Page 17 of Packing for Vacation

I wait for Matiu to finish his sentence. It takes a good minute for him to speak again. When he does, his voice sounds thicker than before.

“She’s worth it. Worth the effort.”

I know how much it costs him to have hope like that, given how things ended last time. “I hope so. Lightning doesn’t usually strike twice.”

That could be a good or a bad thing.

“I’ll message you once she wakes.”

“Sounds good.”

The call ends. I feel like I’ve run a marathon. “Fuck me,” I say quietly. “This puts a spanner in the works.”

Barry makes a quiet wuff of agreement.

Matiu

So the official plan is you make your way here. Let me know what day you’ll arrive, keeping in mind that time is of the essence re her expected heat. I have a guest bedroom, you’re welcome to stay. We would then make our way up to the bach the following day. Sound good?

Sounds good. I’ll be there tonight.

I’m truly fine if you need another day to pack.

Yeah I bet you are. See you tonight.

Chapter Six

Lizzie

Matiu gives me two choices: spend a slow day together in the local area, or do fast and adventurous things further away, whatever that means.

“If I choose slow, can I stay in bed a little longer?” I ask, my eyes barely cracked open. I’m not a morning person and never will be—especially after a marathon night of hot sex—and there’s nothing I love more than lounging around in a pile of pillows and blankets. It’s even better when it’s cosy bedding that smells like my scent match. Matiu had indulged me last night and added extra pillows from the guest bedroom before we fell asleep, and while I wouldn’t build a nest quite like this myself, I’m very, very relaxed where I am.

“If you choose slow, I’ll make you breakfast in bed.”

“Slow it is.”

I sleep another half an hour before a stack of pancakes appears before me, served with whipped cream and Canadian maple syrup, and I find myself blinking back tears over the little reminder of home. At some point, though, breakfast in bed becomes less about eating and more about being eaten out, and when we finally do emerge from the bedroom, it’s close to lunchtime.

“I can’t believe we only met twenty-four hours ago,” I remark as we take a walk along the waterfront, passing by his work. He hums in agreement, lifting our joined hands to kiss the back of mine, and it’s such a small gesture, but it makes my chest ache in that very scary, very real sort of way despite it being far too soon for any of that.

After lunch at a restaurant on the wharf, we walk up the steep slope of Takarunga, the closest of the two dormant volcanoes in the area. It’s busier than I expected, but I can see why, the views getting better the higher we go. Matiu humours me as I stop every few minutes to take another bunch of pictures of the city skyline across the water or the island-dotted ocean.

When I begin to slow near the summit, Matiu moves behind me, placing his hands on my ass. “I’m just giving you a boost for completely chivalrous reasons that are not at all to do with how good you look in those leggings,” he says, making me laugh. It does help, and I’m only a little out of breath as we reach the top.

“I bet this is a popular spot on New Year’s Eve.” I point to the Sky Tower that dominates the Auckland City skyline. “Do they set fireworks off from there?”

“They do, and it is. I used to bring Amo up here for it when she was younger. You still have to rug up against the cold, even with it being the middle of summer it’s chilly at midnight. We could do it—celebrate New Year’s here.”

It’s still weeks away but I find myself nodding, hope fluttering somewhere under my ribs. “I’d like that.”

We circle the grassy top slowly. It’s busy, as is expected on a sunny weekend day in summer, and when a couple gets up from one of the few bench seats available Matiu grabs my hand and growls “Come on!” like acquiring seating is a competitive sport. I giggle as we manage to swoop in and grab the seat before anyone else notices it’s free, the blush creeping up my neck as Matiu pulls me onto his lap.

“What did you mean earlier, when you said that this isn’t your maunga?” I ask him, leaning my head against his shoulder. “That’s the correct word for mountain, right?”

He nods. “Good pronunciation, too.” He’s been a wonderful guide so far, and in the past day I’ve learned more about Māori culture, local flora and fauna, and the history of this area than I probably would have learned in my entire month here in New Zealand had I never met him. What I appreciate the most is that he encourages me to ask questions. “I mean that we each have a maunga that we belong to, and it’s where your ancestral lands are. For me, that’s up north, that’s where my iwi is from. The iwi—the tribe— here, for the ones that are really local, this is their maunga, their mountain. So when we introduce ourselves in a Māori setting we talk about our maunga, and our awa or moana—our bodies of water—before we ever mention our own name, because they are more important. We don’t own the land. We belong to it. You can see how environmentalism is built into te ao Māori, eh? Because if you acknowledge that you’re from the land, you should be able to respect it, and be a good kaitiaki—a good guardian—of it.”

From our seat he points out the man-made terraces cut into the side of the mountain. They look like large, grassy stairs made for giants, but as Matiu explains, they were made by pre-European Māori, who turned the volcanoes in this region into fortified villages called pā to guard themselves from enemies. I love how animated he gets when he describes what the palisades would have looked like, and the traditional weaponry and defences used in battles.