Chapter Eleven
Linc
I ask Elora if she knows anywhere good to eat, and she takes me to Courtenay Place, to a small but pleasant café called Calypso Coffee.
“I said I’d buy you lunch,” I tell her. “You don’t want to go to a restaurant?”
“I’m a cheap date,” she says. “Not that this is a date… oh you know what I mean.”
Chuckling, I follow her in. I’m not sure why she doesn’t want a proper meal. Does she think it sounds too much like a date? Or does she feel uncomfortable eating in restaurants? Either way, I don’t care as long as she’s happy, so we go into the café, order a toasted panini and a latte each, and I also buy a chocolate brownie for her, which arrives warm and with whipped cream.
“Are you trying to fatten me up?” she complains, but it doesn’t stop her having a big forkful and closing her eyes as she savors the soft chocolate cake.
I watch her eat, thinking how lovely she is. She told me she can’t imagine trusting a man enough to be intimate with him, but despite not having seen me for ten years, she’s already hugged me several times. And I could be wrong, but as we left the lab, I’m pretty sure she was hoping I’d kiss her.
I wanted to. It would have been so easy to lower my head and press my lips to hers. To tilt my head and deepen the kiss. To let my hands slide to her butt and lift her so she could feel my growing erection. To ask her back to my hotel room.
What would she have said if I’d done that?
I think she might have said yes.
She closes her lips around the fork as she takes a bite of the brownie, and I stifle a groan. I haven’t had sex for a long time—maybe six months or more—and although DIY takes the ache away for a while, it’s not as satisfying as sharing yourself with someone.
If she was any other single girl and I thought she might be giving me signals, I’d start flirting, testing the waters to see if I was on the right track. Dating can be precarious at times, and after a few curt rejections I’ve learned to be cautious in my advances, and only suggest taking it further when the signs are blindingly obvious. But I’ve gotten pretty good at it, and I’m sure she’d say yes.
But she’s not any other girl. She’s like a sister to me.
Except, she’s not, and never has been. Maybe for the first year or two at Greenfield I tried to think of her like that. But the more time I spent with her, the more I enjoyed her company on a deeper level.
Did I have sexual feelings toward her? On my part, if I’m honest with myself, the answer to that is yes. I was very conscious of her age though and would never—despite Atticus’s assumptions—have suggested anything sexual. And I was a virgin and fairly clueless. But I was eighteen, the age when a guy can get an erection purely by sitting on a bumpy bus, and I can remember admiring her new curves and thinking how silky her hair might feel in my fingers. On her part, maybe not, as she was so young. And yet fourteen isn’t ten. Your body is full of hormones, awakening, preparing itself for adulthood. Lots of teens fool around and make out, exploring their budding desires, even if they don’t go the whole way. So who knows what thoughts she had about me in bed at night?
I think of how she blushed when I walked into the conservation room today. She’d been thinking about me, and I’d stake my apartment on the fact that in her fantasy we weren’t playing Scrabble.
But I can’t act on it. When it comes down to it, she might well discover that a one-night stand isn’t what she’s looking for. She thinks she trusts me, but how comfortable can she really be with me, a guy she hasn’t seen for ten years, even if we were close back then? She needs to find a man who’ll be patient enough to date her for a while, and who, when he eventually takes her to bed, is slow, and kind, and gentle.
I glower a little at the thought of the guy who’s lucky enough to be the one to touch her. In another universe, I stayed in New Zealand, and eventually when she came of age we started dating, and who knows where it might have led? But I took another fork in the road, one which led me away from her, and now it’s too late. She’s out of bounds, and I’m out of luck.
“So what do you have planned for the next few days?” she asks.
I push my lewd thoughts away. “Nothing, to be honest. I was going to wing it.”
“True Linc style.”
“Damn straight. Originally I thought I might go up to Hobbiton, or do a bit of a driving tour. But I might wait and see what happens with the DNA test. If it’s positive…”
“You’ll be heading down to Queenstown?”
I shrug. “If he wants to see me.”
“Oh I’m sure he will. How often do you find out you have a son you didn’t know about? If he didn’t want to know, he’d have been much more dismissive on the phone. He could easily have said there’s no way he could be the father and hung up. I think the fact that he even requested the DNA test is a really positive sign.”
“I hope so. I’m afraid to get my hopes up though.”
“That’s understandable.”
I blow out a breath. “It’s good that he was able to fast track it, but Monday still seems to be a long way off.”
“Would you…” she hesitates, then squares her shoulders as if she’s summoning up courage. “Would you like to do something tomorrow? To help you pass the time? No worries at all if not.”
“I’d love to,” I reply, pleased she wants to spend time with me. “What do you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. We could go to Wētā Workshop and see all The Lord of the Rings stuff. Or go up in the cable car and visit Space Place—the planetarium. Or I’ve got my car if you want to take a drive somewhere. We could go to Stonehenge Aotearoa.”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” I say. “Sounds amazing.”
She laughs. “I don’t know if we have time to do all of those.”
“Aw.”
She thinks about it. “The Space Place does night-time tours. So we could go to Wētā in the morning, take a drive to Stonehenge in the afternoon, and then do the planetarium at night.”
“Fantastic. Let’s do it. Unless you have something better planned.”
“No.” She retrieves the last forkful of brownie and dips it in the cream. “I’d only have been drawing bird bones.” She holds the fork out to me. “You want some?”
I lean forward to close my lips around the brownie, but at the last minute she turns it and eats it herself. “Gotta be quicker than that when there’s brownie around,” she teases.
“I don’t know about me, but you’re a regular Anne Bonny,” I complain, leaning back.
She grins at the mention of the famous female pirate. “Yo ho ho. So what are you up to after this? Heading back to your apartment?”
“Not sure. What are you doing?”
“I normally work until five on a Saturday. Afterward Zoe sometimes persuades me to go out for a drink. She’s away, though. Apparently doing wicked things with Joel, if you guessed right. I’m going to have words with her about that when she gets back.”
He chuckles. “Can I come back to the museum with you? You can take me around. Show me the exhibits.”
“You really want to spend time with a nerdy bookworm looking around dusty exhibits on a sunny summer afternoon?” she asks, amused.
“I do as it happens. Sounds exactly like my kind of thing.”
“Okay,” she says happily, and finishes off her coffee. “Come on, then. You want to walk back along the waterfront? It’s only about fifteen minutes, and it’s a nice day.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
So the two of us head out, and we walk back to the museum along the Commonwealth Walkway. It’s a beautiful day, but windy, the brisk breeze whipping the sea into white horses and tugging strands of hair from Elora’s neat bun. We pass the area where she found me sitting yesterday, after I came back from the funeral, and continue on up to the museum.
For the next couple of hours, she gives me a tour of the exhibits. It doesn’t surprise me that she’s knowledgeable about all the artifacts, because she’s always been able to retain information at an impressive level, but I am surprised at how good she is at communicating it, considering she’s so quiet and shy. Or am I? I remember the stories she used to tell as a young girl, and realize that’s all she’s doing now, turning the dull and dry details of names and dates into vivid stories about people and their adventures.
“This is a sampler made by ten-year-old Anabella Lyttle in 1850,” she says as we stand in front of it. “It’s the oldest sampler verified as being worked in New Zealand. Apparently she could play the piano, sew, speak French and Italian, and sing like a nightingale. She must have been a precocious little brat.”
I chuckle. “You’re very good at this.”
“It’s a practiced art. I’ve been giving tours of the museum for a few months now.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize.”
“Fraser roped me in. One of his attendants had gone sick and he didn’t have anyone to fill in, so he asked me. I quite enjoyed it, and some of the visitors left nice comments about me on the questionnaire, which was kind. Fraser said I ought to go into teaching, but that’s a step too far. I don’t want to deal with people every day.” She gives a wry smile.
“You enjoy working in conservation?” I ask as we walk back along the corridor toward the central foyer.
“Oh, I don’t just do conservation. All the archaeologists here mix and match a bit. I help out with exhibits, and I sometimes meet with field archaeologists to discuss showing their finds. Fraser’s pretty good at encouraging us to try different things.”
“Do you see much of Joel?”
“Less now I don’t live at their place. He still shares a flat with Fraser when he comes back here, but he’s away a lot on excavations.”
“But you’re happy?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Content, I guess.”
“I’ve looked you up on social media,” I admit. “But your profiles are private, so I wasn’t able to see any photos of you.”
“I’m not on it much,” she admits. “I use the Internet as a library, and that’s about it. I have no interest in seeing what people I went to school with are doing now. Or looking at celebrities, or reading about news that will depress me. I know I’m sensitive to negative influences and I prefer to focus on things that make me happy. Like archaeology, history, nature, yoga, that kind of thing.”
“That’s probably sensible. The Internet can be a negative place sometimes.”
We arrive back at the conservation room. “I might do some more work,” she says. “I find it calming.”
I tip my head to the side as I study her. “Are you feeling okay?”
She blows out a breath. “Yes… just a little overwhelmed. Being out and about, seeing people. I know it’s stupid.” She flushes.
Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to go to a restaurant? With their complicated menus and snooty staff, I can see how she might feel intimidated. “It’s not stupid, Lora. Lots of people are introverts and prefer their own company, and need to recharge after going out.”
“I know. It’s a bit embarrassing, though.” She studies her shoes. “You’re so confident, and I bet you don’t have any trouble coping with people.”
“I’m an ambivert, apparently. A mixture of an introvert and an extrovert. I cope okay in social situations, but I’m also happy on my own, so I understand how it feels to be overstimulated. Look, would you rather I go? Please, just say.”
Her eyes widen as she looks up hastily. “No! I mean… it’s nothing to do with you. I don’t want you to go.” She blushes. “Unless you want to. Um…”
I move a bit closer to her, surprised that I feel no compulsion to leave. I reach out a hand and smooth back a strand of her hair that’s sprung loose. “Even though ten years have gone by, you’re still the same girl who shared her Twix with me and made me feel better.”
“Aw,” she says. Then she slides her arms around me and gives me a hug.
I chuckle and rest my lips on the top of her head, touched that she likes having a cuddle.
Unfortunately, though, at that moment Fraser appears through the doorway, and he stops dead at the sight of us hugging. Elora can’t see him because she’s facing the other way.
My eyes meet his over the top of her head. My lips are still resting on her hair. I don’t release her immediately. I know he’s her brother, and he’s only concerned for her safety, but we’re not doing anything wrong.
Unperturbed, he leans a hip against the table and folds his arms. I chuckle and kiss her hair. “I’d better let you go,” I murmur. “Fraser’s about to blow a gasket.”
She steps back and looks over at her brother. “I was just having a grope,” she says. “He’s got a nice arse.”
I laugh. Fraser snorts and pushes off the table. “Are you off soon?”
“Just going to do an hour here,” she says.
“I wondered if you wanted to come over tonight,” he says. “I’ll cook you dinner.” He glances at me; he’s trying to stop us meeting again.
“Actually,” I say smoothly, “I was hoping Elora might go out to dinner with me.”
“She doesn’t like going to restaurants,” he says.
“Then she can come to my hotel room, and we’ll order takeout and amuse ourselves,” I reply.
He glowers at me. I return his gaze steadily.
“Wow,” Elora says, “the testosterone in this room is overpowering.” She glares at us both. “I can make my own decisions about who I spend time with and where, thank you very much. I’m not completely helpless.”
Fraser studies his shoes. I wink at her. Her lips twitch.
“Thank you for the offer, Fraser,” she says, “but I have other plans for tonight.” She doesn’t elaborate, but I send him a smug look anyway.
He gives her one last glance, then leaves the room without another word.
“You shouldn’t tease him,” she scolds. “He’s only looking out for me, and let’s face it, if Blackbeard was taking out your sister, you’d also be a bit wary.”
“I don’t have a sister.”
“Are you sure?”
I realize she’s talking about the fact that Edmund said he has two daughters. “Oh shit. I didn’t think about that.” If he is my father, I have two half-sisters.
“Come on,” she says softly, presumably seeing the shock I’m feeling reflected on my face, “you can do some more sketching. You’re better at drawing than me.”
I do my best to capture the skeleton of the giant moa on paper while she finishes cataloging some of the other bones, then begins tidying up.
“You didn’t actually tell me what you wanted to do tonight,” I say as she cleans the brushes.
“You’re right. I didn’t.” She gives me an impish smile.
“So you will come to dinner with me?”
She hesitates.
“I’m not here for long,” I tell her. “And I’d like to make the most of my time with you. I was winding Fraser up, obviously, about you coming over, but if you don’t want to go out, I could come to your apartment and cook you something that won’t set your mouth alight.”
That makes her laugh. “You like cooking?”
“Well, I don’t do soufflé or anything fancy. But I’m sure I could rustle us up some pasta.”
She continues washing the brushes, not saying anything.
“Elora,” I say.
She shakes the water off and dries her hands on the towel.
I get up and go over to her. “Hey,” I say softly, tucking a hand under her chin and lifting her eyes so she looks into mine. “You can say no. I won’t be upset.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then tell me what’s bothering you. You can talk to me.”
She nibbles her bottom lip. I drop my gaze to it and stifle a sigh. I want to kiss her, but I know I mustn’t. She’s worried I’m going to make a move on her. I feel a pang of disappointment that she’s so fearful. I have to reassure her that I’m not going to do anything like that.
“I’m not expecting anything,” I tell her. “I just want to spend time with an old friend. You’re like my sister, right? You’re safe with me, I swear.”
“I know,” she says immediately. There’s a touch of color in her cheeks. But she still doesn’t voice whatever’s on her mind. Instead, she says, “Okay, that would be fun. Do you want me to go to the supermarket for anything special?”
“Why don’t we go together? See what catches our eye?”
Her lips curve up. “Okay. I’ll just put these back in the boxes and we’ll get going.”
I help her pack everything away, feeling a tug deep inside at the knowledge that she seems so happy doing something so mundane as shopping in the supermarket. I want her to feel safe with me. I want her to start trusting men again. Not all men, as there are still vipers out there amongst the good guys. But I don’t like the thought of her remaining single for the rest of her life because she’s too scared to open up to someone. Maybe if I can show her that some of us are kind and decent, it’ll help her going forward.
Of course, it does mean that I have to be kind and decent.
They’re not two words I’d necessarily have used to describe myself. But I’m not really a pirate, right? I’m a bit like Robin Hood, a kind of well-meaning outlaw. I might have to get a tattoo to that effect. ‘It’s not the size of your shaft, it’s whether you can hit the bullseye,’ that kind of thing.
“Why are you smirking?” Elora says.
“No reason. You done? Come on then, let’s head out.”