Page 7 of Packing for Vacation

“Goblin forest?” I interrupt her. “Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Ah, give me a second… it’s in Tarrah-nay-key Mah-un-gah?”

“Taranaki Maunga,” I reply. “That’s pretty far from here.”

“I’m sorry, I’m mangling the pronunciation. I’m trying not to be offensive.”

“It’s offensive if you’ve lived here your whole life, born and raised, and intentionally make zero effort, and then complain when the national anthem is sung in te reo or when Māori have any sort of achievement or are given Tiriti reparations or equitable funding and healthcare. It’s not offensive if you’re a tourist and it’s your second day in the country and you’re trying. I can teach you the basics, but I’m not judging you, eh.”

She relaxes back further into her seat. “Okay.”

“Te reo Māori is pronounced almost the same way as the Japanese language, if that helps. We use the same vowel sounds: a, e, i, o, u. It’s all phonetic.”

“That does, actually. And rolled Rs?”

“And rolled Rs, yeah. And nga, that’s its own sound, you make it with the back of your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Essentially, it’s what we do in English at the end of words like sing. Just add an a on the end.”

“Nga.”

I grin at her and she smiles back. “You got it.”

“I’ve got a good teacher.”

“I can’t take credit, that’s just how they taught me at uni,” I tell her as I pull into a carpark right outside the takeaways she opted for. She’d been excited when I’d given her the option of fish and chips for lunch. “You wanna come in? It’s normally a ten to fifteen minute wait.”

“Ah, sure!”

“You’re not a vegetarian, eh?”

She shakes her head as she climbs out of the car. “I love meat too much.”

There’s a joke about a different kind of meat sitting right there, but it’s too soon, so I be a good boy and keep my mouth shut on that front. “Good,” I say instead. “Same. What about shellfish?”

“What about shellfish?” she asks with a grin, tipping her head back to look up at me as we step inside, the door’s buzzer making the loud and familiar doorbell sound that almost every fish and chip shop down the country seems to have. “Am I allergic? No. Do I like it? I like lobster and scallops, but I’m not a fan of oysters. Sorry if that’s disappointing.”

“Well, you’re an omega, eh,” I say, lowering my voice and bending to speak into her ear as we step in line behind two other locals. “I don’t think you’re the target market for the supposed aphrodisiac qualities anyway. I’m sure you do fine on your own.”

“That’s not what I meant!” she cries, clapping her hand over her mouth as she lets out a loud laugh that ends in a snort, her cheeks growing pink.

Cute.

“I’m teasing,” I reassure her, my hand settling on the small of her back. I may have done this before, but I don’t know what the protocol is when it comes to meeting your scent match in the wild, so I’m just following my gut. I take it as a good sign when she moves closer, her arm brushing my side and her scent blooming until it’s as sweet as the ripest strawberries. It’s lucky everyone in here at the moment are betas, though from the way the woman in front of us turns around and gives her the quick up and down with her eyes, it’s strong enough that everyone can tell.

“What’s a deep fried moro?” she asks, staring up at the menu board on the wall.

“A local delicacy.”

“Is it—” she begins to ask, but suddenly it’s our turn and we’re face to face with the local teenager who is in here working almost every day. A grin spreads across the teen’s face as her eyes dance between myself and Lizzie.

I order, gently pushing Lizzie’s eftpos card away before she can tap it to the paywave, replacing it with mine. “My shout,” I tell her.

We take a seat on the plastic chairs that line the wall while we wait for our food.

“What about you?” I ask to fill the silence. “You said you were in marketing?” She’d mentioned it as we were leaving my office, but we’d been interrupted by the nosiest of the other partners—no doubt fishing for information on Lizzie—before I could ask anything about her line of work.

“I was,” she answers. “I was made redundant two weeks ago; that was my Christmas gift from the company. I worked for a fashion brand and they replaced me with AI.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry.”