Page 162 of Just One Look
Watching You Shine
Marko stood in the doorway,watched Luka reverse down the drive, and asked Nyree, “Why do I feel like I’m in the last act of a romcom?”
“Dunno,” she said. “Because if it were up to you, we’d be in the last act of a Swedish drama instead, and I’d be switching the telly off, completely depressed and asking why I let you choose the film?”
“The mastitis,” he said. “That was why. Clearly.”
“Clearly,” she said. “Though it didn’t work out quite like I was intending. Elizabeth was meant to bring Webster over and fall into Luka’s arms when they both realized what fools they’d been. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I was right, because how many seconds did it take him to bugger off once I told him where she was? Elizabeth got ahead of me and took the leap by herself, though, which means we don’t get to see the last act of the romcom.” She sighed. “Pity we don’t get Webster anymore, because I’m thinking they’ll be keeping him. We could get another dog, though. Not a puppy. An ugly dog with a heart of gold, more like. Arielle and I will take a wee outing to the shelter tomorrow. Project for me while you’re gone, eh, training a dog. And no worries, you’ll get veto power.”
“You say that,” he said, “but who knows what you’d come home with and somehow talk me into? Kunekune pig. Miniature alpaca. Emotional support rooster.”
“Think how dull your life would be without me, though,” she said, and she was laughing. “Do it together, you reckon? Next Wednesday?”
He smiled. “Next Wednesday.” He kissed her, then thought,Wait. Did I just agree to a permanent dog?Since he had apparently done just that, he abandoned the question and said, “You don’t know that they’ll work it out. That neck of his could be buggered, for one thing.”
“And she’s not going to love him if he can’t play rugby?” Nyree said. “You’re not getting any younger yourself, boy. Are your days as my husband numbered, then? Think I’m letting you off that easy?”
He grinned, because that was what she made him do. “No. You’re never going to let me off easy. I could put you through some things, though, when the end comes. Could have a sulk about it. Not an easy thing, retirement.”
“Yeh,” she said. “But that’s why I said those vows.”
“Elizabeth hasn’t said them,” he pointed out.
“We’ll have to see, then,” Nyree said. “But I reckon they’ll stick. Blue-green and purple, eh. Two tender hearts.”
* * *
It probably tookhim half an hour to drive home from Marko’s. It was endless, and it was over in a minute. All he remembered afterwards was that the radio had been playing an old Bob Marley song.No Woman No Cry,one of those bittersweet ones, and it had given him such a lump in his throat that by the time he was pulling into the curb, it was nearly choking him.
Or maybe that wasn’t just the song, because she was getting out of her car before he’d even stopped his. Not waiting for him to come to her, and not playing any games. There by his door when he opened it, everything visible on her face. That face was pale in the streetlight’s shadows, and tense, but hoping, too, the same way Lana’s had been the other day. Hoping against hope that this was here, and it was real. That she got to have this life.
He’d spent the whole drive over coming up with what to say, but when he took her in his arms, he forgot all of it. He was kissing her, and she was starting to say something about his neck, but she didn’t get there, because they were through the door in the brick wall, into the house, and up the stairs.
He didn’t stop at the door, and he didn’t stop at the stairs, because this was going to happen in bed. This was real, and it mattered. It was kissing in the dark, his hands on her face, her hands on his sides, his back, his arms, like she couldn’t touch him enough. Like she had to convince herself that he was here, and that he loved her. Her scent in his head, flowers and spice, and her hair coming down, because he was pulling out the elastic. On the bed, losing their clothes slowly, piece by piece, kissing everything they uncovered, their hands getting more urgent, the need driving them on, making them clumsy.
His fingers threading through hers, and her mouth under his. Her lips at his throat as he moved up her body, then at his chest, and the sound she made, somewhere between a gasp and a cry, as he entered her. Going slow, and then going faster, until the headboard knocked against the bricks with a muffledthud,and kept on doing it, the rhythmic beat of it mingling with the noises she was making. The kind of music you’d never hear on the radio, the kind that got your heart racing. The kind that was you loving a woman hard, and loving her right.
He said, in the midst of it, when he had her nearly there, “I’ve got you. And I’m not going to …” She had her knees up nearly to her shoulders, though, and he got distracted, because he had to let go of her hands and get his arms behind her knees to hold her there. When he did it, she called out, and with the next thrust, when he went so deep, she started coming undone.
Wood slamming into brick. The bed’s legs rasping against the wood floor. And Elizabeth, coming down after that first wild, hot, uncontrollable orgasm, gasping out, “Tell me. Luka. Tell me.”
It wasn’t easy to do it. He was so close himself, and she was going up again, vocal as you’d ever hoped for. If the window had been open, the neighbors would’ve known his name. He said, grinding out the words the same way he was grinding into her, “I’ve got you, and I’m keeping you. I’m not going to let you go, because you’re mine.”
* * *
She was still breathing sohard, she should’ve had a race number pinned to her chest. Lying across the bed, clothes scattered all around them, and Luka still over her, his hand in her hair, kissing her mouth.
She said, when she could, “I had a much more … high-minded discussion planned.”
He laughed, no sound to it, just his chest shaking, and so did she. “I know, right?” he said. “Me too.” He rolled onto his back. “Come on. Too cold out here.” He bundled her into bed beside him, then, and said, “I’ve been cold ever since the river. Couldn’t get warm without you, is how it felt. Sounds stupid, maybe.”
“No.” Now, she wasn’t laughing. She had her hand on his chest, and she was kissing him there. “I cried tonight. That’s why I missed my plane, and I missed taking Webster. It wasn’t any great revelation. I couldn’t leave because I couldn’t stop crying. That’s it. That’s all.”
“PTSD, you reckon?” he asked, and his arm was around her, holding her close, in the way that was her comfort and her refuge, the thing she’d missed since she was four years old. A place to land when you’d been in the water so long, struggling alone. “I never asked,” he told her. “All the way home, that next day, I never asked. And that was too hard for you, that night.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I think it might be … it sounds weird, but I think it may be helping. The thing I’ve feared most in my life is being in that situation again. Like when it happened here in Auckland, with you, and I collapsed. But Iwasin that situation, for real, the other night, and I wasn’t helpless. I acted. You did most of it, but I acted. This time, I helped. Like sending yourself back to sleep after a nightmare, and intentionally taking action this time so you know you’re not helpless. Well, I’ve heard. I’ve never been able to do that.”
“I thought everybody did that,” he said.
