Page 25 of Just Come Over
“Ah,” he said. “Harder.”
“Yeh.” Now that it was here, it wouldn’t stop. “I want my breath to catch. I want my heart to stop beating because he looked at me. I want his to do the same thing. I want tobelieveit. And I don’t think I’m ever going to get it.”
They were off the bridge now and nearly to Grey Lynn and Hayden’s apartment. His life couldn’t be more different from hers, and yet, as he looked at her, she thought he understood.
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” he said. “Saying it’s the first step to getting it.”
The tears were there, right behind her eyes. “You think?”
“Yeh,” he said. “I do. It could be just around the corner. And if it comes? Maybe you’ll see it. Maybe you’ll open the door.”
She turned into his street and pulled over, and he reached into the back seat, ruffled Isaiah’s hair, and said, “See ya, mate.”
Isaiah said—too loudly, because he was still wearing his headphones—“Bye. I had a very good time.”
Hayden’s smile was crooked, and he reached across the van, gave Zora a cuddle, and said, “Buy a bikini. Don’t worry that summer’s nearly over. Don’t think that it costs too much. Buy it anyway. And don’t listen to me. Listen to your heart instead. Walk around the corner. Open the door.”
She was in her flower shed, three days later, when her phone rang. Of course, she was hand-tying an arrangement at the time, a thanks-for-your-business gift for her most profitable client. It was the most inconvenient moment to be interrupted. She glanced at the screen.
Rhys
She should let voicemail pick up. She wasn’t in a good place to talk to him, seeing as her unresolved sexual tension appeared to be an explosive force that could detonate at any time, and it had only got worse since Sunday.
She hadn’t seenthatcoming. Or, more accurately, she hadn’t seen it comingback,whatever she’d told Hayden. Maybe that was due to saying “yes” to Alistair and contemplating the daunting prospect of a man actually, possibly, kissing her on the lips, except it wasn’t. She could contemplate that without any flutters at all. Alistair wasn’t the problem.
And the fact that Rhys had clearly noticed was... what was the word?
Oh, yeh. “Humiliating.” Or, possibly, “disastrous,” if you looked at the issue on a continuing basis, since she was, as usual, about as mysterious and inscrutable as a puddle. If she saw him again, she was going to give it away, but how could she avoid seeing him again?
All of that went through her mind even as she set down the bouquet and picked up the phone. She’d be casual, that was all. Friendly.Sisterly.
“Hi,” she said, focusing on making it easy-breezy. It came out as more of a shout. Whoops.
“Hi,” Rhys said, sounding, as always, like he was talking while frowning, or after having chewed a bag of nails. “Can I come talk to you for a few minutes?”
“Uh... of course. Tonight, you mean?” Her heart needed to stop it. Right now.Stop it,she commanded.You are a mother. A businesswoman. A solo entity. He’s your husband’s brother.She was as successful as usual, too. Meaning, not at all.
“No,” he said. “I was thinking about this afternoon, if you can. I could use some advice.”
Oh. It was his new house after all, whatever Hayden had thought.Hehadsaid he needed advice, even though Rhys had never seemed like the type to ask anybody for advice about anything except, perhaps, his tackling technique. He was, as Dylan had complained enough times, a “bloody perfectionist” about rugby, a man who’d never heard of “good enough.” She’d never thought he’d fuss about interior decoration, but it could be something else. Where to shop. Needing a plumber. His love life.
Please, not his love life.
“I’m arranging flowers at the moment,” she said. “I could pop by tonight, though. With Isaiah,” she hastened to add. “Aren’t you at training, though?”
“If you can arrange and talk at the same time,” he said, “I’ll come there.”
“Now? Oh. All right.” He hadn’t even answered the question about training. Why was that? It wasWednesday.Wednesday was the toughest training day, when you set the foundations for the game ahead. Why wouldn’t he be there?
She knew coaches could get sacked, but before their first game, their firstseason?Surely not. That couldn’t be performance. It would have to be something else. She hadn’t seen even a rumor, though. Wouldn’t it have come out?
If that was what it was, how much of a blow would it be to a man that proud? He’d come all the way from France to take this job, and had bought a house, presumably. Besides, nobody had ever sacked Rhys Fletcher from anything. They’d probably be afraid to. It had taken broken bones even to sideline him, back in his playing days, and his bones hadn’t broken easily. Come to think of it, it had takenmajorbroken bones. She could swear there’d been a rib or two in there that he’d ignored, and probably a finger taped to its neighbor, too.
“I need to leave at two in order to make my deliveries,” she said, because it was the one thing she could grab hold of. “When were you thinking?”
“Right now.”
She was wearing the following: a singlet, short shorts,a white chef’s apron stained with dirt and plant juices, and jandals. It would be a reasonable enough look to make her deliveries to a few spas on a casual New Zealand summer day, once she got rid of the apron, pulled on an oversized cream cotton jacket, added some earrings, and fixed her hair. At the moment, that was piled on top of her head with a clip, she was sweating, and she was wearing zero makeup. In ten minutes, though, she could be presentable. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be in my shed.”
