Page 6 of Just Come Over
It was the look Dylan had given him when they were kids. Part apprehensive, part worshipful, and part waiting to hear what to do next. It had exasperated Rhys no end at the time, because so often, he hadn’t known what to do next. He’d had to make it up.
This time, he knew. “Let’s have a look, mate,” he told his nephew. “You did well being brave about it, but injuries need to be looked after. We’ll get some ice on it. Sure to be a good bruise.”
Isaiah set his teeth into his lower lip, but he let his mum lift his shirt and expose the angry line of red on his upper chest. Rhys said, “Ice, definitely. And a paracetamol tablet as well, if you were one of my players.”
Zora got the tablet from a bottle in a cupboard and said, “Go change out of your wet jeans and socks, love. Or better yet—go have your bath and warm up. You’re shivering. Dinner’s in twenty minutes. We’ll strap the ice to you then. If I do it now, you’ll turn into an ice block yourself.”
She smiled and pushed back his hair with a gentle hand, and he fidgeted under the caress, glanced at Rhys again, said, “OK,” and headed off.
Zora told Rhys, “You’re in shorts, but I can’t do anything about that, except that I’m going to start the fire, February or not.” The storm was still raging outside, the raindrops spattering against the kitchen window like they were trying to get in.
Rhys said, “I’ll do it,” and followed her through an archway and into a tiny dining nook.
Just enough space for a table and four chairs, and a little black cast-iron stove on a brick hearth. Half the wall was brick, and the other half was red. Somebody hadreallyliked red. She flipped a rocker switch, yellow flame appeared behind the stove’s glass wall, and her eyes were laughing as she told him, “That’s it, I’m afraid. No manly skills required. Sorry.”
He had to laugh. She’d never seemed scared of him. Always a little saucy, a little challenging. And if that heated his blood, no matter how hard he worked to cool it down... that was his problem.
It would have helped if she hadn’t been wearing snug jeans and a slim-fitting long-sleeved T-shirt printed with delicate wildflowers on stems, both items clearly showing that, as she’d told him the first night she’d met him, she was five foot two and forty-nine Kg’s, and she was never going to get any bigger. If she hadn’t been so... pocket-sized, like you could carry her around with you, could hold her up with one arm while you kissed her breathless. Up against the wall.
He didn’t need the picture that conjured up. It would be there anyway tonight, imprinted on his mind when he closed his eyes. He knew it. He’d had experience.
That first night, after he’d left and gone to meet some of the boys from his own squad for a final beer, he’d wanted to go home with the blonde who’d come over to chat, and stayed to put her hand on his arm, to look at him, then look away, and lean forward just enough to let you look down her shirt. He’d wanted to shut it all out, to sink into the blissful oblivion of her willing body.
He could say he’d gone to bed alone instead because easy sex, the kind that had nothing to do with the person he was and everything to do with the person he appeared to be, didn’t hold the appeal it once had, but it wouldn’t have been true. That night, it had held every bit of appeal it possibly could.
No, the problem had been knowing that, when his body was heading over the edge into the dark abyss of that orgasm, where he couldn’t control anything anymore, it would have been Zora’s face underneath him. It would have been her dark eyes he’d watched closing, her soft mouth he’d seen opening. It would have been his beard burn on her neck, her hands clutching his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his waist. It would have been unacceptable.
He needed a night, he’d thought then, and that was all. Some distance, and some discipline. He could find that. He always had. Tomorrow.
Now, he told himself the exact same thing, even as he said, “You didn’t tell me you were moving. If you have a pair of Dylan’s track pants, I could wear those. He always did wear them too long, and his jeans too short. He dressed like a back, no matter how well I educated him.”
She didn’t smile. “I don’t,” she said. “Have any. It’s been almost two years. I had to start over.”
That sounded defensive. He wanted to tell her that he always needed to remind himself of Dylan around her, but how could he say that? Instead, he said, “I should’ve known that, I guess, as you aren’t wearing your rings anymore. I could have come and helped you sort his things, anyway.”
“Never mind,” she said. “Hayden did it. And I took the rings off...” A sigh. “Oh, nearly a year ago. One day, I took them off to do some gardening, and I didn’t put them on again. Not an easy day, whatever you think.” Defensive again.
“I reckon it wasn’t. I took my own ring off faster than you did, and I’m still married. Technically. I remember the day I did it, too. How is Hayden? He always made me laugh.”
“Oh, you know. He’s Hayden.” A smile of her own, like the sun coming out. Not a blazing sun. A gentle one, like the view over the paddocks to the sea in the evening, the kind that set your heart at rest. “He said the same thing you did, about Dylan’s trousers. Still not settled down with somebody nice, but he said one of us jumping too early was enough.” Confusion crossed her face, and she stammered, “I—I mean—”
“Never mind,” he said. “Tell me what to do here, and I’ll do it. Your jeans are wet, and I think you fell, back there in the carpark. Hurt yourself, maybe. You could go take your own bath.”And I won’t think about you in it,he promised himself.I can’t live this close and think about that.
She hesitated, then shrugged and pulled a bag of something out of the freezer and tossed it onto the bench, got an onion and a red capsicum from the fridge and a knife from a magnetic strip on the wall, and started to cut the veggies into thin slices. “I have to wait for Isaiah to be done. We have one bath. You could look for candles in the closet for me, between the dining room and the lounge. We could have a power cut.” Even as she said it, the lights flickered. “I’ve got a gas cooker, but I’d rather not use it in the dark.”
He found the candles, noticed again how small this place was—he kept feeling that he needed to turn sideways to get through a room—then came back and said, “You brought a hungry man home, one who’s willing to work for it. Give me directions.”
Her mouth opened, then closed, and her color rose again. What? Why? That had been polite. He was her brother-in-law. She didn’t say anything, though, just fossicked about amongst the books on the bench top, pulled out a slim paperback, found a page, and said, “Do this, then, to fix the peas, and put the bag of rice into the microwave for a minute, shake it up, and then do a minute more. If the power goes out, cook it in a saucepan on the stove instead.” She walked out, and he didn’t look at how those jeans fit, at the curve of her waist and the still-bloody-wonderful swell of her backside.
Get a grip,he told himself, slicing onion with some savagery, and welcoming the sting in his eyes.Pull your head in. You’re too old for this.
Pity he didn’t feel that way.
Dinner was a relief. Isaiah made a pretty fair chaperone. And when Rhys tasted the first forkful of silken chicken in a luscious brown sauce, nutty basmati rice, and the spiced peas he’d made on the cooktop, his eyes opened wide. “Bloody hell,” he said, “that’s amazing.”
“That’s ten minutes at noon, then leaving it to cook all afternoon while I’m gone,” Zora said, “on my busy day.”
“That’s Monday and Friday,” Isaiah informed him. “Also Saturday, but I can help then.” He had an ice pack wrapped around his chest, secured with a sling fashioned by his mum, amidst a fair bit of laughter, from a couple of tea towels. “Mum does businesses on Monday, and houses on Friday. Our best day is Tuesday. Nobody has a funeral or a wedding or anything on Tuesday. That’s when we do walks and fun things.”
