He missed sleeping with her. He hadn’t even seemed to mean just the sex part, so that was nice. But still.
His texting game, though, was better. Pithy, but funny. On Thursday, he’d sent her this:
Has your granddad talked to you about the weekends? I’m gone one day, and they’re already wanting you to take my kids every weekend. What the hell? They’ve got some cheek. If you can’t bear that much of Scarlett rolling her eyes, Just Say No. Not just for drugs, eh.
She’d texted back,Alternating time at your house and mine, I thought. Less of a home invasion for yours. Not much we can do about it, not with the two of them that determined. And if we want to be together, we’ve got to get the kids sorted.
He’d answered,You’ve got the bottle for that if anybody does. But I’ll owe you. Keep track of the groceries, because I’m paying.
Her reply:You’ll owe me more than money, boy. Just wait until the offseason arrives and I’m off on some weeklong yoga retreat and leaving you with all six. I’ll come back and find you a shattered husk of a man. Also, what do you reckon Granddad’s got to keep Maureen that interested? At 78? Really? Maybe you should be taking lessons from HIM.
He’d answered,Don’t ask, don’t tell. I’ll study up instead, how’s that? Pity the hotel has the porn filters on.Which had made her laugh out loud, but again—not precisely phone sex, or even sexting.
Everybody in the world was sexting now, though! Teenagers! Married couples! Probably Maureen and Granddad,horrifying as the thought was. How was she missing out? Of course, she didn’t know how todoit, but she could learn, couldn’t she? Apparently eggplant emojis were involved. Also peaches.
She hadn’t needed sexting this morning, though, because she’d got to watch him play. And lead the haka, which had worked exactly as well as always for her. When he called those words out in Maori as he paced between the rows of threatening, determined men … well, yeh, that had made her want him in her bed.
You like it that I’m a bit on the dominant side.
It was true. She did.
He’d had that one tackle, too, where he’d grabbed the ball carrier by the waist, lifted him, and put him on the turf. The ball carrier, it must be said, had been of the “hulking” type, and the muscles in Zane’s arms had stood out like cables.
There’d also been the moment when he’d thrown in the ball at the lineout, had it shoveled straight back to him in some sort of trick play, and run down the tramlines like the bull he was, scattering opponents like ninepins before diving across the tryline, feet and ball barely clearing the white touchline and the orange pylon at the corner flattened. That one had had all of them on their feet, even Olive. Well, except for George and Georgia, who’d fallen asleep together in a corner of the couch, but then, it had been early.
Oh, and the All Blacks had won. Skylar may still have been riding a high when Scarlett turned off the TV after watching them shaking hands and slapping backs with the Stormers players, but it was dampened a bit when Scarlett said pointedly, “Nan makes special brekkie on match days when we have to get up too early to watch. Waffles, sometimes, but you have to make the batter the night before, and you probably didn’t.”
“Well, no,” Skylar said, “I certainly didn’t, as yesterday wasa workday for me, and as the kids and I got up at four-thirty this morning to come over here and be with you. You can come help me fix eggs and fried tomatoes and baked beans on toast now, though, and Finlay can lay the table.”
“That’s not very special,” Scarlett said. “And I don’t know how to make eggs.”
“Good thing I’m here to teach you, then,” Skylar said.
“Why? Because I’m a girl?”
“No,” Finlay said, “because I already know how. You don’t know how to makeeggs?You scramble them in a bowl and then push them about in the pan until they’re done.”
“Like you’re—” Scarlett began, and Skylar talked straight over her. “Perfect time for me to tell you my plan for our weekends, too. First, as soon as breakfast is over, we’re all going to my house and doing chores. Finlay and Scarlett, you’re walking. Not enough seats in the car. We’ll need all of you to pack a bag with your night things, too. And before you ask why the chores, it’s because the Chore Fairy keeps skipping my house, so it’s down to us.”
“What kinds of chores?” Duncan asked.
“Cleaning,” Finlay said. “Laundry. Putting on new sheets.”
“You should get a cleaner,” Duncan said. “Then she’d do those things.”
“It costs money,” Finlay said.
“Do we have to help clean?” Duncan asked. “It’s not our house, though.”
“But you’ll be using it,” Skylar said. Luckily, she’d foreseen this one. “And as you’re now enrolled in Camp Skylar, it’s only fair. Call it the Skylar Tax. Also, the faster we get it done, the faster we can do the fun things.”
“Whatfun things?” Scarlett asked.
