ll come unload you,” then ran around and pulled the SUV into an open space to the tune of some more angry hooting from the bloke behind him. If Rhys didn’t respond the way he may have wanted to, that was because he’d had forty years of practice in controlling his temper, whatever it looked like.
He should get points for that. He never actually did. Apparently,lookingfierce was enough to earn you that reputation. And, possibly, raising your voice a bit, when necessary. And tackling like you were pushing a fella’s ribs through his spine, but that was just rugby.
Was Zora in the car when he got there? Of course not. That would have been too easy. Also, she would have had to do what he’d suggested. Instead, she and Isaiah were standing in the blowing rain, unloading carrier bags into the back of a pink van. Who had a pink van? Zora, naturally. If Isaiah had been more than bruised, though, surely he wouldn’t be unloading bags. That was a relief. Rhys told them, “Get in. I’ll do this.”
Zora grabbed two more bags, slung them into the back, and said, “Already done. Climb in, though, and we’ll talk about your car.”
Her voice sounded like she was trying to keep it from trembling. Her hands actuallyweretrembling. That had scared her too much. He wanted to give her a cuddle, and he absolutely couldn’t. He also had absolutely no desire to talk about his car. Isaiah had hold of the trolley, and Rhys took it from him and said, “I’ll put it back. Get in the car and wait.”
“OK,” Isaiah said, just as Zora said, “You don’t—”
Rhys didn’t wait to hear what he didn’t have to do. He headed across to the trolley collection area and dumped the thing, then ran back to the van. It was raining, yeh, and blowing, too, but he was used to rain. He’d been out with the boys in it half the afternoon, in fact. When you played rugby, you didn’t get to choose the conditions on match day. If you didn’t know how to hang onto the ball in the wet, your opponent probably did.
Not that anybody had complained, of course. He could think they’d been trying to impress their new coach when they’d jogged on out there, but it was probably more that they’d been coached well by their last one.
Never mind. For right now, he climbed into the van’s passenger seat, shut the door, twisted around to look at Isaiah, in the back seat, his hood pushed back, his anorak unzipped, and his dark eyes too big for his face, and said, “You hit the trolley handle pretty hard, mate. How much does it hurt?” In fact, the boy had his hand on his ribs, where he’d slammed into that metal handle.
“I’m OK,” Isaiah said. His teeth were chattering, though, and it wasn’t cold out here, just wet. Shock, probably, and some pain. He’d got tall, surely, for... seven? Eight? How old was he now? Tall like his father, Dylan. Built slim like Dylan, too, instead of solid like Rhys. A back, not a forward. If he played.
