Authors: Rosalind James
“I’m Emma’s friend. One who’s going to beat the hell out of
you if you touch her again.” Nic saw the other man’s gaze shift uneasily under
his own hard stare. “Find somebody else to do your bloody drawings. Don’t talk
to her. Don’t talk about her. Got it?”
“No worries. I’m not interested. Wouldn’t have been
interested in the first place, if I’d known what she was like. Frigid bitch.”
Ryan muttered the last under his breath, but Nic heard it.
He went still inside. His voice was ice now. “You’re one word away. One more
word.”
Ryan took a step back at last. He didn’t get the message
easily. From women or men, it seemed. “This is rubbish.” His eyes moved from
side to side like a trapped animal’s, but he was still trying to salvage his
pride. “I’m not staying here to listen to any more.”
Nic reached out fast, grabbed the other man’s arm just above
the elbow. He’d resisted touching him, but now he allowed his hand to close
hard. Enough to let Ryan feel the force of it, the anger behind it. “You’ll
leave her alone from now on. Say it.”
Ryan looked down at the hand gripping him, then up at Nic’s
face again, read the expression there. “Nobody else is as good as she is,
though,” he objected weakly. Nic glared at him, increased the pressure. To
anyone walking by, it’d look like one man reaching for another’s arm in
friendly enough fashion. But there’d be some pain now. He squeezed a bit
harder. Made it hurt a little more. Enough to leave a bruise to match Emma’s.
“OK,” Ryan got out, fear and pain piercing the armor of his
self-satisfaction as he realized his danger at last. “I’ll get somebody else.”
“And shut your gate about her at work,” Nic prompted,
keeping up the pressure.
“Yeh. OK,” Ryan gasped, the last bit of resistance
crumbling.
Nic let go of Ryan’s arm, watched his hand go up to rub the
spot. Letting Nic see that it had hurt. Soft.
Nic nodded curtly. “That’s it, then.”
Ryan shot him one more frightened look, scurried toward the
glass doors. Nic watched him go, then turned to walk back to the carpark. That
was one thing Emma didn’t have to cope with alone, anyway. Not this time.
Emma had vacillated about taking Zack to the Super 15 final.
The Chiefs and the Blues would be playing in Hamilton for the title, and she’d
wondered about the advisability of driving two hours in traffic each way, and
the late night it would mean for Zack. And, especially, about whether she could
rely on her car, if she hit a long stretch of stop-and-go. She had it scheduled
for service the next week, but it had been showing a dangerous tendency to
overheat lately. An invitation to drive down with Jenna and the kids, though,
provided the perfect solution.
“Are you sure you want to go right now?” she had asked Jenna
dubiously.
“What, because I might have the baby? That’s why I want you
there. It’d be a pretty slim chance that it would happen right then. It feels
like it’s
never
going to happen, to tell you the truth. But just in
case, I’d have you to drive my kids home then, wouldn’t I? Plus, that’s about
the only way I can make sure Finn’s there for the birth, to go along with him
wherever he’s playing. As long as I don’t have to talk anyone into letting me
on a plane, that is. I think that would be a hard sell.”
“All right, then,” Emma decided. “That sounds perfect.” Her
less-than-reliable little car was parked safely now at Jenna’s house in Mt.
Eden, and she and Zack had traveled in luxury in the Range Rover.
She was almost wishing now, though, that they’d stayed home
after all. The tension was almost too much to bear, here in the packed Waikato
Stadium, every one of its nearly 26,000 seats filled for this ultimate event of
the season. They were down to the final ten minutes now, and the usually sedate
Kiwi spectators were anything but tonight. Surely there must be other Blues supporters
in the stands, but what Emma heard was a home crowd in full cry for its team
after a try and missed conversion that put the Chiefs up 22 to 20. A lead, but
such a slim one.
She leaned forward, her hand gripping Zack’s, as the Chiefs
kicked off after their scoring try, and Nic took the kick at the 22. She saw one
of his wingers falling in behind him, supporting him as he made his run up the
left side of the field, the other staying back to cover the rear. Nic saw the
tackler coming, passed to the wing but stayed with him, received the ball again
in a lightning pass as the other player was going down in a tackle. A quick
sidestep, and Nic was off.
Emma and Zack, together with the rest of the crowd, were on
their feet now, the Blues supporters roaring their approval as Nic hit another
gear and exploded down the field. Then the groan as a Chiefs player slid into
him, hooking an ankle with his foot. The instant loss of momentum as Nic took an
awkward hop on his left foot, then fell in a heap. He attempted to rise, but sank
back to the turf again, and the referee ran in, blowing his whistle.
“Tripping,” Jenna said grimly on Emma’s other side.
“Yes,”
she hissed with satisfaction, watching Finn wade into the mix, straight into the
player who had brought Nic down, before he was grabbed, held back by members of
his own team. The trainer was on the field with his bag now, bending over a
prostrate Nic.
“What happened?” Emma asked in confused worry. Zack was
leaning against her, eyes wide. She pulled him automatically into her arms,
watched Nic rise with the trainer’s help and limp off the field. “He’s OK,” she
told Zack, the relief overwhelming. “He’s up. He’s OK. He’s hurt his leg,
that’s all.”
“What’s happening?” she asked Jenna again, watching Nic’s
replacement run out, and the Blues line up so Hemi could take a kick at the
goal.
“Tripping,” Jenna said again. “Penalty kick.” The stadium
erupted as the kick went over, and the score went up, 23-22 in favor of the
Blues. The giant screen showed a slow-motion replay of the offense, even as the
teams took their places again for the Blues to kick off, only a couple minutes left
on the clock now. Emma’s attention was all for the action on the screen, the
Chiefs player’s body slowly sliding forward, his foot clearly coming out to
hook itself around one of Nic’s own flying feet, the sickening turn of the
ankle at the unforeseen and sudden stop to his momentum.
“That’ll be reviewed,” Jenna guessed. “That was deliberate.”
The Chiefs had the ball secured and were getting some
momentum down the field, the crowd cheering its team on. Until a huge,
punishing tackle from Finn forced the ball from the player’s hands, and left
the man lying on the ground for a moment before he clambered to his feet again.
“
Yes!”
Jenna breathed.
“Was that OK?” Emma asked doubtfully.
“Oh, yeah,” Jenna said with satisfaction. “That was the guy who
tripped Nic. Finn’s not only made him turn the ball over, he’s delivered the
message too.”
“And that’s good?”
“He’s delivered the message,” Jenna repeated, her eyes not
leaving the field. “That’s his job. You didn’t want to see that guy get away
with that, did you?”
“No,” Emma decided. “No. I sure didn’t.”
The Blues with the ball now, clearly determined not to let
it out of their control again as the clock ran down. And, at last, the referee’s
whistle, ending the match with a Blues win of the final
,
and Zack and
Emma hugging each other in relieved gratitude.
“How are we going to know if Nic’s OK?” Zack asked as they
made their way through the stadium, Jenna and Emma each keeping a tight hold on
their tired children in the crowd.
“I texted him,” Emma told him. She’d thought of it as soon
as the game had ended, had pulled out her mobile even before they’d left their
seats. She didn’t know when he would see it. She hoped Nic would realize how
worried Zack—and she—would be about him, and would answer when he could.
She heard the
ding
of the text when they were pulling
into Jenna’s garage, two hours later. “Baby,” she said, a catch in her throat,
reaching into the back seat to give Zack’s knee a squeeze. “Time to wake up and
get into our car. And I just heard from Nic. He says it’s a sprain, that’s
all.”
“Good news,” Jenna said with relief.
“What does that mean?” Zack asked sleepily.
“It means his ankle’s hurt, and he won’t be able to play for
awhile,” she explained.
“Does it mean he can’t play with the All Blacks?” Zack
asked, anxious again.
“I don’t know. I’m sure he’ll be out for a bit. But we can
ask him on Monday.”
“Thanks for cooking for me,” Nic said on Monday evening. He
had an ankle propped on a pillow atop the coffee table in Emma’s flat, wrapped
in one of the collection of cold packs he’d brought with him. “Because this is
the boring bit.”
“How long do you have to keep doing that?” she asked.
“Meant to be 72 hours, so until tomorrow evening. Ten
minutes on, ten off. Only so much All Black game film a man can watch, eh.”
“That doesn’t sound boring,” Zack chimed in. “That sounds
fun.”
“Yeh,” Nic smiled down at him. “It’s a good treat. Not so
much as a steady diet, though.”
The buzzer went off on the oven, and Emma moved into the
kitchen and came back a few minutes later with two plates that she set before
Nic and Zack. “I hope this is OK,” she said. “I wasn’t sure steak and mushroom
pie was on your diet plan, but it sure is tasty.”
“A double slice of that, with the green beans and salad?” he
said. “Works for me. I’m allowed a wee bit of indulgence anyway, just now.”
“How long is it going to be?” she asked when she was
settling herself with her own plate.
“A good five weeks till I’m on the field again,” he said
with a grimace. “Depending how the rehab goes, of course.”
“You mean you don’t get to play?” Zack asked. He and Emma
were sitting on the floor, eating from the coffee table, and Nic smiled at the
picture they made, before Emma hopped up to switch out his icepack. He could
get used to this, he thought, shabby carpet and all. It was so snug and warm in
here, and he loved looking at both of them. His son, and his . . . his son’s
mum.
He realized Zack was looking at him expectantly. “Pardon?”
he asked. “What did you ask me?”
“You don’t get to play with the All Blacks?” Zack repeated.
“Not for a bit,” Nic said regretfully. “I’ll miss the first
two games, anyway. The road trip to Safa, then the Wallabies game back here.
Hope I’ll be fit for that second game against the Aussies in Melbourne, but
we’ll have to see how I go.”
“What do you do to get better?” Zack asked.
“Whatever they tell me.”
Nic accepted Finn’s help to put away his dumbbells, then
leaned down from the weight bench to grab his crutches from the floor. His
workout range was limited just now, but he’d been going stark staring mad
sitting around the house, and had greeted the invitation to meet Finn at the
gym with relief. Thank goodness the big No. 8, always so disciplined about
fitness, was seeking out extra workouts as well during this downtime before All
Black training started up. Nic just wished he could be out there with the rest
of the boys next week. He knew he’d be pushing his rehab to the fullest extent
allowed by the training staff. When he did return to the squad, he meant to
come back as strong as he could possibly be.
They made their way down the long hallway of the gigantic
Les Mills gym toward the locker room, Finn matching his long pace to Nic’s gait.
Nic glanced into the big window of a group fitness room, then came to an abrupt
halt, swinging around on the crutches to take a closer look.
Finn peered curiously into the room, where a miked-up
instructor was calling out instructions to a crowded roomful of men and women
balancing barbells on their shoulders as they dropped into a series of squats.
“Looking for a bit more?” he asked quizzically. “I knew you backs weren’t up to
any real work, but I didn’t think you’d descended to Body Pump.”
He gave Nic a light punch on the shoulder when he didn’t
respond. “Oi. Nico. What’s up?”
“It’s Emma,” Nic said slowly. “There.” He pointed at a trim
figure in shorts and a tight, sleeveless top. “In the pink, see? In front.”
“Ah. Emma,” Finn said after a moment’s perusal. “Can’t see
much from here. But if the front of her looks as good as the back, she must be as
pretty as Jenna says. Your son’s mum, eh.”
That got Nic’s attention in a hurry. “What? She told Jenna?
I didn’t think she’d told anyone.”
“Nah, mate. She didn’t say anything. But if you’re going to
have your kid and his mum coming to games and sitting with those girls, and
he’s going to look as much like you as Jenna says he does, they’re going to
pick up on that. I’d guess they all have a pretty fair idea.”
“Zack doesn’t know yet,” Nic said with concern. “So I hope
none of them says anything to him.”
“No worries,” Finn reassured him. “They wouldn’t do that. Jenna
told me, that’s all. And I’m not much of a gossip. But I had no idea you had a kid,
until she did say. That surprised me.”
“Surprised me too,” Nic admitted. “I found out by accident,
a couple months ago. And that’s what it was. An accident.”
“I’ve heard that can happen,” Finn answered, a smile
lightening his craggy face. “One of these days, I mean to find out what it’s
like to have one some other way.”
“All of yours were?” Nic asked, startled. “You have one
coming now, don’t you?”
“Any moment.” Finn pulled his mobile from his shorts pocket
and checked it for what Nic realized was the umpteenth time that day. “Late
already. We’re just waiting for her, trying to be patient. But yeh, all
accidents.
Happy
accidents. Because I wouldn’t trade any of them, I’ll
tell you that.”