Liz was at the gym when she first saw him. He arrived with the entire Blues rugby team for a warmdown at the Sandton Personal Training Gym.
It pretty much brought the gym to a standstill – 26 enormous men of varying levels of Polynesian ancestry entering the swimming-pool area, stripping to their shorts and then slowly climbing into the pool.
She was on the exercise bikes when she spotted him. He was shorter than the others, but wider, with a vast Maori tattoo across the upper right quadrant of his chest. He wore his hair in tumbling curls down his broad shoulders.
His deep-set eyes were hooded with concentration as the team solemnly executed their routine of wading down the length of the swimming pool five times. But Liz’s bike was the one right opposite the pool ladder, so she knew it was only a matter of time…
Sure enough, the time came, and as the gorgeous man hoisted himself out of the pool, his muscles rippling with the exertion, he glanced up, and they looked into each other’s eyes.
For Liz, time stopped.
He had a caramel complexion, full, chocolate lips, and a plaster across his left eyebrow, which was raised in a mischievous way that reminded her of the The Rock.
Her monitor told her that her heart rate had gone up to 150bpm.
“Who’s that?” she gasped to the guy on the bike next to her.
“That’s Pete Paki. He’s the eighthman.”
From that moment, the course of the next two weeks of Liz’s life were determined. She would be stalking Pete Paki.
She timed her departure from the gym to coincide with that of the Blues team bus, which returned to the team hotel, the Sandton Holiday Inn on Katherine Street
From super14.com, she determined that the Blues would be playing the Cheetahs that weekend and the Cats the one after. After that she went out and bought a bright red, low-cut top.
It was the kind of top that would turn heads no matter what colour it was, but the colour – a kind of luminous magenta – ensured Liz’s bust would be the main attraction in any room she found herself in.
She immediately headed for the Holiday Inn, where she sipped a cocktail at the hotel bar until, inevitably, The Blues came down for lunch. Sure enough, Pete Paki was among them.
Liz turned and watched the team parade past. As Pete Paki passed, she brushed her left hand through her hair and tossed it over her shoulder. Again they shared a look.
She spent the rest of Wednesday hanging around Sandton City in her red top. Foreign sports teams are famous for their shopping trips to Jo’burg’s 30-year-old shopping mecca.
And eventually, sure enough, there was Pete Paki in the cellphone shop down from Mugg & Bean.
She wandered in, as if not noticing him at first. Then shrieked with recognition. “God! I keep bumping into you. Who are you guys!”
“Rugby players, ay,” responded Pete, quick as a flash. “The Blues, from New Zealand.”
“Oh, great. Well welcome to South Africa,” she gushed, a little more than she should’ve.
That Saturday she filled up her car and headed down south, to Bloemfontein, where she again donned her red shirt, then found a seat near the players’ tunnel. Pete Paki could not help noticing her both times he left the field.
By the next week, their paths had crossed three more times.
Pete was thinking, “If we can put enough pressure on Pretorius, we’ll take their backline out of the game. He’ll be forced to kick and it’ll become a lineout battle.”
Liz was thinking, “I’ll start calling myself Elizabeth. Elizabeth Paki.”
By the time the Cats had beaten the Blues 34-33, and the post-match function was into its fourth hour, Pete Paki was ripe for the picking.
As he lurked in the corner behind a potplant, rueing the missed tackled that had let Wylie Human in for the winning try, a buxom woman in a luminous magenta top sidled up to him.
“Hey, Mr Bluesman,” she said with a sly grin.
“Have you been following me?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Mmm. I must admit, I have,” she said. “But don’t worry. I’ll let you get even with me.”
And with that, she turned and walked out of the room.
All he had to do was follow her…
Pete Paki finished his drink and for a moment, looked deep inside himself.
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