Page 70 of The Player in New Zealand
“Fine, fine,” Tane grumbled, striding naked toward the front door and the pile of clothes nearby. He squatted down, junk dangling in the air, and I giggled.
Before he could find his phone, there was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?” Tane called out, hands finding his underwear instead.
“It’s me,” Nina said through the door.
I tugged the sheet up to my armpits as Tane covered up his goods. He opened the door, and as small as the place was, I could see Nina at the top of the stairs. She had a hand covering her eyes.
“Are you decent?”
Tane looked at me and I shrugged.
“Kind of?” he said.
Nina scoffed and held her other arm out in Tane’s general direction, offering him my bag.
“Claire, your sister called the bar, worried about you. You might wanna call her back.” With that, she turned to walk down the stairs and Tane called thanks to her.
He tossed me my bag and I sat up in bed, catching it. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
My battery was down to 7 percent, so I wiggled my way over to Tane’s side of the bed and plugged my phone into his cord. I had an increasingly panicked set of messages from Iris.
Hi, call off the alarm. I’m fine, I messaged her.
My phone rang with a WhatsApp call immediately.
“Claire!” my sister shouted, exasperated. “My emergency contacts are worthless!”
I rolled my eyes. “They weren’t worthless. Nina knew where I was, right?”
My sister scoffed. “She knew you were safe, but she didn’t know the important things. Like, if you two were together now, or—”
“You asked Nina if we were together?”
“Babe, Nina and I chatted for an hour. She’s adelight.”
Tane came into my field of view and offered me a mug of steaming black ambrosia. I pulled the phone away from my mouth. “My sister talked to yours for an hour.”
“Jesus,” Tane muttered as he walked away.
“Well, I’m safe.”
“Are you just going to ignore the question? Fine, then did he give you a good dicking last night?” I choked on air. “Did you use protection? I’m not ready to be an aunt, but, man, your babies would be—”
“Okay, okay, Jesus. I don’t know. Yes. And yes.”
“You don’t know if you are in a relationship? Nina knows that you’re banging now and he brought you upstairs. That means something, right?”
Tane, in his navy underwear, climbed back into bed with me with his own coffee. I set my mug on my lap and twisted the bottom nervously in the sheets, very aware that Tane could hear everything I said. “I don’t... We haven’t... but...”
The phone disappeared out of my hands. “Hi, Iris,” Tane said to my sister.
“What... but... no... I . . .” I sputtered.
He ignored me. “You’re asking questions that are too hard for her this morning.”
