Page 119 of Try Line Hearts
The air smelled like toast and fried bread and strong tea, like someone’s perfume, like damp jackets hung too close together, like warm bodies and anticipation. There was laughter threaded through everything, the low constant hum of community: small talk, teasing, “Shush!” calls when the ref brought the whistle to his mouth, and the occasional roar that made a baby in the back room stir and then settle again.
Eli’s mum, Mereana, moved through it all like she was the center of gravity. She had a tea towel over one shoulder, a mug in one hand, and a look in her eyes that said she’d been holding her breath sincekickoff. She wasn’t sitting. She couldn’t sit. Every time the camera found Eli on-screen, she drifted closer to the television like her body didn’t trust distance.
Eli’s dad, Hemi, stood near the doorway between the lounge and the hall, arms folded, pretending not to care while caring very much — the posture of a man trying to be sturdy for everyone else. He nodded at people as they arrived, offered quiet hellos, accepted plates shoved into his hands without argument, and every few minutes he muttered something under his breath at the television like the ref might hear him across oceans.
Aunties occupied every available surface. One had claimed the arm of the couch like a throne. Another perched on a footstool, plate balanced on her knees, eyes sharp as a hawk. Cousins sprawled wherever there was floor. Someone’s uncle had been banished to the hallway and looked perfectly content there, leaning against the wall with a beer, shouting tactical opinions no one had asked for.
They’d been watching since kickoff.
No one had said it out loud, but this wasn’t just any match.
That was their boy out there.
When the try was scored, the entire house — and half the street, probably — erupted. Cheers, clapping, someone yelling “That’s our Eli!” loud enough to wake the neighbors. A cousin in the dining room screamed and knocked over a bowl of crisps and nobody cared. Mereana laughed, hand flying to her mouth, eyes bright with pride and something perilously close to tears.
“Look at him run,” she said softly, voice thick with the kind of love that could barely fit in a sentence. “Just like when he was little. Could never keep his feet still.”
Hemi grunted, but there was a smile tugging at his mouth. “Always had a good line.”
The match wound down. The win came. Relief rippled through the room like a shared exhale — people slumping, laughing, shaking their heads, already replaying moments out loud like prayer.
Then the camera cut to the pitch.
The reporter stepped up.
Kiri, perched on the back of the couch with her phone in her hand—because Kiri never did any large family event without streaming—stiffened.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
Mereana glanced at her. “What is it, kotiro?”
Kiri didn’t answer. She leaned forward, eyes flicking between the television and Mereana — Lucas Byrne, captain, golden boy, the man she’d been quietly side-eyeing for months now.
The reporter asked the question.
“Do you want to dedicate this win to anyone special?”
The room went still.
Not silence — the kettle still clicked on somewhere, a baby still snuffled in the back room — but a pause that travelled through bodies. Conversations died mid-sentence. Plates hovered halfway to mouths.
“What’s he waiting for? He’s got a famous singer girlfriend.” Hemi asked, confusion setting in.
Kiri’s lips parted.
“Oh,” she said again. Louder this time. “OHHH.” Lucas looked past the reporter. The camera followed his gaze.
Straight to Eli.
Kiri slapped a hand over her mouth.
“No way,” she gasped.
Lucas looked back at the camera.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
The mic hit the ground.
