Page 56 of Just Come Over
And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.
He wouldn’tbethere, and she wasn’t all that beautiful. What was herproblem?Other than the kind of insistent need that couldn’t be cured by a shower head?
Now, she had the van loaded down with her Monday subscription deliveries, and was turning up a quiet street in Mount Eden to drop off the first of them, which was to Jenna and Finn Douglas’s address. Jenna had asked for her flowers on Mondays rather than Fridays, unlike the rest of her residential customers, “because Finn will never notice flowers on Friday, and neither will I. Too many game thoughts for him, and too many kids in the house at the weekend for me. We always end up with extras, somehow. My quiet time’s during the week. I want them then.”
She saw a silver BMW SUV with a dent in the front fender parked out front, and nearly turned around again. She felt scrubbed raw, and she wasn’t sure she could face Rhys. Even though, for once, she was wearing makeup and looking relatively polished, in leggings and an embroidered tunic. Business-delivery mode.
Harden up,she told herself, then took the arrangement out of the back of the van, climbed the steps, and rang the doorbell.You won’t even see him. You’ll hand over the flowers to Jenna and leave.
Jenna answered the door, smiled like the sun at sight of the flowers, and said, “I’m feeling so brilliant for asking you for these. I still hate it when Finn leaves on one of these trips, but those are going to console me. So beautiful. Thank you.”
“I’m glad you like them,” Zora said. She always felt a little shy, the first time she delivered to a new client. She’d gone with the same thing she’d done for her mum last night, because she’d loved how it had turned out. She’d thought about sunflowers, something more late-summery and androgynous, but she’d done the blush-and-pale-green instead. It was prettier, that was all. It was gorgeous and lush and feminine and special. Men liked pretty things, too, especially if they could tell themselves that their appreciation had to do with appreciating a woman.
That was a confused thought. Probably the wine talking, still, or the relentlessly sexual thoughts that kept intruding, three years’ worth of them arriving in one hard rush.
“Do you have time for a cup of tea?” Jenna asked. “Ten minutes?”
“Sure,” Zora said. She knew Rhys was in there. She said yes anyway. Ten minutes.
Jenna’s littler kids were playing with a train set in the lounge when she walked through the house, and Rhys and Finn were sitting at the kitchen table. Having a cup of tea, what else. When Rhys saw her, he stood up, and her heart did some kind of flip and flutter, like she hadn’t seen him a few hours earlier.
“Hi,” he said. Smiling with his eyes all the way. She’d surprised him, clearly, because he didn’t have that blank look he so often did when he looked at her.
“Zora’s brought me my first flower delivery,” Jenna said. “I didn’t tell you that I subscribed, Finn. Surprise! I subscribed. I need pretty things, I decided, and isn’t this gorgeous?”
“You do need pretty things,” Finn said. “I’ve got no problem with that. Hi, Zora.” He kissed her cheek. Rhys didn’t. “Good to see you again. Thanks for making my wife happy. Always a good thing.”
His face was even craggier than it had been when he’d been playing with Dylan, his body was exactly as rock-solid, and both he and Rhys looked like they could lace up their boots right now and run onto the field, and like they were just hoping somebody wouldn’t turn up in time so they could do it. That was a lot of rugby muscle for one kitchen, she thought confusedly. The confusion was possibly because Rhys was still looking at her, and Rhys’s eyes made her knees go weak.
“Do you have a prettier vase?” she asked Jenna, who was filling the electric jug at the sink. “Since I’m here, I may as well do that for you. I deliver them in jars so people can do their own vases, but...” She was babbling. She knew it. She needed to get her hands busy, and fast.
Ten minutes. Floral arranging, cup of tea, and out. And if she tingled the whole ten minutes? Nobody had to know.
Zora had left. Rhys needed to leave, too. He’d just finish this tea first.
She’d seemed rattled, hadn’t she? Or was that him? He didn’t know. She hadn’t said anything the day before about what had happened. In fact, she’d barely looked at him, either yesterday afternoon when he’d dropped her and Isaiah off, or this morning, either, which told him everything.
He shouldn’t have talked about orgasms. He’d known it at the time. It had slipped out, that was all, and everything else had seemed inevitable, exactly like that story she’d told. Like once you saw that woman naked in the moonlight, you had no choice.
Finn said, “... it’s going.”
“Pardon?” Rhys blinked.
Finn exchanged a glance with Jenna. “I was asking you how it was going with Casey. Saying I’d meant to ask you sooner.”
“Oh. Fine. Zora’s watching her. I told you that, though. She’s a good mum, and good to Casey, too. Better, I thought, for her to be with whanau.”
“Yes,” Jenna said. “I’m sure. To have other people who love her. Does she talk about her mum?”
“No,” Rhys said, then hesitated. “Should she? I’ve wondered.”
Jenna said, “You’ll have to excuse my interest. This is what I used to do, teach Year One. Do you want to know what I think? Or no? If it’s no, that’s all right.”
Finn took her hand under the table. Rhys couldn’t see it happen, exactly, but he could tell it had. “Yes,” Rhys told her. “I do.”
“Kids go along with what happens in their lives,” Jenna said. “First, because they don’t have a choice, and second, because they haven’t had the life experience we have, so they don’t compare their lives to what they expected, the way we do. That’s a good thing in some ways, because it means they can roll with the punches better, and a not-so-good thing in others, because they have no perspective. They don’t know that it gets better.”
“Meaning,” Rhys said slowly, “that I should give her perspective, maybe.”
