Just in Time (31 page)

Chaz opened his mouth again, then apparently thought better and closed it. He shoved the rumpled bedclothes back, got out of bed, and shuffled around in his boxers until he picked up jeans and a T-shirt from the floor over near the dresser and shoved them on.

He could just bring Talia in here and have her see the place for herself, Will thought. That might do the business. But on second thought…no. She might think it was romantic.

Chaz still wasn’t talking, though his eyes were shifting back and forth under the tousled hair, his cheeks looking a bit gray under the stubble. He’d done some partying after the show the night before, Will would’ve bet.

At last, Will was following him through the house, putting his shoes back on, although Chaz didn’t bother. Chaz followed him out the door and down the steps, and the dog offered up a desultory bark or two from behind his fence.

Chaz stopped at the bottom of the steps. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said, his expression sullen. “This is as far as I go.”

Will smiled. Anyone who had ever played against him would have recognized that smile, when the easygoing mask dropped and the warrior emerged. Chaz’s eyes widened, and he took a step backwards. Pussy.

“You’ll go anywhere I take you,” Will told him. “And if I have to come back here, I’ll be taking you somewhere good. But I’m not going to have to do that, am I? Because I’m not going to know you. I’m going to be able to forget you ever existed.”

“What are you…” The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny throat. “What are you on about?” he tried again.

“You know exactly what I’m on about. Did you think, because she doesn’t have a dad around, or a granddad either, that she didn’t have anyone who would care?”

“I didn’t—I haven’t done anything.”

“You’ve done enough.” Will made sure his face and body were sending the message, just in case Chaz was too scared to hear. “You’ve done more than enough. It’s time for you to get to know some girls your own age. Time for you to stay away from the lake after school. Time for you to find out, so sadly, that your taste doesn’t run to fifteen-year-olds anymore. Or fourteen-year-olds,” he decided to add, because Talia wasn’t the only young girl in Rotorua without a dad in the house.

“You can’t tell me what to do.” Chaz was doing his best to bluster, but his eyes had darted towards the front door, and Will had seen it.

“Yeh. I can. And I am. This is my home, and that’s my sister. Stay away from her. Because if I hear that you’ve touched her, that you’re still hanging around her…” His voice had got quieter, not louder. “I know the taiaha, yeh. Know it better than you. But I won’t even need it. I can kick your arse without it. I can beat you blind without any trouble at all. And I will. Do you understand me?”

He could read the thoughts chasing their way across Chaz’s thin features. The defiance. The realization. And, finally, the angry defeat.

“Well?” Will prompted. “I’ve got a workout to do. I can start it with you, or I can start it at the gym. Your choice. Say yes and go inside. Or say no and stay out here with me. You might be able to crawl inside later. And you might not.”

“Yes, then,” Chaz muttered. “That what you want to hear? Going to stop threatening me then?”

“Oh, I’m not threatening. I’m telling. But, yeh. ‘Yes’ will do me. Go inside. And clean your room. It smells disgusting. Cut your mum’s grass while you’re at it. Time for you to step up and help out. Be a man instead of a bloody disgrace to your whanau.”

Chaz shot him one last glare, then turned and headed up the stairs, thin shoulders hunched.

Will stood and watched him go, then stood planted on the path and counted to sixty. So the boy could look out the window, could sweat it, wondering if he’d changed his mind, if he would come after him after all. So he could imagine what would happen next. Then he turned, went back to the car, and started it up.

Breakfast, and the gym, and then the next thing. One down, one to go.

He’d been ashamed, when he’d woken that morning, to realize that he’d forgotten all about Talia the day before. Faith had driven all thought of his sister completely out of his head. But being with her had also, somehow, showed him what to do. Had caused him to stand at the water’s edge and, instead of his eyes going to his goal, that distant view, to look around him instead. And to see.

He’d had a bad moment this morning all the same when his grandmother had told him that Talia had spent the night with her friend.

“You sure?” he’d asked sharply.

“Course I’m sure. Called to tell me, didn’t she.”

“But are you sure that’s where she actually is? That she isn’t…with somebody else instead?”

“Talked to her mum myself, didn’t I, to make sure she was really invited. Should I be thinking she could be with somebody else?”

“Maybe. She’s gone a bit quiet, hasn’t she. And I’m not sure about all her friends.”

“Huh. This is new for you.”

“Well, you know, sometimes new is better.”

“Sometimes it is. But, yeh. She’s at Sophia’s, home around ten.”

Which was why Will was here, his hair still wet from the showers, knocking on another door. A tidy little white house this time, not nearly as flash as his own, but kept in Kiwi style, the garden neatly tended, the paintwork fresh. And another woman coming to the door, a younger one this time.

“Morning,” he said. “Will Tawera, here for Talia. The girls up yet?”

He waited outside until Talia came out, reluctance evident in every bit of her shuttered face and hesitant step.

“Why are you here?” she asked, halting on the threshold. “Can’t I even spend the night with my friend now? Am I a prisoner?”

It wasn’t the best start. “Course not,” he said, and tried a smile. “I thought you might go for a walk with me, have a chat, that’s all. Please,” he amended.

She wanted to say no, he could tell. But she didn’t dare, because the old ways were too ingrained in her, and because maybe Faith was right. Maybe she wasn’t too far down that road yet.

He thought about the lake, but that was a bit fraught, so instead, when she came out again with her shoes and jacket on, he turned his steps in the direction of Kuirau Park.

They walked in silence for a couple minutes while he tried to figure out how to begin. He finally decided on honesty, for lack of a better option.

“It was heaps easier,” he told her, “when I didn’t have to do this. When Koro was here to be the man. He was wise, eh.”

“Yeh,” she said, the word coming out pinched.

“Hard, having him gone.”

“Yeh,” she said again. “You’d know that if you’d been here.”

“I was here. I know.”

“No.” She was walking faster now. “You weren’t. You
weren’t.
Everybody went home after the tangi, and you left. You went to the States.”

“I wouldn’t have been any use, though. And Mum and Kuia were here.”

She shook her head, but didn’t answer.

“What?” He tried to keep his voice gentle, to ask rather than demand. “What was wrong?”

She shrugged, hunched into her jacket, still not looking at him. “They were just…sad. It was all too…too sad.”

“Too sad to notice how you felt, eh. Nobody paid any attention to you, maybe.” It was what Faith had said, and it looked like she might have been right.

“My friends did. And now you don’t even want me to have them.”

He bit back the first retort that came to his lips, took a moment, and tried again. “Nah. That’s not it. I do want you to have friends. And I’m sorry I got it so wrong yesterday, didn’t talk to you in the way I meant to. Lost my temper, eh.”

She cast him a quick, startled glance, but didn’t say anything. They crossed the road, still quiet before ten on Saturday, and took the crushed-stone track through the trees.

“You learnt to ride your bike here, did you know that?” he asked her. “With me running behind you holding the seat. You probably don’t remember that, but I do.” He hadn’t thought about that for a long time. “You were pretty determined. Did it over and over again until you could manage by yourself. And when you could do it, you were so happy. Missing a couple of front teeth, and you had this little lisp. You rode back to me and said, ‘Will! It’s just like flying!’” He smiled, remembering it. “That was a good day.”

“I remember,” she said. “I remember riding. I didn’t remember it was you, though. Thought it was Dad.”

“Nah. Dad had already left.”

“I don’t remember him much.”

His mouth twisted a little at that. “Well, I don’t remember him that much either. He came and went, you could say. And when he left that last time, he didn’t come back.”

“And then you left, too.”

“Yeh. I did. For the rugby. Koro and Kuia and Mum were here, though, with all of you, and I needed to go. I needed to…” He stopped. This wasn’t something he’d ever talked about with her, but maybe it was time. “Dad paid the maintenance for a bit. And then he didn’t. So I had to go.”

“I thought—I thought you just wanted to leave.”

“Yeh, nah. I did, partly.” Today, for once, he needed to be honest. “Whichever it was, though, I wasn’t here, you’re right about that. And with Koro gone, maybe I need to do more. I’m rubbish at doing more, though,” he confessed, and was rewarded with a little quirk at the corner of her mouth that was the start of a smile, and he smiled back. “Yeh. We both know that, eh. I don’t even know what doing more looks like. Except that maybe it’s time to try. Can’t get better unless you start. Spend more time here, maybe, when I can.”

“You’re not just saying that because of her, are you?” She had both hands stuck into her jacket pockets, was looking away again, into the trees. “Did she tell you to, the way she told you to come get me yesterday?”

“Who, Faith? She didn’t tell me to talk to you today. Doesn’t even know I’m here. And yesterday—no. She told me not to do anything like that, in fact. She told me to talk to you when you were by yourself. She said calm was good. I didn’t do too well with any of that, did I? Trying to do it now, though. What d’you reckon?”

“Better than yesterday,” she said, that hint of a smile there again.

“But, yeh,” he said. “Maybe it’s because of her at that. And maybe it’s because of Koro. Because of being back here without him. It hit me yesterday when I was running home, after I tried to talk to you and stuffed up so badly. I was wishing I could talk to him, ask him what to do. And I realized…” He had to stop for a moment and take a breath. “I realized that you would be wishing that, too.”

Her mouth was trembling now. He saw the unsteadiness in the hand that rose to swipe at her eyes, and his heart twisted with tenderness for the little sister who had been left so lonely, with nobody to even realize it.

“Yeh,” he said gently, and stopped walking. “I miss him so much. But you miss him even more.”

She was trying to answer, but she couldn’t manage it, and Will did what he so rarely had, what she needed right this minute from a man who loved her, a man who only wanted to protect her and cherish her. He held her.

They stood like that for minutes, there in the center of the track, with Talia’s face buried in his jacket, the sobs racking her shoulders. Will wondered who had held her since they’d put Koro in the ground. Since the unbreakable had broken, the totara had cracked and fallen. Since their family had lost its center.

“It’s all right,” he said, his hand stroking over her hair. His voice wasn’t steady, but it didn’t matter, because she needed to know that he cared, too, that it was all right to grieve. “Shh, now.” The tears had risen in his own eyes, a few even making it down his cheeks, but for once, he wasn’t feeling the pain for himself. He was feeling it for her, for the girl who’d been left alone.

“Better?” he asked when she’d quieted at last, when the racking sobs had eased into hiccups and her fingers had loosed their spasmodic grip on his jacket.

She nodded and raised an arm to scrub at her face, and the childishness of the gesture pulled at his heart. She was a young woman, and she was still a girl, too, who had lost her father and her grandfather, and couldn’t afford to lose one more person.

“You’re a beautiful girl.” He bent to kiss the top of her head, that vulnerable spot where her part shone through the thick dark hair. “You have so much to offer.”
Don’t give it to somebody who doesn’t deserve it,
he wanted to say, but he didn’t, because he’d got a bit smarter, maybe, these past few days. “I want to see you more,” he said instead. “I want to be your big brother again. I hope you’ll give me another chance to do that.”

She nodded, wiped at her eyes one more time, then headed up the path again, and he kept pace with her, shut his mouth, and waited. He might not have talked enough to her. But mostly, he hadn’t listened.

“I knew you paid for things,” she said at last. “But I didn’t know—I didn’t think about it. I’ve never said thanks.”

“You don’t have to say thanks.”

“Yeh. I do. And so does Mum.”

“You can’t do anything about Mum. That’s not your job.”

“She thinks you’re like Dad,” she said with a sidelong look at him.

The dull kick to his gut was nothing but familiar. “Yeh. She does. Surprised you know that, though.”