with the kind of sparkle in his eye that told me how much he enjoyed helping Luke shock the rugby world, “I’ll tell you that I’m also an attorney. The horror. Oh, and my sister’s married to Rhys Fletcher.”
The coach of the Blues. I knew about Zora Fletcher. She’d been Zora Fletcher both before and after her recent marriage to Rhys, because she’d been married to his brother until his death. That was all right, though. I’d played with Rhys, because he’d been an All Black before he’d been a coach, and I’d known his brother.
Dylan Fletcher had been mourned by his family, I was sure, and by too many women, and that was probably about all. He hadn’t been much chop as a man. Zora had done better second time round, as far as I was concerned, and it wasn’t my business anyway. But Hayden … whatever his surname was, was her brother? And Luke Armstrong’s husband? Huh.
Also, what did Grant Armstrong think about his son being gay? I was certain it was nothing good. I knew Grant too well to think otherwise. He’d been a pretty good coach. Not my favorite person. Grant Armstrong was, in fact, one of the reasons I’d retired years before I’d wanted to. Armstrong and his hard-man ethos, and the rugby world of ten years back, without its strict concussion protocols.
The other reason was me, of course. Me, getting back in there too fast every time, knowing that if I didn’t, I’d lose my starting spot. Shaking it off and playing on despite the headaches, the dizziness.
“So that’s all very incestuous,” Hayden said as I was still forcing my besieged brain to take it all in. “But such good gossip material.”
“Doubt Gray gossips much,” Luke said, and I looked at him and thought—huh. Again. How could a person help it? He smiled at me, the merest lift at one side of his mouth, and said, “I know. I’m ugly. It’s surprising. I’d have thought you’d have heard, though. Not a secret, is it.”
“I’m not really in the rugby world anymore,” I said, sitting down belatedly and offering a quiet “Thanks” to the girl who’d just set down my very necessary long black. “Best not to live in the past, eh.”
“You’re wondering,” Drew said calmly, because Drew was always calm, and always businesslike, too, and he’d be not-so-patiently waiting, now, to get started on the agenda, “why Hayden’s here. Whether it’s the ‘lawyer’ bit or the ‘newlywed’ bit.”
“Well, yeh,” I said. “Oh. Congrats, guys. Cheers.” I lifted my coffee glass to them, took a welcome sip of the strong, inky brew, and willed it to get to work on those blood vessels.
“I asked him to come,” Luke said. “To listen. Hayden thinks of things I don’t, asks the right questions.”
“Right,” I said, gearing myself up for it. “So. Let’s get stuck in.”
“Sure you’re good to do it?” Drew asked. Quietly, the way he asked most things. The Highlanders would be having some culture shock for sure, after Armstrong’s bluster.
“Yeh,” I said. “Migraine, that’s all. I’m all good.”
Drew looked at me measuringly, but didn’t say anything, and I went on. “If you’ve all had the chance to review the files I sent around a couple days ago, you’ll see that both the big projects are well underway.” The new music studio building, with its many soundproofed cells, and the twin dormitories we were building to house six hundred of Otago’s bursting-at-the-seams student population. The biggest contracts we’d had to date. The ticket to the firm’s future.
“But you’re short on labor,” Drew said, putting his finger bang onto the sore spot. “Looked like it to me, anyway.”
“Yeh.” When you lost, you fronted up, took your learnings, and sorted out how to win next time. “I’ve been short a foreman for nearly three weeks, which is all right, just, because I’ve been doing his bit. But I’m seriously short on tradies as well. Construction boom in Dunedin’s good for business. Good for the economy, too. The labor shortage is the downside, and it’s not getting better.”
“Are we going to miss the next deadlines?” That was Luke. I was grateful for the “we.”
I’d lain awake for every bit of those three weeks now, sweating this. I was meant to be ramping up construction, and it wasn’t happening.
I’d been all right with the big, expensive parts of the jobs, because I’d firmed them up the moment we’d won the contracts, cashing in on the relationships I’d built amongst Dunedin’s