She nods thoughtfully. “Figures Richard was a nerd from the start. I mean, you’d have to be to be marrying my sister. Plus his last name looks like boner.”
I almost laugh. “It is Boner.”
“Yeah but it’s pronounced Bon-air,” she says.
I rub my lips together before I look at her. She’s serious.
“You think his last name is Bon-air? It’s not. It’s Boner. It’s Richard Boner, AKA Dick Boner, reason one million why he’s been made fun of his whole life.”
She shakes her head, her eyes wide. “It can’t be. When he added me on Facebook, I immediately started making fun of his last name and Lacey insisted it’s pronounced Bon-Air.”
“Lacey is lying,” I tell her. “Haven’t you figured that’s why she’s hesitant on taking his last name.”
“I thought it was because of our Lewis legacy.”
“Legacy? Aren’t your parents apple farmers?”
“So…she might become Lacey Boner.” She giggles for a moment, and then sobers up. “If she’s lying about Dick Boner, what else could she be lying about?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. You’ve got your issues.”
“What does that mean?”
Why did I open my mouth? I should have stopped talking hours ago.
“What does that mean, Tai? If that is your real name.”
I give her a look. “Why wouldn’t it be my name?”
“It sounds made up.”
“It’s not. It’s Maori.”
She’s silent for a moment. “Oh. Are you Maori?”
I nod. My skin gets pretty dark in the sun, and it’s the end of summer now so I’m pretty brown, but perhaps it isn’t obvious to her.
“Yeah. Maori on my mother’s side.”
“So what does Tai mean?”
“It means ‘Great Extreme’.”
She rubs her lips together as if she’s trying not to laugh.
“What?” I ask testily.
“Great Extreme what? Great Extreme Grump?”
My eyes roll back. “Whatever you want to call me, it makes zero difference to me. Anyway, you’re named after a weed.”
“I don’t know what you call them here, but at home a daisy is a flower. A pretty one.” She’s so indignant, I’m almost smiling.
“Yeah, they’re weeds.”
She practically jumps in her seat. “Daisies aren’t weeds! They’re flowers!”
“They’re weeds and I mow them down every spring.” I give her a smirk. “Pretty fitting name if you ask me.”
The glare returns to her eyes. “Forget grump, you’re a full-on dick.”
I shrug. “As I said, whatever you want to call me makes no difference to me.”
And at that, she seems to shut up.
I glance down at the dashboard clock and sigh internally at how slow this has been going. It’s been a hell of a day so far.
I woke up early having spent the night on one of the boats I had to sail from the Bay of Islands last week, down to Auckland Harbor for a client. I met the client, handed off the boat, and then started up on the motorway back up to Russell.
That’s when Lacey called me in hysterics, saying her sister Daisy had arrived a day early and she hadn’t arranged any pickup for her. I guess tomorrow Daisy was supposed to arrive at the same time as another guest was passing through and they were going to give her a ride or something. At any rate, I thought it was odd that Daisy was arriving on the day of the wedding rehearsal, as if she was trying to cut the trip as short as possible. But from the way that Lacey sometimes refers to Daisy as being flakey and pampered and distant, I figured it was normal.
Naturally, Lacey was busy doing last minute wedding things with her parents and Richard, so I was her only hope. It was this, or stick Daisy on a bus, which would have been the preferable option for me, and probably for Daisy as well. But I like Lacey a lot, even though she can be hard on you, and so I did her a favor.
I suppose it’s not the worst thing in the world, at least it isn’t now since Daisy has finally grown quiet and I’ve had time to think.
That is until we drive through the town of Opua where I have my boats. As we head over the bridge that crosses the bay, I crane my neck to try and see the marina.
“What are you looking at?” she asks.
“Boats.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many,” she says, seeming to admire them dotted on the emerald green water, the sun glinting off the masts. Then she glances at my shirt. “I’m going to guess you have something to do with them?”
I nod. “I own a chartering company. Deep Blue. Have twelve yachts in total, based out of here and Auckland.”
“Wow,” she says. “Impressive.” And she actually sounds impressed for once. “I guess you do look like you’d be pretty good with your hands.”
Now she’s looking at my hands, my knuckles all scarred up from my boxing days.
“Ever been sailing?” I ask her against my better judgement.
“Ha,” she says. “Yes, once. With an ex. I was rather useless, I have to admit. I think I like the whole drinking cocktails at the dock type of sailing.”
“Uh huh. And this ex, was it the one that was supposed to be in the back of the truck?”
She gives me one of her sweet smiles again and it nearly knocks the wind out of me. I force myself to focus on the road. “I thought I was going to be the one in the back! Have you changed your mind about me?”
Never.
But she looks out the window, her shoulders sinking. “No,” she says wearily. “That was some other ex. My latest ex was Chris.”
I should drop it. Take the opportunity for more blessed silence. But if she got to poke and prod at me, I get to poke and prod at her.
“So what happened?”
“That’s very direct.”
“I’m a direct guy. So what happened? Why isn’t he here? Did you talk him to death?”
“You know what, I only talk like this when I’m nervous, it’s not all the time.”
I grin at her. “So I make you nervous?”
“No,” she says hesitantly and then shields her eyes. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you smile. Has anyone ever told you that your teeth are blinding?”
“Has anyone ever told you that you say has anyone ever told you a lot?”
She exhales slowly through her lips. “Chris told me that. He told me lots of things, before I came home one day to make lunch and caught him having sex with an ex-coworker.”
Fuck.
I let out a low whistle. “That is rough.”
“Yeah. And, like, a few weeks before that I was let go of my job of ten years.”
“Shit.”
“Mmmhmmm.” She starts tapping her fingers along her thighs.
“What did you do? I mean, what was your role?”
Another sigh. “I was the head of marketing for an athleisure company. You know, clothes for yoga, products for wellness, that sort of thing.”
I shudder inside at the word “wellness,” one of my pet peeves. Figures.
“And so what did you do?” I repeat. “Meaning, why were you fired?”