Page 53 of Just Come Over
“Maori cousinsarereal cousins,” Zora said, for approximately the seventy-third time. “Different definition, that’s all.”
“She’s both kinds of cousin,” Isaiah said. “She’s Maori, like me, and Uncle Rhys is her dad. He was my dad’s brother, and that makes her my cousin. I didn’t know she was, and Casey didn’t know he was her dad, either, but then her mum died and Uncle Rhys came, and she found out. Now she comes to our house every day, and I have to help her with school and things.” He shrugged and stabbed another piece of chicken, then, at a look from Zora, picked up his knife and cut it properly. “I guess I have to, though, like Uncle Rhys says. He says a good heart matters, so you have to be kind. But Casey has rabbits now and likes to watch movies, so I don’t mind.”
“Dylan’s brother suddenly has a secret daughter?” Her mum’s brown eyes had sharpened. “I thought he was divorced.”
“Getting there,” Zora said. “He and Victoria are in the waiting period for the divorce. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“That didn’t take him long,” her dad said. “No grass growing under his feet. No surprise there.”
“Casey’s six.” Zora kept her voice level. This was the first of many times she’d be explaining this. You could call it a test.
Her mother looked up, and her dad did, too. Her dad laughed, in fact, and said, “That’s not what you’d call careful. Who’d have thought Rhys Fletcher would be that reckless? Rugby players aren’t always known for their self-discipline, though, I guess.”
“Rugby players are exactly known for their self-discipline,” Zora said. Well, not Dylan, maybe, but Rhys? Also, her dad wasn’t saying, “Maori aren’t known for their self-discipline,” but that was what he meant. Isaiah was Maori. She’d pointed that out to her parents, and still, they did it.
“Casey came from Chicago,” Isaiah said. “Which is in the United States, but Uncle Rhys brought her home to live with him. Mum and I are living at Uncle Rhys’s house starting on Tuesday, and Casey got rabbits today, so she needs help to take care of them, because Uncle Rhys is about to leave for Australia.”
“Excuseme?” Zora’s mum said.
“We’ll be there caring for Casey,” Zora said, “while Rhys is in Australia, like Isaiah said. Rhys is coaching the Blues now, and he’s bought a place in Titirangi, so it’s convenient for all of us. Extra money for Isaiah and me, and Casey’s a darling.”
“You’re a child-minder now?” her mum asked.
“No. I’m helping out with my niece, which is no hardship at all, and Rhys is paying me for it, which is a wonderful bonus.”
“In other news,” Hayden had to put in, “Zora had a date recently. With a doctor. Not just a doctor. Asurgeon.Absolute parental approval territory. Life returns, eh.”
Both her parents sprang into hyper-alertness. “What kind of surgeon?” her dad asked.
“Plastic,” Hayden said, while Zora shot daggers at him. “Alistair something. Plaid shorts. It didn’t work out, though. One and done. You have to kiss a lot of frogs, I guess, but at least she’s begun the kissing.”
“Alastair Corcoran, by any chance?” her dad asked, and at Zora’s reluctant nod, said, “Good surgeon. Does very well for himself indeed, only ten years or so in, and not a bad fella. Well done, Zora.”
“Except that it didn’t work out,” Zora said, doing her best to keep it light. “Maybe Hayden went out this week. We could ask him about it. Bound to be more entertaining than hearing about my life, unless you want to talk about flowers. So few people ever want to talk about flowers.”
“Well, I think getting out there is a wonderful idea,” her mum said firmly. “Past time, I’d say, kissing or not.”
Isaiah said, “Mumiskissing, though. She kissed Uncle Rhys today, in the bathroom. Casey and I saw.”
The clock on the wall turned over the seconds.Tick, tick, tick.In the silence, four pairs of eyes swiveled toward Zora. Her father looked startled. Her mum looked disapproving. Hayden looked amused and expectant. Isaiah looked apprehensive, like he shouldn’t have said it.
Zora smiled—at least she thought she was smiling, because her face felt frozen—and said, “Family’s different, Isaiah. Your Nana and Uncle Hayden are talking about a different kind of kissing.”
“Oh,” Isaiah said, and looked doubtful. She didn’t lie to him, except that she just had. What else could she have said, though? It was one time. One slip. It was over.
Rhys hadn’t mentioned it again, but then, it wasn’t the sort of thing you discussed amongst the play rugs at Bunnings Hardware, when Casey was deciding between the town and the castle, because Rhys had noticed that she needed a carpet, and, in typical Rhys fashion, had taken steps to fix that.
How would she have brought it up?Sorry I projected my sexual frustration onto you. Please excuse the orgasm topic. I’ll try much harder in future not to imagine your hands slowly pushing my legs apart and your mouth moving up my inner thigh, and I’ll also stop wondering whether you can actually be as big as you felt against me, because I don’t need to know. But since we’re talking, can you possibly be as absolutely physical and completely sexual a man, or as determined to work at pleasing a woman until she loses all her strength, as I’ve been imagining? Just tell me once, and then I’ll drop the subject.
Obviously, hewasthat sexual, or he wouldn’t have responded the way he had. Also obviously, he’d thought better of it once he’d had a chance to think it through, whatever he’d said at the time, or he’d have addressed it himself. Rhys wasn’t exactly the retiring, tactful sort.
It was such a good thing that he was leaving.
She thought the subject was closed here, too. When she and her mum were doing the washing-up, though, just the two of them, her mum returned to the topic. She started out with the oblique approach. “I’m glad to hear you’re dating again. Dylan was a lovely man, but two years is long enough.”
“My mandated mourning period’s over, is it?” Zora asked.
“Don’t be silly. You’re the one who mentioned dating. And really, darling, your life is so precarious. That can’t be pleasant, worrying about the bills every month. Isaiah needs a father, too.”
