Page 14 of Just Come Over

“I don’t think so,” she said, and he thought,Now what?She went on to tell him. “I think you’re Maui.”

“Nah, sorry,” he said. “I’m not him. Maui is much bigger. He’s also a demigod. I’m not even asemi-god.”

“He fished up the ocean with a fish hook,” she pointed out. “And you have a fish hook.”

“Because I’m Maori. Not because I’mMaui.Every Maori has a pendant.”

“I don’t.”

“That’s because it has to be a gift. Nobody’s given you yours yet, that’s all.”

She wasn’t getting heated. She was just frowning. Ferociously. Her eyebrows were as straight and as black as his, too. She said, “That doesn’t make sense. If everybody has one, I would have one. It makes sense that you’re Maui. You’re big like Maui, and your hair’s like his.”

“Because I was a rugby player,” he said,notpulling on said hair. Also, if his hair looked like Maui’s in that film, he needed to have it cut. He’d better not let her see his tattoo for a while, either. “That’s why I’m big. They play rugby in New Zealand. Girls, too. When you go to school, you can play. I have a feeling rugby will suit you.”

She appeared to be thinking that over. “What about rabbits?”

“Whataboutrabbits?” He thought that was a pretty smart parry to a rubbish question.

“Do you have rabbits at your house?”

“Uh... no. Why would I have rabbits?”

“Oh.” Her thin shoulders drooped. “I had rabbits ever since I was little. Hoppy and Fluffy. Tiana said they went to live on a farm, and a farm is nice, because they could eat real grass, but I can’t have a rabbit here, Tiana said. Plus, it’s temp—temp—”

“Temporary,” he said. “It’s not temporary anymore. When you go to New Zealand with me, it’s permanent. That’s the opposite. It means you’re going home to stay. Like Moana.”

She clutched her doll a little tighter. “So can I have rabbits?”

A man had to recognize defeat. “Yes. You can have rabbits.”

“Three?”

A man had to recognize manipulation, too. “No. You can have two.” Compassion was all well and good, but drawing the line would be important, too. Setting limits. Being firm.

Fortunately, he was good at that.

He’d been a father for about two hours. He was already wondering how he was going to make it through the day.

At the moment, they were in a taxi, headed north from the Children and Family Services building, where they’d left Jada. He’d told the driver to take them to the airport, but he was realizing that it may not have been the best plan.

Casey hadn’t said much on the drive into the city, and he hadn’t been able to think of any conversation starters. Jada had played some overly bouncy music on the car stereo instead, which had been grating to the nerves, but, he was belatedly realizing, better than silence. It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon, and trying to keep a kid occupied for six hours until takeoff in all the atmospheric charm of O’Hare Airport was probably going to be beyond him. Keeping her occupied forthreehours was probably going to be beyond him, for that matter, but he’d tackle that later.

He should have hung onto the hotel room for another day. Maybe he should check in again, in fact. It was mad, but so was every other plan he could come up with, and they needed some kind of... base. Also, he needed to see what Casey had in those bags and remedy any omissions now, because when they got back to Auckland, he needed to get her into school and himself back to work. They’d do their shopping today, when he had time to spare. A much better idea. He told the driver, “Change of plan. Take us to a department store instead of the airport. One that’s near the Hilton, if possible.”

She looked at him in the rearview mirror. Suspiciously, he’d call that, like he was cheating her out of her fare, which he probably was. The airport would have been a much pricier ride. “Which Hilton?” she asked.

“The one downtown.”

“There are four of them downtown. Which one do you want to go to?”

“I don’t care. The one nearest the department store that you’re taking us to.” He knew about carrying your clothes in rubbish bags, and he needed to do better. He told Casey, “We’ll buy you a suitcase and whatever else you need, and then we’ll go to a hotel and have a rest before the airport.”

Would they think it was odd that he was checking in with a six-year-old girl, though? Should he get Casey her own room?

No. Kids that age couldn’t stay in a hotel room alone. She was his daughter. Supposedly. He was overthinking this.

Casey asked, “Do they have lunch there?”