Just Say [Hell] No

by Rosalind James

  She stalked straight by Marko and up the stairs past Ella and Kors, yanked at the door, and bounced off it. She tried to punch in the code, yanked again, and swore, and Ella said, “Here,” and did it for her. Then Nyree flounced inside, and the last thing Marko saw was pale skin showing through red laces.

  Not pig blood, no. Hot blood. Hers. And his.

  “I took a girl to get ice cream,” Kors said into the silence. “Nek minnit…”

  “I have a feeling,” Kane said slowly, “that I’m going to have to rethink this.” Then his eyes met Marko’s. “But what I said before still goes.”

  “What did you say before?” Marko asked.

  “Oh. Maybe I didn’t say it before. Anyway. That if you’re playing some game with her, you’ll answer to me.”

  “Mate,” Marko said. “I wasn’t the one hiding.”

  Everybody was still standing around with no look of leaving, so Marko gave an inward sigh and said, “Come in. Cup of tea.”

  “Tom and I brought stuff for sandwiches,” Ella said. “And I’m starved.”

  “Thought you went for ice cream,” Marko said. “Three scoops.”

  “We did,” Ella said. “And now I’m starved again.”

  “Fine,” Marko said. “Groceries. Sandwiches. And a cup of tea.” He told Kane, “If you’re going to report back on where Nyree’s living, I reckon you’d better see it.” He detoured to the bags of groceries in the boot of Kors’s car, then led the others inside.

  “Her mum worries,” Kane said from behind him. Which may have been an apology.

  “Got it,” Marko said.

  Cat had apparently been waiting for him, because the second he was through the door, she was leaping down and trotting after him into the kitchen. Once he put the bags down, he picked her up. Otherwise, she was going to get stepped on, with six rugby-sized feet tramping around.

  Kane said, “You have a kitten,” and Marko wondered when he’d mastered the art of stating the blindingly obvious.

  “Yeh,” he said. “I have a kitten, your sister’s living with me, and I’m going to kick your arse on Saturday night.”

  “You hope,” Kane said.

  “No. I know.” Then he got a little distracted. “Wait. What happened in here?” To say his dining room didn’t look the same…

  Nyree hadn’t painted the walls this time. That was because the walls were glass. She’d put down some kind of thick mats on the floor, though, and as for the rest of it… he was surprised, that’s all. It was nothing like he’d expected.

  Ella saw what he was looking at and said, “Didn’t you notice it when you came in? Nyree fixed it. Isn’t it awesome?”

  “Ah… no,” Marko said. “I didn’t come in here.”

  “Oh.” Ella was hauling ham and cheese out of the grocery bags and starting to slap together sandwiches. Kors was helping her. Of course he was. “It’s meant to be Japanese,” she told Marko. “She found the mats on TradeMe, and she said we should go with that look, because of the garden and all. I said it was too plain, and she said no, it was serene, and it would be beautiful as a story at night, and you’d like it better than if she painted flowers on the table or painted all the chairs different colors or whatever. She got that rice paper shade for the light, which you have to admit looks better than before. The table and chairs were ugly as, some kind of fake wood, but she painted them all that shiny black and got the cushions that are like mats so they’d go, and so they’d be more comfortable. It’s all bamboo, the cushions and floor mats and all. And the thing in the middle is pussy willows.”

  “The thing in the middle” was more elegant than that. An absolutely simple black wooden vase held long, slender branches bearing fuzzy catkins, all of it standing on a bamboo mat in the center of the glossy black table. Softness against hardness, pale against dark. The same way Nyree felt and looked underneath him. Elemental. Satisfying. Right.

  He heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs, and Ella hissed at him, “Say something nice. She tried to make it so you’d like it. She tried really hard.”

  He heard her, but then Nyree came into the kitchen wearing a turquoise dress that may have been intended to be less suggestive than the red one, but didn’t quite manage it. It had long sleeves and for once, no lacing-up anywhere, so there was that. But it was made of lace and ended barely halfway down her thighs, she’d slung a black leather belt around her hips, and all of it showed off her curves in fairly spectacular fashion. She was wearing little black high-heeled boots with it, too. Black leather, and the white of her skin showing through lace. Oh, yeh.

  He wasn’t going to be the only one staring. He knew what he was doing with the rest of his day off, too. Going to a dog wedding.

  She was carrying an awkward rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper, which she set against the wall. “Pookie,” she announced. “Framed.”

  Ella said, “Awesome. Can you help Tom finish the sandwiches? I need to take a shower and get dressed.” She cut an enormous sandwich in half and put it on a plate. “And eat.”

  Marko said, “If you’re meant to be impressing people today, Nyree, convincing them that they want a dog portrait, would a few rugby boys help? Unless it’s a formal affair, and too late to crash it.” Sounded casual. Non-jealous, too. Bonus.

  Kors said, “You’re joking. And we’re still in our warmups.” Except for Kane, who was wearing shorts, a hoodie, and jandals, and needed a haircut. At least Marko was a step above that.

  Ella paused halfway out the door. “You never do things like that, Marko.”

  “There’s a time and a place for everything,” he said. “Ring her up, Nyree, and see if she’d like us. Jandals and all.”

  Nyree did. She went into the other room to do it, then came back and said, “She said yes, of course. In fact, she said, ‘I’m going to ring the mums right now. And send Harold out to buy more champagne and nibbles. They aren’t going to believe it. They’re all going to come now, not just send their kids. This is going to be awesome. And Marko Sendoa? Oh, yum. My very best bad-boy fantasy.’ And so forth. I won’t tell you. Fairly sick-making, and we aren’t even there yet. But wear a T-shirt and give her an extra thrill, will you, Marko? That’ll help. She’ll probably feel your bicep, though. You may be sorry you volunteered.”

  “No,” he said, and picked up a sandwich. “I won’t. I look at it this way. Chances of my having to adopt a kitten to impress a girl? Slim to none.”

  She had Pookie’s picture in the boot of the Beetle. She had Marko, too. Not in the boot. In the passenger seat. In a T-shirt that showed off his larger-than-life-sized, sculptor-ready arms and chest, as per request.

  Savannah was definitely going to touch his arms. That was fine, as long as he was fine, which Nyree guessed he would be. It wouldn’t be the first time, she was sure. If anyone put her hands on his chest, though, Nyree might forget her manners.

  Everybody else was somewhere behind them in Marko’s car. Ella. Tom. Kane. And Victoria. Who was riding with the others, because Marko had tossed his keys to Kane when they’d left the house and said, “I need to talk to Nyree, mate.” And Kane had obeyed like there was no question about it. Marko’s confidence was infuriating, when it wasn’t turning her on. Or both.

  Her mind still hadn’t settled one bit. She was going to be a blithering fool today if she didn’t pull herself together. What was a woman to do, though, when she’d had some of the most thrilling sex of her life, then gone straight into a showdown out of some farce, and then had Marko tell her that her art was good? Which may have been the happening that had rocked her the most.

  Well, no. The sex had rocked her the most. Who did something like that the first time? A man who knew what he wanted and wasn’t shy about it, that was who. Also a man with plenty more where that came from. Her body still hummed with the electric charge he’d given her, even after a shower and a change to her most conservative dress. Which dress had had Marko looking her up and down as if he didn’t realize her body
wasn’t toned enough, because she didn’t actually like running at all.

  She could swear he was looking her over now, in fact, as she merged onto the Harbour Bridge. She said, “My thighs aren’t firm enough. You do realize that. Since I’m meant to be sharing information now.”

  He put a hand on the one closest to him, sliding it straight under the lace, and she nearly drove off the road. “Want to bet?” he asked.

  She cleared her throat. “I’d rather say it first, that’s all.”

  “You would, eh. Then let me say it second. Afterwards, when you were lying beside me, waiting for me to start you up again? Your thighs looked good to me. So did the rest of you. Which could be why I’m still thinking about it.”

  “Despite the blondes,” she said. “Despite my stepfather.”

  “Despite anything. And stop talking to me about blondes. I’m not with a blonde. I’m here with you, and I’ve got all the hardness either one of us needs. I don’t even mean that in a dirty way. Although, yeh, in a dirty way, too.”

  She sighed. “That shouldn’t sound so tempting. Like I can just relax and let you take over.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Sounds good to me.”

  “Maybe that I’ve been fighting that exact thing for half my life?”

  He seemed to give it some thought. He had time, since they were inching through traffic. “I’ll give you an alternative plan, then,” he said. “You can relax and let me take over in bed. And on the floor. And in the kitchen. And in the spa tub, because I’ve got a few things I need to do to you in there. It’s been exercising my mind, you could say, thinking of ways to overcome our height difference. Against the wall. On the stairs, maybe. I’ve had a thought or two about that as well. The rest of the time, I’ll back you up. How’s that?”

  His hand had moved up while he’d been talking, and she managed to say, “A man who has as many reservations about my driving as you do shouldn’t be touching me where you are right now, or saying things like that. I don’t think my car has a five-star crash rating. I should’ve worn more substantial undies, too. Also, your fantasies seem to be ignoring a certain element in our lives. Which would be Ella. And wait a minute. Did you really come along today to support me, or… what?”

  “Keep your mind on me supporting you,” he said. “And not on the idea that you look too sexy for my comfort in that dress. Much safer.” He took his hand away, though. Pity.

  “Huh,” she said. “I’m chalking this up to life experience, so you know, which is why I’m not trying to sort out whether I should be bothered by any of that. So is my general fabulousness the reason why you aren’t making a bigger thing anymore of me not telling you who I was? I was sure you’d chuck me out. I had to tell you before I slept with you, which is one of the several good reasons why I couldn’t sleep with you. Also that if you chucked me out, Ella would be alone. Et cetera. You could call it a vicious circle.”

  “Ah, well,” he said. “I wanted to at first. Chuck you out, I mean. Also sleep with you. I’m still not exactly rapt about your family ties, no. Grant isn’t going to be best pleased, and I don’t like being lied to. On the other hand, I remember what Josh Daniels said. And I have three younger sisters. Plus Ella. Could be I got it.”

  She muttered, “I wish you wouldn’t be sensitive. It throws me,” and he laughed.

  “It could also be,” he went on, “that I’d have a hard time chucking you out. It could even be that I thought back a bit. I told you I’d be holding out for something special. I couldn’t remember, though, if I’d ever asked if you were.”

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeh. I assumed nobody else would do for you, because that was how it was for me. I think there’s a word for that. Probably ‘Arrogant bastard.’ Which is what I’m putting out there before you can say it.”

  “Well,” she felt compelled to point out, “I can see why you’d think so. And why you’d be arrogant in general.”

  “Can you? You don’t have my grandmother, then. Not to mention my parents.”

  “Obviously. Why? What would your grandmother have said?”

  “Not much. She’d just have looked at me. But there’s something she said when I left home the first time to go to school, and again when I was chosen for the All Blacks. You could say it stuck.”

  “Which was?”

  He hesitated, then said, “‘Stay small. No man is a big fella. The world is the big thing.’”

  “Sounds Maori,” she said. Cautiously, because he’d brought those words out from someplace deep.

  “No. But not too far off. There’s something else she must have told my mum, because of course she’s picked straight up on it. A proverb, I guess you’d say, and my mum does say. Here you go. You’ll like this. ‘We are only visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love, and then we return home.’”

  She hummed, and so did her heart. “Sounds very Maori. The world, and your place in it. Humility. Mana.”

  “Yeh. You may like her. My grandmother. I’ve been thinking I should take Ella home to see the family for a few days during the bye next week. You could come, if you like, if you can get the time off. Whenever it works.”

  He said it casually. She said, “Uh, Marko…”

  “Or not,” he said. “Whichever.”

  She would have said something, though she wasn’t sure what. But they’d arrived, onto a street already lined with cars. She had too many things bouncing around in her brain, so she focused on one. Finding a carpark.

  After that? Showtime.

  The beginning went about the way Marko expected. The wedding was being staged in terraced gardens that might have been pretty if they hadn’t been filled by too many excited little dogs, and a few big ones, chasing each other around and barking at a pitch humans shouldn’t have been able to hear. He was watching where he stepped as he followed Nyree along a winding path, and not just because he didn’t want to squash somebody’s pet.

  About twenty kids were milling about, dressed like miniature wedding guests, below a white arbor bedecked with dozens of what looked like real pink roses, set in front of rows of white chairs. A couple boys were throwing a ball for a corgi, who would run after it for a few meters and then lose the plot and start licking himself in a manner better suited to the wedding night than the ceremony. To the right, a group of men was hanging around by the food table, probably because that was where the beer was, looking decidedly less dressy than their wives, who were done up like it was… well, a wedding. In other words—boring.

  On the other hand, the day was breezy but warm, the sea was spread out before him in all its sparkling blue glory, the sailboats were returning from their regatta with their colorful spinnakers unfurled before them, he’d just had smoking sex with the woman of his dreams, not to mention his fantasies, and he was planning on doing it again tonight. Also, it looked like there was food on that table, not just beer. And a four-tier wedding cake that didn’t count, because he and the boys wouldn’t be eating it.

  And, of course, he’d just invited Nyree home to meet his family, and he didn’t seem to be having second thoughts. He was either in a good mood, or he’d gone round the bend. Or both.

  He was pondering the economic rationality of buying a full-blown wedding cake for a dog party, because it was easier than thinking about how out of control his life was becoming, what with the daughter of the coach, the kitten, the pregnant cousin, and the cousin’s apparent new love interest. Also why the hell he’d risked going out on the edge like that with Nyree the first time, except that he hadn’t seemed able to help it and she’d seemed to love it, what with how much noise she’d made and the way her forehead had banged against the mattress and all…

  At which point he got sidetracked.

  That was when the trouble began. First in the form of his hostess, an improbable blonde in a tight pink skirt suit, who was made up like she was about to do a photo shoot. Which sh
e probably was, since Marko had caught sight of a bloke wandering around with a professional-looking camera. Nyree whispered, “Mother of the bride, I presume. Also the groom,” in a suspiciously choked voice, and then the vision was upon them.

  “Nyree!” The blonde took Nyree by the arms and kissed her cheek. “You look amazing. And I’m so glad you brought your friends. Everybody’s so excited. Hi, everyone. I’m Savannah. Ooh. Champagne. Hang on a tick.” She was off again, coming back with an unopened bottle and four plastic glasses, each caught in a pink-taloned finger, and another blonde behind her, carrying more glasses.

  “Sorry about the awful glasses,” Savannah said with a laugh that suggested this wasn’t her first bottle. “Harold said we’d never get the shards of glass out of the garden otherwise.” She handed the bottle to Marko and looked up at him with a flutter of extravagant lashes, and he thought about Nyree’s bare face and the way he could read every one of her emotions on it. When he’d come home, for example, and she’d looked up from her phone because she’d felt him there, and he could have sworn he could see all the way to her heart.

  Savannah asked, “Would you use your muscles to open this for me, pretty please?” and he jerked his mind back to the task at hand. She giggled and said, “The cork still makes me scream, even after all this time. I’m so silly.”

  He eased the cork out of the bottle, and to say she watched him do it would be putting it mildly. He’d swear her pupils dilated. Nyree introduced the rest of the party, and some of the other mums, who displayed a distinct tendency towards the blonde and overdone, made their impractical-heeled way across the lawn and were introduced as well. They were followed by the dads, trying to look like they’d just happened to stop by, but actually looking like they were dying to talk rugby strategy. Territory most familiar.

  Marko poured champagne, but muttered to the others, “Watch it,” when he handed theirs over. “And go easy on the beers, too.”