There was a moment on the drive back to Wellington. Winona glanced up from the very back seat. In the rear view mirror, she saw her partner, Will, check out her and Ulrika, nearly nestled together as Ulrika murmured her story. Intuition twinged in her gut. Her partner was thinking about something, and she was going to hear about it.
Sure enough, two days later, Will called out to her from their flat’s kitchenette. “Win? Come talk to me while I do the dishes?”
Despite being up to his elbows in the metal sink, he was simmering with bloke cockiness. He wanted something, and he knew it was going to be a big tease to bring it up.
Three minutes later, even though she can hear him telling his friends, oh, she was so wound up, mate! she just can’t help herself. “But we don’t need a car! We can walk to everything! That was one thing we wanted in a flat! Even when we were loading up the rental car, you were moaning about the crap parking here!”
“Fair enough. But wasn’t it great to just get in the car and go? Wayne’ll let me use his tools to keep it tuned up, so we won’t be paying for service.” As Winona rolls her eyes at this, he adds, “Besides, Wayne says it’s mad to think of having kids if you don’t have a car.”
She caved, mate! She went down! That’s what he’ll be saying to Wayne, probably over a beer tomorrow night. While she recaps this conversation for a friend, moaning about why Kiwi men put up a shield of boyish taunting around their partners. This isn’t the moment for her observations on that – not when she’s melting with relief against the doorframe. “So. What kind of car?”
Funny. My sweetheart is working on me for us to get a puppy. Some similar circumstances.