Just for You by Rosalind James Page B

Reka said. “Some fool just threw a stone through my window, that’s all.”
    “That would be me,” Hemi said. “Accident. Sorry.”
    “What’s an accident?” Now Uncle Matiu was there, feeling his way down the steps in the dark, clutching at the banister, and Hemi hurried to help him, and this was nothing but ridiculous.
    “Hemi’s broken Reka’s window,” Auntie Kiri said. “Broken her heart, too, hasn’t he. That’s what he calls romance, I guess. That’s his idea of love.”
    “Oh, is
that
what it is,” Reka said.
    “Yeh,” Hemi said, his upturned face shadowy in the dim light shining out of the open door of Auntie Kiri’s house. “It is. And if you’ll come down, I’ll tell you about it. Please.”
    “Going to fix her window?” Uncle Matiu demanded.
    “Never mind her window,” Auntie Kiri said. “What else are you going to do, and not do? You’ve done wrong, boy, and you’d better be here trying to make it right, and I wouldn’t call breaking a window a good start. You saved my grandson, and I never thought I’d say this after the debt I owe you for that, but you’ve shamed your family with what you’ve done, and you’ve shamed Reka.”
    “What?” Uncle Matiu demanded. “What did he do?”
    “Been a dickhead,” Auntie Kiri said, and Reka could see Hemi’s mouth drop open, the protest beginning. “Been sleeping around, thinking she wouldn’t know, just like before.”
    “Aw, mate,” Uncle Matiu said sorrowfully. “That’s no good. What would your mum and dad say about that?”
    “They wouldn’t say anything,” Hemi said. “Sir,” he added hastily. “Because I didn’t do it. I didn’t do anything.”
    “Didn’t, eh,” Uncle Matiu said, his hooded tortoise eyes blinking slowly at Hemi. “Then why does she think you did?”
    “That’s what I want to tell her,” Hemi said, the frustration clear. “If she’d just come down.”
    “You did break her window, though,” Auntie Kiri said, her tone still suspicious, because she wasn’t convinced, Reka could tell.
    “What window?”
    Reka heard the new voice, tried to see, but she didn’t dare get closer to the jagged shards of glass still stuck to the window frame, and her landlady must be standing in the doorway, and she was out of Reka’s view. The sharp voice rang out clearly through the quiet Russell night. “Who’s broken a window? What’s happening?”
    “Hemi here,” Uncle Matiu said before Hemi could answer, “seems to’ve thrown a stone through Reka’s window.”
    “Through
my
window, you mean,” Sonya said, and she’d come forward far enough that Reka could see her rounding on Hemi. “What d’you mean to do about that, young man? Window glass isn’t cheap, and why ever would you do such a thing in the first place? Can’t tell me that’s accidental. On the first floor? I don’t think so.”
    Her excitable landlady was working herself up into a state, and Hemi had his hands out in front of him, his posture so ridiculously defensive that Reka was having a hard time not laughing.
    “Nah,” he said. “Not an accident. That is, breaking it was an accident. I was just trying to wake her up, without waking you.”
    A snort from below. “Pretty good fist you made of that, then, didn’t you? Woke the whole neighborhood, and broken glass to boot. Who are you, anyway? Do I know you? Who’s your family?”
    “Hemi Ranapia,” he said. “Not from here. My family’s in Ahipara.”
    “The All Black,” Auntie Kiri put in before Hemi could bow to the pressure and begin reciting his entire whakapapa.
    “An All Black, and you behave like that?” Sonya asked, her voice rising even further. “That’s disgraceful.”
    “An accident,” Hemi said again. He cast a hunted glance upwards. “Reka, come on, baby. Please, come down and talk to me.” He was trying a smile. “This is the worst thing I’ve done, I promise, other than running out on you tonight. Let me tell you. Please.”
    She