Page 3 of Just for Me
Stop it,he tried to tell himself.It’s a bump. That doesn’t mean it’s you. Maybe youshouldring the ambos. Always one hot one, with ambos.
It didn’t feel like a bump, though. It felt like a hole ripped straight through his heart. Like he couldn’t do this anymore.
He felt a soft tap on his face and turned his head. The cat was standing on the center console on his hind legs, one snow-white paw on Hayden’s shoulder, the other tapping at his cheek.
“Reckon it’s you and me, George,” he told the cat. He didn’t know where “George” had come from. It just had. “Two blokes with nowhere to go.” His throat closed at the thought, but he kept talking. That was what he had. Talking, and being funny. He’d be funny again. He had to be. “Guess we’re going there together.”
* * *
Luke Armstrong woke up hurting.
Yes, it was Monday morning, and yes, he’d played a rugby match last night, and yes, he was a prop, which meant his job was as much about collisions as any demolition derby driver—or any demolition derbycar—which meant he always hurt.
This hurt was different, though.
He rolled out of bed and stood up, forcing himself to feel his bare feet planted on the floor, to look out the window and take in the day. The rooftops of Paris were shrouded by drizzle this morning, the beads of moisture collecting on the glass, the swallows that swooped in acrobatic flight during the long summer evenings long departed for North Africa in search of warmth.
Luke knew how they felt. He wasn’t relishing being out there himself today.
He made his way over the ancient floorboards to the bathroom with its black-and-white tile, ducking his head through the low doorway. Five minutes later, after sluicing his head with cold water and then doing it again when the first time didn’t work, he was in the kitchen making coffee and cooking a pan of eggs to fuel him for the trek to the practice facility. The hardest journey of the week, when every cell of your body was screaming for rest.
He’d been playing rugby almost as long as he could remember, and he was used to hurting, used to going on when he didn’t think he could. That was his world. That was his life. So that wasn’t why he was still standing here, staring in the mirror at red-rimmed eyes. It was because … he couldn’t do this anymore.
Thirty minutes until he had to be out the door. He downed a couple of paracetamol, washed them down with two glasses of water, pulled on track pants, then opened the refrigerator, hauled out the seven bottles of strong, darkBière de Noëlthat remained there, opened the tops one at a time, and poured them down the sink, watching the liquid gurgle away in a foaming chocolate river.
So he’d broken up, or, rather, been broken up with. It had been more than two months, and it was time to quit wallowing. Time to either choose to be alone, or start the whole cautious process of finding somebody again. Always careful. Always hiding.
He could be lonely, though. He could be in pain. He knew how to be both of those things. He’d had practice.
What he couldn’t be was pathetic, and drinking alone was pathetic. Drinking was starting to feel pathetic, full stop.
Eggs. Toast. Coffee—too much of it. Trainers. Jacket. Checking his bag by rote for the mouthguards and gear that would be there, because they were always there, because he always cleaned and packed them the night before. Even when he’d been drinking … much too much. Out the door and down the stairs, worn in the center by the passage of centuries of feet, and out into the courtyard, his legs like lead. He’d feel better once he’d got stuck in with the boys, and better than that once he went for some physio.
Or at least he’d know he hurt. Lately, he was beginning to go numb. He could play rugby hurt. He didn’t know how to play it numb.
He was halfway to the practice facility when it hit him. He had to pull off into a side street, through the mad traffic, and sit, after a hasty check of his watch. He had eighteen minutes. Three minutes to work through this. Four at the outside.
His stepsister Nyree was getting married in less than three weeks, and he’d made no plans to be there, just gone along in this … fog. She was marrying Marko Sendoa, though, which meant that Luke’s father, Grant Armstrong, would be filthy. It was no secret that Grant loathed Marko, or that the feeling was mutual, despite Marko having played for him for years. Marko was playing for the Blues now, and that would’ve made Grant even filthier. Luke knew all about that. He’d left the Highlanders himself twelve years ago so he wouldn’t have to play for his father anymore.
He couldn’t leave Nyree to face Grant alone. Not at her wedding.
He couldn’t go on like this.
He couldn’t keep running. He’d run to Christchurch to play for the Crusaders. When that hadn’t been far enough, he’d run to Racing 92, all the way to Paris. Nearly ten years ago, and what was he doing? Still running.
Nowhere to run anymore. He’d run out of world, and he’d run out of excuses.
Time to turn and fight.
2
NOWHERE TO HIDE
It’s notevery day you meet the man of your dreams while painting bunnies.
Hayden wasn’t actually painting bunnies, of course. It just sounded funnier. He didn’t have the skills for bunnies, according to Nyree Morgan, the artist who was transforming this formerly white-walled bedroom on Auckland’s Scenic Drive into a little-girl version of a magical wonderland for the benefit of one Casey Fletcher, Hayden’s newly-discovered niece-once-removed and the reason he’d taken the day off work to help.
It was all hands on deck, because Nyree was meant to be marrying Marko Sendoa on Sunday, which was exactly four days from now, and she’d gone overboard in her enthusiasm for this bloody mural, which Casey apparently absolutely needed for her first Christmas with her new family. Casey was about to be Hayden’s step-niece, and his sister Zora’s problem was Hayden’s problem, because there was no other way his life worked.
