Chapter 1 - Then — Chandré

High school — matric year

"How's the vissop coming, Chandi?" my mother shouts from the dining room.

"Is it done?"

I roll my eyes and sigh, but not too loudly, because I don't want a klap from Mama tonight, and she will klap if she's provoked. Or throw the nearest shoe at me.

"Yes, Mama." I lift the lid off the fish soup, drawing in a deep breath of the flavour-rich smell and letting the steam mist my face.

"Good," she yells. "I hope there's enough of everything. Those boys are going to be hungry, hungry."

The last thing I want to do in the middle of the week is help my mother put on a full Namakwa spread for twelve immature boys. Bad enough I live with one. Now I'm cooking dinner for Cliff's football team instead of watching Vampire Diaries.

I survey the dishes, pots and pans of food splayed across every surface in our kitchen. Besides the soup we have smoorsnoek, a whole snoek split and braaied and basted with apricot jam, kreef, a mussel pot, bokkoms hanging in a bundle by the back door, pens en pootjies, skilpadjies, a lamb potjie that's been sighing away on the stoep since two o'clock, rice, roosterkoek, vetkoek, and every other dish Mama had time to make.

"Go upstairs and check on your brother," Mama says, the faintest lilt of the coast still languishing in her words even though she's lived in Kimberley nearly twenty years. "He's lolling around up there. His friends will be here nou-nou and he's not even downstairs."

I grumble under my breath but turn the soup off and cut through the lounge to climb the stairs. My hand is on the handle to open the door, but I catch myself just in time. Growing up, Cliff and I were closer to each other than to my sister Denise, who is four years older than him and five years older than I am. Cliff and I are what some people call Irish twins, born only thirteen months apart.

Nee wat. No child of mine is Irish anything, Mama always says. Instead we're her "Namakwa twins".

Still, the days when I could barge into Cliff's room unannounced are long gone. You interrupt a boy's quiet time with his bottle of lotion in one hand and his dick in the other, you learn to knock quick.

"What you want?" his newly deeper voice demands from the other side of the door.

"Um, I want to be watching Vampire Diaries, but I'm cooking dinner for your friends. Mama says come down. The team will be here soon."

The door opens, and my own dark brown eyes stare back at me from a good twenty centimetres above. Not only are we Namakwa twins, we could be fraternal for how much we look alike, despite the dramatic height difference. We have the same high cheekbones, though mine are set in the rounded curves of my face and his are more pronounced. Identical clefts in our chins, passed down from Pappa. Heavily lashed eyes under a thick, dark slash of brows. Well, mine were thick before I experimented with wax and tweezers last week. Right now they're what's left.

"Help me with this tie," Cliff says, turning back into his room, leaving me to follow him inside. He holds out a tie with the word fabulous stitched into the burgundy and gold pattern of the Beaconsfield College coat of arms.

"Isn't this from your school uniform?" I frown at the altered tie.

"Ja, but we got Wesley's mother to sew the 'fabulous' on for the starting eleven. Kind of like Bafana's Class of '96."

"Won't you get in trouble for changing it like this?"

"We're about to give Beacons its first Champ of Champs," he says, his smirk cocky, his tone assured. "We could stitch suck my dick on that tie and the headmaster wouldn't care. Long as we bring home the wins and Kalahari's money."

"I still don't get how a high school has corporate sponsors."

"It's a private school cranking out top athletes. You wouldn't understand with that basic government-school education you're getting," he teases.

"You cried like a little bitch when Beacons recruited you and Mama said you had to leave all your friends and take that bursary. So watch who you call basic, bru."

"I did not—"

I cut him off with a who you trying to fool, and he grins, showing off the straight white smile my parents are still paying for.

"Okay, maybe I cried a little at first," he concedes. "But that was Grade 10. It was worth it. Look at us now. About to be champs."

I snatch the tie off him and motion for him to bend. We were the same height — one metre seventy-five — until his first year of high school. Over that December he shot up more than thirteen centimetres. He grew a few more to reach his current one metre ninety-six.

"Why are you even wearing a tie?" I ask, looping it deftly. How I know how to do this and he still doesn't is beyond me. "For dinner at the house?"

"We're taking some photos. Capturing the road to the Champ of Champs." He frowns down at me, his smile flattening into a line. "You're wearing that?"

I double-check the fitted jeans and the cropped T-shirt Mama says must have come off the kids' rail at Mr Price, it's so short.

"I mean, ja." I angle a defiant look at him. "What's wrong with it?"

"It's slutty, and I don't want my boys checking you out. We're too close to that final for me to be klapping a teammate."

"It's not slutty. Boys get on my nerves, expecting us to dress like nuns because they get hard every time we wear clothes that show our shape. If your boys are disciplined enough to be in that gym at the crack of dawn and training every afternoon, they should be able to see a little bit of arse fully covered by jeans without getting it up. And if they can't? Not my problem."

"I'm just saying I don't want them getting no ideas." His scowl deepens. "And I don't want you getting any either."

"Don't worry about that. Your teammates are the boyest boys I've ever met. I know them all except that new guy."

"Don't get any ideas about the new guy. Not that he's that new. He's been in the team the whole season."

"He hasn't been to the house."

"He's kind of a loner."

"Maybe he just doesn't like you," I offer sweetly.

He turns to the mirror and checks out my handiwork with the tie. "Everybody likes me."

Arrogant, but accurate. The boy's charisma rivals his left foot. Which makes him charming to everyone and sometimes unbearable to his younger sister.

"What kind of name is Naz?" I ask. "Like Nas the rapper?"

"Said the same way, but it's short for Nazareth. Who names their kid that?"

"His mama, I guess," I laugh, leaning against the chest of drawers and watching Cliff pull off his durag and brush his hair. "I think it's kind of sexy."

"Chan, what did I say?" Cliff shoots me a glare. "Stay away from my teammates — especially that one. He's gunning for my spot."

"Your spot? He plays ten?"

"He plays the ten or off the left. He's my backup, but Coach Fortuin isn't taking my arse off unless he has to. Got good old Naz warming that bench," he says with obvious satisfaction. "Bankwarmer."

"Sounds like you've got beef with him."

"Nah. Long as he stays in his place."

"Which is where?"

"Out of my way and on that bench."

"Well, you're the star," I say dryly. "Everyone stays out of your way, right?"

He narrows his eyes, brows lowering. "You being sarcastic?"

"No. Derisive. See the big words my basic government-school education taught me?"

He huffs a laugh and hooks an elbow around my neck, pulling me in close. "You'll be at the final, right? It's beat up that you didn't make one game this whole season."

"Excuse me for having a life," I say, my brows peaking at his nerve and self-centredness.

"What you doing that's so important you missed my games?"

I pull back to peer up at his handsome face. "Do you really not know I'm working at Antie Hettie's shop every day after school?"

"Doing what?"

"Whatever she tells me to do. Sweeping. Washing and drying towels," I beam with pride. "I just started shampooing."

"You still thinking about skipping varsity to do hair?" he asks, grabbing his school blazer off the back of his desk chair.

"I'm thinking about going to a TVET college to do hair. I need training. Just because it's not a three-year degree doesn't mean it's not what's right for me. You're planning to skip varsity to play football as soon as you can, right?" I wait for the nod I know is coming. "What's the difference? We both know what we want and we can both see the path to get us there."

"Well, I'm signing straight out of matric. First team at eighteen." He slips his Air Force Ones onto his feet. "I just don't want you to settle and be stuck here your whole life."

"What's wrong with Kimberley?"

"Nothing, I guess. It's just where we grew up. What we've always known. If I had to stay here forever, never see anything else, never be anything else, I'd suffocate. It's the dream of getting out that keeps me going."

"What if you sign for some team down the road and your backside ends up staying right here after all?"

"If I'm playing football, even here isn't here. I'll be at a different place in life. Travelling all over the country, all over the world. Nothing but money and opportunity. You think I'm being scouted now? Wait till we win the big one." His mouth hardens. "So Naz can forget about minutes. I need every second on that pitch I can get."

"Well, I'm sure you've got nothing to worry about. You're the best, right?"

"Damn right." The irritation clears from his expression. "You know wherever I end up, there's a place for you with me."

"What? With your groupies? No, thank you."

"I'm serious, Chan." He pulls me in for a side hug. "If I'm good, you're good. I mean that. I'll always make sure you're straight."

"I know." I loop an arm around his waist. "You may be a pain in the arse."

"Excuse me?" he asks, pulling back to glare-grin down at me.

"But you're my pain in the arse," I finish, quieting him with one final squeeze.

"Chandi!" Mama's voice booms up from downstairs. "Cliff! Get down here. Somebody just pulled into the driveway."

"Here we go," he mutters, heading out the door and down the stairs.

A steady stream of towering boys invades our house over the next twenty minutes. Mama may have grumbled when Cliff first asked if he could have a pre-final party here, but she's in her element now, surrounded by hungry people. Her smooth brown skin shines with a light sheen of sweat from living in that kitchen all day. The more people who crowd in, the wider her smile gets.

Before a single plate moves, she plants herself between the boys and the food and lifts her hands. "Nobody eats in my house before we say dankie vir die kos."

Twelve enormous boys drop their heads and go quiet like she is their own mother, and she prays the way she always prays — for the food, for the hands that pulled it out of the sea, for every boy standing under this roof and the two who couldn't come, for Coach, for tomorrow. She takes her time about it. By the amen the kreef has gone cold and not one of them dares say a word.

"I know we're still getting our plates," Cliff says, standing at the mantelpiece, "but I wanted to say a few things before we get lost in my mother's food. You all thank her for a taste of Namakwaland."

All the boys whoop and shout, some of them pretending to bow to her.

"Ag, thank you, my sweet boys," Mama says. "But it wasn't just me. Chandi helped."

I feel the weight of all those eyes on me and I smile stiffly, sliding my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. A few of the guys sneak glances at my bare middle and down the length of my legs. It makes me want to cover myself, to hide myself, but I stand still despite the discomfort.

Like I said. The boyest boys.

"Ja, thank you to my baby sister," Cliff says, slipping a little steel into the mild words to warn them off. I'm surprised he didn't spray me down with Doom to keep them away.

Ashwin Jantjies, one of Cliff's first friends at Beacons, offers a mocking salute. "We hear you loud and clear, Cap. Hands off."

My cheeks heat and I shuffle my feet uncomfortably. Passing plates around, Mama pauses long enough to glare like she might take her shoe off and throw it at anybody she catches looking too hard at me.

"You got that right," Cliff says, looking each of his teammates in the eye. "But we're not here to talk about how I'll break your hand if you even think about it."

He pauses for the nervous laughter before going on. "We're here to celebrate the best season Beacons has ever had," he says. "And party like that trophy is already ours."

They whoop and high-five, which to my mind is premature, seeing as that trophy isn't actually theirs yet. In a town where the only sport anybody has ever properly cared about is rugby, a school football side going all the way is either a miracle or a nuisance, depending who you ask. Cliff walks through life with this sense of inevitability, like his success is only a matter of time. I try to forecast everything that could go wrong, whereas Cliff seems to expect that nothing — at least for him — ever will.

When the doorbell rings, Mama, who has only just sat down, gets up out of her recliner in the kitchen.

"I'll get it, Mama," I say, shooing her back down. She's been on her feet all day.

"Probably Coach," Ashwin says. "He's supposed to be stopping in, even though he can't stay."

I walk down the passage and pull the front door open.

And the world stops.

My breath can't quite seem to make the trip from my lungs to my mouth. My heart pounds against my rib cage like a ghoema drum as I stare up and up at the most beautiful boy I've ever seen in real life. Dark brown skin stretched over the chiselled planes of his face. I've never actually seen anyone with a square chin, but he has one. Everything seems to be at odds on his face. His nose is too bold. His lips too full and soft-looking. His brows too heavy and severe. His eyes, warm and dark like velvet, framed by a feathering of sooty lashes. But somehow all those disparate parts cooperate into a face so striking my jaw falls open.

"Um..." His voice is a low, quiet rumble as he peers over my shoulder down the passage. "Is this Cliff's house? I took a wrong turn, but..."

Just as I'm about to shake myself out of the stupor, I stop, because all of a sudden it feels like the same rapt way I was watching him, he's now studying me. I go still, as if with his eyes he's painting me, and I don't want to distract him.

"Who's at the door, Chandi?" Mama asks from behind, drawing up beside me. "Oh, hey, Nazareth."

Wait. Nazareth as in...Naz?

She holds out her arms, and with a smile he crosses the threshold and walks into them, bending to return her squeeze.

"Mrs Cupido." He pulls back and offers her a bunch of wildflowers I hadn't even noticed. Who cares about flowers when you've got this guy standing in front of you? "These are for you."

"Ma Trienie," she corrects him. "Mrs Cupido is my mother-in-law." She buries her nose in the flowers and something in her face goes soft, the way it only goes when something reminds her of home. "Thank you, my kind. And how's your mama doing? Didn't she have an operation on her knee a while back?"

His expression clouds and he nods. "Yes, ma'am. She's just gone back to work."

"She teaches, nè?" Mama asks.

"Grade 7, ja." His eyes flick from Mama, settle on me briefly, then shift back to Mama. "I guess the team's already here? Sorry I'm late."

"You're right on time." Mama links her arm through his and steers him toward the lounge and the increasingly rowdy football team. "Come. We're just about to start eating."

I haven't moved, my feet sealed to the floor like I've stepped into fast-drying cement. He glances back over his shoulder. Our eyes catch and hold, some odd understanding passing between us. Whatever that jolt was when I first saw him, I think he felt it too. I know it, but I don't know what to do with it. How could I, when nothing like this has ever happened to me before?

I take a minute to collect my scattered thoughts before heading back into the lounge. Everyone's eating, plates balanced on their knees or on the big table in the middle of the room. Mama, making sure everyone has something to drink, looks up when I come in.

"Go check on Naz in the kitchen," she says. "Make sure he doesn't need anything."

My pulse quickens at the thought of me and that beautiful boy alone. "Yes, Mama."

When I go into the kitchen, sure enough, Naz is standing in front of all the dishes, his empty plate held between two huge hands.

"Need help?" I ask, walking further in to lean against the counter.

"Uh, maybe." He points at a few of the covered dishes. "Is any of that fish? I don't really eat chicken or beef."

"What about this?" I ask, nodding at the pens en pootjies.

His nose scrunches. "No. And not skaapkop either."

"Ag, well. Skaapkop is all that's left."

He looks at me like he's not sure whether I'm joking.

"If my ouma was here you'd be eating skaapkop tonight. You don't turn that woman down." I laugh and lift the lid off the soup. "How about vissop, a few vegetables and a piece of roosterkoek. Sound good?"

"Perfect. I don't want to be difficult."

"Difficult?" I scoff. "Cliff makes me crack his kreef and dig all the meat out for him. He's the resident diva."

Naz laughs and raises his brows but doesn't reply. I take his plate and start loading it with the dishes I know only have vegetables and seafood in them.

"I've never had Namakwa food," he says, considering the abundance of dishes spread across the stove and the counters.

"Then you've been missing out. We may live in Kimberley, but we're Namakwa through and through."

"I see." He nods at the hanging on the wall by the fridge. "What's that about?"

"Oh, you'll find one of those in just about every Namakwa house in this town."

"Namakwaland — waar die woestyn blom," he reads, stepping closer to inspect the souvenir hanging: the orange and white daisies running right off the edge of it, a little map with Port Nolloth and Hondeklipbaai and Alexander Bay marked in, the striped lighthouse, a diving boat at anchor. Even the flower season is printed along the bottom.

"We never forget where we come from," I say, repeating something my father has said all our lives. "Every second family in Port Nolloth is a Cupido, so nobody bothers with the surname. Ours are die Duikers, because my oupa walked around on the sea floor in a diving suit looking for diamonds."

His eyes shift from the wall to study my face. "I really appreciate your family sharing your food and your culture with us like this."

"It's nothing," I say with a shrug, though it's everything to us. There's no greater pride than Namakwa pride.

"So why haven't we seen you around this season?" he asks, eyes following my hands drifting between dishes and heaping food onto his plate. "Your mum's been at just about every game."

"I've got a job after school, so I don't have many free nights."

"What do you do?"

"I work at a hair salon," I say, turning to the stove to dish up some of the soup. "I want to be a stylist."

"You're what? Grade 11?"

"Actually, matric." I turn and hand him the plate. "Cliff had a late birthday and I had an early one, so we ended up starting school together. We're really close in age. Mama and Pappa didn't waste no time having us kids."

His chuckle is a deep, husky thing that makes me shiver. I fix my eyes on the tiles, afraid that if I look, I'll stare. There is just something about this guy. It's deeper than his good looks and his gorgeous body. He seems to be around the same height as Cliff, but broader and leaner. It feels like his arms and legs are still trying to catch up with how his body grew so big so fast. It lends him a ranginess, an almost physical uncertainty Cliff shed years ago.

The silence stretches between us to the point of awkwardness, so I hazard a glance up at him only to find him staring at me. Uncomfortable, I slide my eyes to the side, away from the intensity of that look. Away from the way it heats me up inside until it feels like my heart may melt and puddle at my feet.

He clears his throat. "Sorry."

My eyes snap to his. "For what?"

"For staring." A rueful grin crooks his full lips. "No wonder Cupido wanted us to stay away from his sister."

I suck my teeth, huffing out an irritated breath. "That boy works my nerves."

"He was just looking out for you. He knows how guys are, and he wanted us to know that the stuff some of them try with other girls, they better not try with you. Protective big brother. I've got three sisters. I get it."

A roar of laughter from the lounge cuts into our conversation. He turns his head toward the sound almost reluctantly. "I guess I better get in there."

"Right." I grab one of the plastic cups on the counter already filled with ice. "Let me get you something to drink. Cooldrink? Tea? There's Oros."

"Water?"

I take a bottle of water out of the fridge and hand it to him. Our fingers brush and that shiver comes back, shimmying down my spine. A slow smile inches onto his mouth, and he looks from where our fingers touched to my face.

"You should go," I say in a rush. "You're missing everything."

"No, I'm not."

The air throbs between us like a pulse and we hold each other's gaze hostage. In the lounge the team claps for something, and it snaps the thread between our eyes, freeing me to look away.

"I better..." He points his thumb over his shoulder and leaves the kitchen.

I slump against the counter, my breath coming out in a stream of forced air. What the heck? I've had boyfriends. Kissed guys. Gone all the way a few times. Nothing to write home about. If anything, I made it out to be more than it was when I told my friends, because...surely there was supposed to be more? More than fumbling hands and squishy lips and boozy breath and a guy getting his but never once thinking about mine. Besides not getting me off — which I can do in my own bed by myself — those boys didn't touch me. Not with their clumsy, seeking hands, but in my heart. Jirre, in my soul. They were so worried about touching all the parts they got to see, they didn't bother with the parts invisible to the naked eye. Those parts — the under-the-skin, stirring-in-my-chest, burning-up-my-heart parts — Naz somehow seemed to touch in a matter of glances, with a few words and a simple brush of my fingers.

"You've been watching too much Vampire Diaries," I mutter, laughing at my own whimsical thoughts.

I know that's television, fantasy, fiction, but if love isn't epic, I don't want it. If it isn't life and death — not literally, the way it is for Stefan and Damon and Elena — but if it's not something that makes you risk, makes you ache, then why bother?

I'm scoffing down a piece of roosterkoek when the boys start bringing their paper plates into the kitchen and dropping them in the bin.

"You okes ready to take photos?" Cliff asks. "For posterity, I think they call it. The night before we shook up the world."

"Wow," I mutter, tying off a rubbish bag. "It's a football match, not a revolution."

"Don't let them hear you say that."

I glance up to find Naz standing beside me.

"Oh. I just meant...well." My words tangle up. "Just meant that, um, you guys think the whole world revolves around that pitch."

"I don't." He shrugs. "But it might be my best shot at a bursary, so it's important, ja."

"How good are you?" I tease, smiling and leaning against the edge of the sink.

"Not as good as your brother. But who is?"

"Kanon," Cliff calls from the kitchen door, his glance pinging suspiciously between Naz and me. "We're going up on the roof for photos. Come on."

"On the roof?" Naz frowns.

"My pappa made it a flat roof we can actually use, for braais and things. It's kind of lekker, actually."

"And totally safe," Mama says, coming in behind Cliff.

"Mama, can you come take some photos of us?" Cliff asks.

"Get your sister to do it." Mama shakes her head. "I spent my whole day cooking all that food for you. Don't ask me for another thing."

Cliff rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and releases a long-suffering sigh.

"Will you do it, Chan?"

"Um, ja." I make sure not to look at Naz, so Cliff won't chase him out.

By the time we've climbed the steps up to the roof, the boys are lined up in their blazers and ties. They're all laughing. That same sense of invincibility Cliff carries — he's managed to give every one of them a share of it. They're all so boisterous and cocksure, except Naz. It's obvious to me these boys have been together three years and that Naz is still trying to find his place. Even in the photos there's something that sets him apart, makes him seem alone in the middle of a row of boys dressed exactly the same.

I use Pappa's camera and take a few on my phone as well. After half an hour of them posing and me snapping, I stop.

"Cliff, I've got enough photos for three championships," I say. "Are we done?"

"Ja, ja." He comes over and squeezes my shoulders, bending to kiss my forehead. "Thanks, Chan."

He turns to his team and lifts his arms, releasing a shout. "That's a wrap. Now take your ugly arses home and get some sleep. Tomorrow will be here before you know it."

I hang back, waiting for the roof to clear. When the last of their shrieking dies away down the stairs, I take the blanket out of the storage bench, spread it on the cement and sit down. Between my parents and my brother and sister, and all of Cliff's friends who are always at the house, it can get pretty crowded. It can be hard to think in all that noise. It can become impossible to dream, so I come up here every chance I get, to be alone.

"Thanks again for taking the photos."

I turn, smiling when I see Naz standing at the top of the stairs leading back down into the house. He walks over to the wall where the team posed a few minutes ago.

"Forgot this," he says, picking up his school blazer.

"No 'fabulous' on your tie?" I ask. Immediately I regret the comment. Cliff said it was only for the starting eleven. Naz might be sensitive about sitting on the bench.

"Not for backups." He smiles, watching me stretched out on the blanket. I resist the temptation to fold my arms over my bare stomach. His eyes are on my face anyway, and he doesn't creep me out the way some of Cliff's other friends do.

"Well." He holds up the blazer. "I guess I better go."

"What's your name?" I blurt, sitting up on the blanket. It's the first thing that comes to mind that might keep him here a few minutes longer. I take a deep breath of the cooling night air, hoping to calm how crazily my heart is beating.

He freezes, turns, and walks over to where I'm sitting on the blanket.

"You know my name," he says, sliding his hands into his pockets. "It's Nazareth. Naz."

"Ja, but some of the boys call you Ramoshaba and Coach stands there shouting for Kanon." I slant a curious glance up at him. "Which is it?"

"That's kind of a long story." That mouth God took extra time with pushes into a one-sided grin.

"Your name is a long story?"

"Well, the story behind why it's both kind of is."

Knowing Cliff will kill me first and then kill Naz for what I'm about to do, I pat the blanket beside me anyway. "I've got a few minutes."