Page 61 of The Player in New Zealand
“It’s not my fault you’re giant. Seriously, were youbredto play rugby?”
“You’re pretty tall yourself, ma’am. Come on down here.” Before I could protest, Tane had tugged my hand off my knee and sent me tumbling down beside him.
“Oof. Brute.” I pinched his side, but he turned me away from him and tucked me against his side. Tane made an excellent big spoon, his chin tucked above my head and his bicep under my cheek.
“You fit me so nicely,” he commented, reading my mind.
I shifted my hips, trying to find a comfortable spot on the ground. “There’s an air mattress, you know.”
He tugged me closer. “Just a minute. It’s been a while since I’ve held you.”
We lay quietly, listening to the noises of the bugs and breeze around us. A car door closed, someone coughed. The temperature was cool, but the sun was bright and quickly warmed the tent up. Tane’s breathing was deep and even.
“Are you asleep?” I whispered.
“Yeah, nah,” he said in a drowsy manner that did not at all convince me.
“Tane.” I poked him. “Come on, let’s finish getting set up and then you can nap.”
He grunted and rolled off. We finished setting up the tent and Tane did get a nap in. I set off on a trail instead, just a short little path full of ferns and moss in damp, humid air. When I returned, we had an hour to go before sunset and my stomach rumbled. When I made enough noise, Tane roused and pushed me toward a picnic table. He pulled out an honest-to-God wicker picnic basket.
“Where did you get that from?”
“Borrowed it from Nina.”
Inside were all kinds of dips and snacks, a smorgasbord of food to get us through the night and morning.
We weren’t the only ones unpacking food. Our neighbors were a family of five, the kids old enough to run around mostly unsupervised. The father had shyly asked Tane for an autograph, and then politely let us be. While we ate, one of the kids fed crackers to a black swan, something I wasn’t even sure I had known existed before seeing it with my own eyes.
“Do you want kids?” Tane asked me out of the blue.
I choked on my pita chip. “Wh-what?”
He gestured at the little boy. “You’re watching the kid. I just wondered.”
“I was watching the swan. Its eyes arered.”
“So is that a no?”
“God, Tane, I don’t know. I’m twenty-five. I don’t have to make those decisions yet.”
He shrugged, then went back to eating his food.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he said, with more firmness than I’d expected. “I like my cousins, the young ones. And I’m getting older, you know.”
I nodded, not really knowing. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Positively ancient,” I deadpanned. I turned my attention back to my food, attempting to feign disinterest. “What about serious girlfriends? Ever had any?”
Tane stared out at the lake while he chewed and swallowed. “Not really. The rugby schedule was tough to keep up with. Lots of arm candy, hookups. And then after my injury...” He waved his hand over the table as if casting dice. “You know, I wasn’t pleasant to be around.”
He wiped the crumbs from his hands and washed down his last bite with a gulp of water. “I guess no one’s ever appealed that much to me. No one’s ever been life-changing.”
Life-changing. Devon had been life-changing, but not in a good way.
