Chapter 3 #2
I tap my fingers on the steering wheel and bite my lip, glancing at Hemi quickly. I’m starting to think this is an even worse idea than I originally thought.
“Jesus, are all the roads like this?” Hemi mutters and clings to the handle above the window.
I guide the car around a tight bend and wince at Hemi’s wide-eyed expression.
I forget that if you don’t live here the road to Wānaka is…
stressful. A windy road with mountains directly on one side of the car, and on the other side across the lane is Kawarau Gorge that plunges to a river. Not exactly the most relaxing.
“Nah, not all of them. It’ll smooth out soon.” Sort of. In about twenty minutes.
“If we go to Queenstown, there’s no way I’m driving,” Hemi says and clutches the handle tighter and flinches as a truck whizzes by us in the opposite lane.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t snow,” I mutter. “Then it’s more of a nightmare driving this way.”
Hemi’s head whips to me. “Is it supposed to snow?”
“No, but we’ll be fine if it does. I’ve driven this route a million times, but I’m less fond of driving it when the roads are icy or there’s snow.” This is the slower and safer route, I flinch worse than Hemi taking the faster route over the mountain range.
“Motherfucker.” Hemi ducks to avoid a car racing past us, and he turns to me desperately. “Distract me. Please.”
His face is leeched of colour, and his eyes are wide as he blinks slowly. I don’t want to scar him on his first trip here, especially when he’s supposed to be relaxing. I rack my brain, trying to think of something to talk about.
“Did you know it was me that got Daisy into rugby?” I ask, going with the first thing that comes to mind.
He relaxes in his seat slightly and avoids looking out the window. “Really?”
“Really. Before me, she’d barely watched any games.”
Hemi’s mouth drops open. “Not even the World Cup?”
I shake my head and smile. “Not even that. Her family isn’t into rugby.”
“I can’t believe it. I mean, I know not everyone watches it, but it’s Daisy. Our physio. How?”
I grin at his complete shock. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a surprise, but he isn’t flinching anymore, so I’ll drag the story out as long as I can.
“I did a degree in English, and we both lived in the same flat. A fucking disgusting six-person university flat, full of people who didn’t know how the dishwasher worked or what the toilet brush was.
” I shudder at the memory, and my face scrunches.
I glance at Hemi again and see the look of disgust on his face and continue, “We were the only clean ones.
And neither of us are particularly clean.
It just seemed like it in that flat. So we stuck together.
“On a Saturday night, I was reading this depressing book for class, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
There was a game on, and I was lonely. Hadn’t made many friends, and Daisy was at home, so I asked if she wanted to watch the game with me.
” I laugh and talk through my smile. “The absolute horror I felt when she said she’d never watched a game.
How, when you live in New Zealand, have you never watched a game?
After her confession, I forced her to watch a game, and later that week she came into my room and asked if there was another game on.
” Hemi grins, his focus completely on me, and I swallow nervously.
“So it became tradition to watch the game together, and she shifted her focus from netball to rugby.”
“And now she works for the team. That’s amazing.”
“That did surprise me. You should have heard her squeal when she got the job.”
Hemi snorts. “Should have heard mine when I got the call. I wasn’t even ashamed of the girly sounds I made because I was on the national team.” He goes quiet and shakes his head.
“You’re on the team, Hemi. A break doesn’t mean anything. All it means is you need a break from work, like anyone else,” I say softly. I didn’t want to address why he was here; I didn’t want to make him more uncomfortable, but I can’t let him look that forlorn in my car when he needs to relax.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You’ll get some rest and find your mojo again.”
“My mojo?” Hemi purses his lips but loses the battle and laughs. “Who says that?”
I grin. “What’s wrong with mojo?”
“Nothing. Totally nothing,” he says through laughter. “But no athlete would ever say that.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not an athlete then. I can bring you down to my level.”
Hemi shakes his head slightly with a wide smile on his face. He looks out the window, and his jaw drops. We left the windy roads a while ago and are driving in a more comfortable straight line to Wānaka.
“I can’t believe you live here.”
“Sometimes neither can I.” I drive past Lake Wānaka waterfront slowly so Hemi can take it all in, the burnt orange leaves against the turquoise blue lake, and head up the hill towards my house.
“I grew up in Auckland on a main road. Having this on my doorstep was quite the adjustment.” Not that I take advantage of it as I should, but maybe I could go for a walk this week.
Daisy would be so proud. I’ll have to send her photos otherwise she won’t believe me.
I love nature. But I prefer to look at it than be in it.
“I can imagine. My flat’s in the CBD, and I miss having a garden. I’d probably kill anything I plant though, considering how often I travel.” Hemi’s lips turn down.
“Maybe in a few years you can have one? Or get those inside plants that are really hard to kill.”
“Succulents?”
“Yeah, get some of those. Or I think stone gardens are a thing?”
I park the car in front of my house and find Hemi staring at me with a tiny smile on his face and a weird look in his eyes I can’t decipher. “What?”
“Nothing. I just hadn’t thought of that before. I’ll have to look into it.”
“Good. Now, let’s head inside so you can change out of shorts”—I shoot him a stern look—“and get settled.”
We grab his stuff from the car, and I unlock the front door. We enter the hallway, and Hemi slips his shoes off before following me to the lounge where I flick the heating on so he doesn’t get cold.
“Welcome to the bungalow. One story, two bedrooms and an office over there, and lounge and kitchen.” I gesture to the right.
“What’s that for?”
I turn to see what he means and cringe when I find him focused on the large wheelie whiteboard in the lounge by the windows.
“Um, nothing.” I hurry to the whiteboard and flip it so he can’t see what’s written on it and drag it past him, facing it against the hallway wall to put back in my office after I’ve shown him around.
“Nothing?”
“Just some work stuff. I’m a writer,” I say, hoping he hadn’t seen anything on the board.
If my agent and publisher found out someone read the plot of the book before it’s even drafted, they’d flip.
Or at least they would if they found out it was someone I barely know.
I’m assuming I can trust him, but I usually keep everything quiet about what I’m writing.
It would suck if someone spoiled the book, or wrote my idea faster than me, or sold my idea to someone else.
Not that Hemi would, but I don’t want to take any chances with my career.
I earn a lot now, but it was a long road to feel financially stable.
Hemi’s eyes light up, and he tilts his head. “I didn’t know you were a writer. What do you write?”
I scratch my cheek. “Fantasy mostly.”
“Wow, that’s so cool. Under your name or something else.”
I shake my head. “A pseudonym.”
“I wonder if I’ve read anything by you. I read a lot when we travel and during the off-season.”
“Maybe. Let me show you around,” I say abruptly. It’s not that I don’t want Hemi to know what I write. It’s just weird having someone in my home and interested in my writing. I still can’t believe I write for a living, let alone one of our rugby players might have read my books. And liked them.
Hemi follows me to the guest room, and I leave him to unpack and get comfortable while I roll the whiteboard to my office and shut the door firmly.
Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to be working much this week.