Page 27 of Just Say (Hell) No

She drew in a breath, and he thought,Oh, yeh. I’ll do it again, and then I’ll do it some more. I’ll do it until I get it right.

Ella sighed from across the table. “Guys.”

Marko said, “Can’t be helped. I bought your breakfast. Reckon that’s the price.”

“You buy everything, though,” Ella said, “so that isn’t saying much. It doesn’t mean I want to be in the middle of your love life.”

Marko ignored her. “So why?” he asked Nyree.

She was spinning her coffee cup on the table with one hand. Not a big hand, but not the slim, graceful one you might have imagined. Capable and square, the nails short and unpainted. “It wasn’t that you did something awkward,” she said after a moment. “It was what you did afterwards. That you didn’t try to blame anybody. Didn’t lose your temper.”

“Well, you see,” he said, “I try not to do that. Sounds like you’ve known some blokes like that, though. So have I. Sign of weakness.”

“Like my dad,” Ella said. “He used to hit my mum,” she told Nyree. “Like you said. Off his nut about whatever else it was and taking it out on her. At least that’s what my mum says. He was pretty scary. He must have been, because I still remember, and I was little.”

“Oh,” Nyree said. “Good job he’s gone, then.”

“Nah.” Ella was working her way through a breakfast as big as Marko’s. His food bill was going to double, that was for sure. “We left. Marko and my Uncle Ander came and got us. And I think Marko gave him a hiding once, when he came back. He didn’t come back again.”

Marko wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. Ella wasn’t meant to know about that. Nyree asked him, “Did you?”

“Could be,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

“How old were you?’

“Twenty-one.”

“Ah.” It was a sigh. “Well, yeh. See?”

“I see,” he said, “no, Iknowthat fellas who can’t look honestly at what they did wrong, fellas who blame the ref or their teammate instead, don’t get very far.”

“Not the same thing.”

“Oh,” he said, “I think it is. Self-discipline. Self-control.”

“I told you,” Ella said. “Boring.”

“Mm.” Nyree lifted her cup to her lips, but slid her eyes on over to him. It was a sexy little look. “Taking in your cousin and all, too.”

“Could be. You can think it was my noble nature. Instead of that she turned up.”

Nyree asked Ella, “Where were you before?”

“Tekapo,” she said. “Same as Marko. I didn’twantto turn up without telling him. I was afraid he’d say no, though.”

“Ah,” Nyree said. “But Marko said you’re here to go to school. So… sudden decision?”

“No,” Ella said. “Yes. I guess. I had to a bit, you know. Change. Schools. I thought I had to. So I came up to Marko, because he’s responsible.”

“Oh.” The weather chasing over Nyree’s face now was of the “clouds” variety. “For what?”

“Because I’m pregnant.” She took a deep breath. “Whoa. Hard. I’m practicing saying it for later.”

It took Nyree a moment to work through that, but after she did, she wanted to smile again at the expression on Marko’s face. Gobsmacked, she’d call it. She couldn’t smile, though, because of Ella, whose own face was slowly flushing dark. She put a hand over the girl’s for an instant. Her blue nail varnish was chipped, and the nails looked chewed. “Not easy,” she told her.

“Yeh,” Ella said. “Not so much.” And took a deep breath. Better. Calmer.

“The look on your face, though,” Nyree told Marko, letting the moment pass. “The King of Swords? Yeh, right.”