Page 48 of Just Come Over
Zora murmured, “Just balls,” and both of them laughed this time. A stupid joke, but true.
“I’m glad you came,” Jenna told her. “I was happy when Finn told me you were bringing Casey. I missed you, when Dylan left for the UK. Maybe because you’re low-key, like me.” She smiled. “Truth coming out, even after all this time. And I was so sorry, of course, to hear about Dylan. That was a shocker. They get hurt all the time, of course, but...”
“Yeh,” Zora said. “Thank you for reaching out. I just couldn’t, at the time.”
Jenna touched her hand. “We all do what we have to do. If you haven’t been in that spot, you can’t judge, surely. Finn told me about your flower business, though. That’s exciting.”
“Earning a living,” Zora said, “but I like it.”
“Is it awkward if I subscribe?” Jenna asked. “Flower arranging isn’t something I’ve ever really mastered. Funny, what you do well and what you don’t. My Christmas trees generally feature things my kids made in school. I found out that people have theme trees, and I realized that the whole idea had just gone...” She passed a hand over her head. “Whoosh. My interior design skills are slim to none, in fact. I could use some beautification, if that’s all right. I could spread the word, too. And don’t worry, nobody will be signing up out of pity, or whatever you’re imagining. Your arrangements are stunning, unless what’s on the website is a cruel hoax.”
Zora was laughing. “Not a cruel hoax. And if you saw my house... I’ve got a bucket in the corner of my bedroom. My roof leaks. Also, my kitchen is red. I don’t mean red accents. I mean it’sred.”
“Well, red can be... homey? Warm?”
“Or bizarre,” Zora said. “At this point, I’m clinging to it out of stubbornness. I’m oddly fond of my red kitchen. And dining room. We’reextremelyred.”
“Mm. Finn says Rhys’s new place is flash, though.”
“I don’t know,” Zora said. “I’m seeing it tomorrow.”
“Could be strange,” Jenna said, “having him back in your life. And Casey now, too. Nice, I’m sure, but different. I always liked Rhys, maybe because he’s like Finn. The kind of man that appeals to me, I suppose. Wait. That came out wrong. I mean—”
“Big,” Zora said. “Hard-tackling. Scary, if you don’t know better. Hard man. Good dad.”
“Is he?” Jenna asked, her face lighting up. “I’m glad. I was surprised, when Finn told me. We were all surprised. It’s been a topic, you could say. Not surprised about the ‘good dad’ part. Only surprised that it was... uh, him. Or that it took him so long to... that... Oh, dear. I’ve boxed myself in.”
“Yeh,” Zora said, and finally relaxed, just as the announcer’s voice swelled, the torches below sent out gouts of flame, and the team ran out onto the field. “I was surprised, too. But I think I’m getting used to it.”
Zora pulled the van to a stop in Rhys’s driveway at exactly nine o’clock on Sunday morning. It felt like an occasion. It felt too momentous. It had been going to see the rugby, probably, and all those complicated feelings it brought up, especially her attraction to men who ran hard, tackled their hearts out, and battled as long as they could draw breath.
She wasn’t nearly as modern a woman as she ought to be. She also didn’t seem to have learned much over the past ten years.
“It does look like a doctor’s office,” she told Casey. “A bit.” Well, that would make it easier to resist the temptation, mad as it was, to stay here with the kids while Rhys was gone. She’d envisioned something totally glam, multiple levels of spectacular high-end housing. Instead, she was looking at a dark-wood rectangle with four tall, narrow windows and a door for a two-car garage. Otherwise? A concrete pad for cars, and a flat patch of tiny stones overlaid by more concrete pavers leading to an absolutely plain front door, with a few small bushes to break the monotony.
She wasn’t overly materialistic, she hoped. If she ever had been, she’d got over it. Rhys was a practical man, and this looked as low-maintenance as you could get. There was probably some back garden on the downhill slope, anyway. There had to be, if there was a rabbit hutch down there. Better views, too, surely. Scenic Drive was the most tree-intensive and winding of streets, with views that justified its name and a price tag to match, and wound around a ridgetop and into the Waitakeres, the mountains that lay between Auckland and the rough, wild western shores of the Tasman Sea. Nobody would build a house up here with a view of only a few trees.
“Come on,” Casey told her, climbing out. “I’ll show you my room.” She raced over to one of the narrow windows, and Isaiah went with her. Casey put her hands around her eyes and peered inside. “It’s kind of plain,” she told Zora, “but it’s going to get better.”
Zora took a look. That was no joke, about it being plain. A queen-size bed and bedside table, a wall of built-in white shelving and desk, and that was all.
“The next one is mine,” Isaiah said. “Except the bath is in between.” With glass-block windows, so you couldn’t see in. Which made sense. And—yes. “Isaiah’s room” was another queen-size bed and some more white shelving.
The door opened behind her, and there was Rhys, dressed in rugby shorts and a gray T-shirt in the end-of-summer weather, and with the kind of breadth to his shoulders and warmth in his eyes that could cause breathing problems. A warmth that was meant for Casey, because she ran to him, and he swung her up into his arms, gave her a cuddle, and asked, “How did you like your first rugby match, then? Ready to join the team at school?”
“Yes,” she said, her arms tight around his neck and her face pressed to his. “Because it’s very fierce and fast. Except I need you to teach me.”
He laughed, a warmer, more relaxed sound than Zora had ever imagined coming from him, until the past few weeks. “I could do that,” he said, “along with Isaiah. How you goin’, mate? Have a good time, did you?”
“Yeh,” Isaiah said. “Except the Blues lost.”
Rhys made a face. “You aren’t supposed to mention that, not straight off the bat.”
“Did you yell at people?” Casey asked hopefully.
Some more smile. “Nah. I’ll yell at them tomorrow, no worries. Or, rather, I’ll go over where we fell short and what we need to do better next week. Here’s a secret. Losing’s on me, too. On me most of all, you could say. Winning’s my job. If we didn’t win, I need to do my job better.”
“Nobody wins every time,” Isaiah objected. “Even the All Blacks have only about eighty percent of winning. That means they lose two times out of every ten games they play,” he told Casey. “And ninety percent winning for the last ten years. That’s nine times out of ten, and one time, they lose.”
