by Kat Bastion
Leilani gave a gentle tug to my elbow. By the time I glanced forward, she’d begun to walk quickly back across Hana Highway through a break in traffic.
I jogged after her, staring at her beat-up red Tacoma as she pulled open her door. “I need some wheels. Know anyone who’s wanting to sell an old truck?”
She glanced at me as I got in. Then she shut her door and started the engine. “No. But I’ll ask around. How old?”
“Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s been cared for. And has character.”
Absently nodding, she stared over her shoulder, then began backing into the roadway. “There are car shows on different Saturdays. Think the one in Kihei is tomorrow.”
“Good.” On our left, we passed a Minit Stop with white painted sides and green trim, and I took note of the two gas pumps under a pull-through island for future use. “We’re going.”
“Nooo…”
“As my assistant.” Yeah, I planned to milk that dollar-cow for all it was worth. “Without wheels, I need a ride.”
A long pause followed. Then she let out a measured breath. “Fine.”
“Need a place to stay tonight, too.”
She flashed me a priceless put-out look. “You just rented a house.”
“I rented a roof with walls. No bed. No appliances. Didn’t run the tap, but I’m guessing the water’s off. In fact” —I glanced at my phone— “there’s forty-five minutes left of the workday. Let’s grab my gear at Makani’s. You talk to Evelyn and make calls to the water and electric companies, then we’ll head back to your place.”
Shaking her head, she began to drum an impatient thumb on the steering wheel. But her argument had nothing to do with the list of near-impossible tasks before the end of the day. “You’re not staying at my place.”
“I am.”
“Not my place. Makani’s place. And we don’t have another…bed.”
Her hesitation with that last word wasn’t lost on me. The last time we’d argued about who slept where, it had been an intimate time for us, alcohol or not.
In the silent seconds, the thumb-drumming had stopped; she strangled the steering wheel with a white-knuckle grip. Once-easy breaths had shallowed. Slender shoulders had ratcheted up, inching toward her ears.
Saving the day, so she didn’t have a complete meltdown, I diverted our convo toward safer places, “Couch. Floor. Chair out on the front porch...hammock?”
“Lanai.”
“What?”
“We don’t call it a covered porch or patio here. It’s a lanai.”
I tipped my head back against the headrest, half-closing my eyes. “Works for me.”
When she didn’t argue, when only the gentle rumble and occasional sway of the truck filled the silence, I arched a brow. “Tick tock” I pointed to the back of my wrist, at an imaginary watch. “Time’s a wastin’.”
Yeah, I pushed my luck. But only because all the glorious friction between us got her out of her head. Better to have attitude from her than worry.
The truck skidded to a stop in a cloud of red dust. She didn’t even wait for me to open my door before she stormed off. But by the time I walked around the building and entered through the front door, she’d already gotten on the phone with Evelyn and stood halfway down the front worktable.
“…I know it’s Friday. Can’t we call down? Okay.” She heaved out a sigh. “Yeah, we can print it here. Yeah, [email protected]. Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Mahalo.”
When she pocketed her cell phone, she stared at a dust-covered space on the surface of the table. Resigned expression on her face, she lifted her gaze to mine. “Evelyn said she’ll make some calls, but it’d be a miracle to have services hooked up by Monday. She’s sending the lease paperwork over to Makani’s email now.”
Guilt fired through my gut. That I’d made her have that defeated expression, caused her distress. “Look, I don’t have to stay at your place. I can grab a hotel room or someone’s surf shack.”
“Bullshit.” Makani strolled in from the back room, clutching a handful of papers that he then handed over to me with a pen. “You’re staying with us. End of.”
Not wanting to get in the middle of it—since I’d already cornered her into a tricky spot—I double-checked the lease, even though I’d harassed her earlier about reviewing it for me. Then I scrawled my John Hancock on the dotted line and initialed and signed the Lease Policy Addendum, Mold Addendum, and Crime Free Addendum.
Leilani gripped the top of the pages as I lifted them up. “I’ll fax those over.”
“You sure?”
“I’m your assistant, yeah?” She dropped me a defiant glance, arching one brow. A beat later she turned and went to the back desk, stuffed the lease into the automatic feeder on top of the machine, then pressed a button making the machine chirp before it sucked the pages up one at a time with a low hum, the only sound in the space for those tense seconds.
I grinned. Yeah. Pissed off or not, in spite of the fact she wanted me but wouldn’t admit it to herself, let alone me, she wanted to take ownership of the job she’d agreed to.
“You take the truck.” Makani turned and disappeared into the back again, voice growing louder so we could hear. “I gotta finish shaping this order. Henry can drop me off later.”
She stared at the empty doorway where Makani had walked through. Her back was to me, but I could almost hear the silent argument echoing in her mind.
Then without a word, she squared her shoulders, went to my bags stacked in the corner, grabbed the two duffels with a grunt from their weight, then stalked out the front of his shop again. I grabbed the wheeled board bags and followed her out.
The first few minutes of the drive to Makani’s passed in silence.
No biggie. I’d suffered her silent treatment in the car with the real estate agent; I could handle it alone. Nothing to say, anyway. I’d bowed out, but Makani had insisted. And although I could’ve given her one more escape hatch, no point in getting between siblings—more importantly, I didn’t want to.
My monochrome preordained life had suddenly brightened with vivid color. Why make things more palatable for her? “Easy is overrated.”
“What?”
Oh. I muttered that aloud? “Nothing. Just doing some internal philosophizing.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Easy is overrated,” I repeated, noticing familiar structures passing by as we drove.
The muscle in her jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t know.”
Hmmm. She referring to me? Gut instinct told me her struggle ran deeper than today’s events, than me turning her life upside down. “So, then you agree. Hard is better?”
A tiny crinkle appeared at the corner of her eye, before it narrowed as she focused more diligently on the next turn. We entered a narrow street we’d been down before. With Evelyn.
“Don’t bother answering. I can see it in your eyes. You want my kind of hard.”
Finally, a well-earned, indignant glance flashed my way. “Do not.”
“Yeah, ya do. Keep denying it. You’ll only want the hard more.”
“Will not.”
“Atta girl. Denial. Best kind of temptation.”
After turning into a short cement driveway, she jammed the truck into park, got out, and stormed across the small lawn toward the front door of a small plantation house that had a green metal roof and well-maintained yellow paint with white trim.
“Uh, Leilani,” I called after her before she disappeared inside.
“Yeah?” She whirled around, irritation seething from her posture as she planted her hands on her hips.
“This street. Isn’t it…”
A satisfied smile broke out on her face. “Yeah, yeah, it is. For sure.”
Gears turning, pieces falling into place, I took a few steps mauka, to clear my view from a wide mango tree. And there it was: the first house Evelyn had showed us, in Haiku. Where I’d gotten under Leilani’s skin. “The neighbors are close,” I muttered, rep
eating my earlier complaint. “Too close.” She hadn’t mentioned one word about her being one of the neighbors.
“Well played, Leilani. Well played.”
Turned out, she didn’t like easy either.
The greater question? How hard were we both willing to go?
Leilani…
“This is a mistake.”
“No, it’s not.” Makani opened his takeout container and jammed a fork into the mountain of steamed vegetables and rice. Then he stuffed his mouth with food.
I stared through the open windows across the room, at the back of Mase’s blond head. After stowing his bags in the front corner behind the door and his gear at the back end of our carport, he’d chosen to hang out on the front lanai alone in the growing darkness.
Didn’t matter how much distance he put between us, though. The power of Mase’s presence pressed in on me. “You don’t know.”
“You’re right.” Makani swallowed his food, tipped his beer bottle to his lips, then chugged down a few gulps. “I don’t. Neither do you.”
He didn’t understand. “I’m freakin’.”
“You’re fine.”
“He’s too much like me.”
Makani huffed out a dry laugh. “He’s the right amount like you.”
Risk-taker, he meant. And a dreamer, a wanderer at heart.
Except Mase and I came from two worlds, oceans apart. “But different in all the wrong ways.”
He gave me a reflective look. “This is the kind of change we’ve wanted, yeah? What we’ve always bitched about. Things won’t be different till someone sticks their neck out.”
I leaned on the counter we stood behind, pulled a mango out from a large bowl of fruit. “Why does the ‘someone’ have to be me?”
“You tell me. You brought him here.” He shoved another loaded forkful of food into his mouth.
“Nooo...” I shook my head, then began slicing up the mango with a paring knife. “You sent me to get him.”
“Not to bring him back like a found puppy. All I wanted was to sponsor him.”
“Coming here was the only way he’d agree.” But what had I wanted? Had something I’d done provoked Mase to push the issue? I replayed the conversation from days ago, one I’d felt out of control of—even as the lack of control had exhilarated me…like riding an unknown wave.
“And you working for him?”
“A nonnegotiable condition.” What Mase had said.
Makani tossed his empty food carton into the recycle container. “You didn’t have to agree to that.”
“He wouldn’t have come.” I’d believed it at the time. Or maybe I’d wanted to. Because I wanted the challenge of taking the job he’d offered. Not because I’d been tempted to keep the most interesting man I’d just met in my life a little longer.
“So?” Makani folded his arms over his chest, staring hard at me.
He understood things about me that Mase only guessed at. My brother knew me better than I knew myself. Which meant he knew the main reason I hadn’t blown Mase off, even though I could have, had really wanted to: I would’ve disappointed Makani, the only family on my side. Maybe a year ago I might’ve been reckless enough to do that, wouldn’t have cared.
Not now. Not after he’d protected me. “It’s fine.”
“Not a mistake,” he repeated.
Biggest mistake evah. I didn’t say anything further. My fears had no place between us. Makani would boldly swim out and rescue me from shark-infested waters. I had to take care of him too.
Makani kissed my forehead, then went off to bed.
Mase didn’t come back in. Fine by me; I needed the space.
I turned out the kitchen lights and fled to my own room. The door closed with a soft snick before I tumbled onto my bed in the dark, hiding away from the outside world and the problems in it that I couldn’t fix. Eyes drifting shut on an exhale, I thought about the soothing colors surrounding me that I couldn’t see in the shadowy darkness: pale green on the walls in a shade called celadon, wainscoting halfway up painted a soft buttercream, cerulean blue on the pillow I hugged to my chest.
My favorite among them? The repurposed oak desk and chair in whitewashed gray.
If only the world embraced itself in shades of gray. “Why can’t everyone see what I see?” I whispered. Beauty in them all, how they blended together, shone brightly apart. Each vital, electric.
The longer I laid there, the more my mind came alive—wishing all people valued every last person. One race, a human nation. Earth and its inhabitants. Wars would cease. The destruction of the planet would halt. We’d all work toward the common goal of helping mankind more than just survive…we’d seek to flourish as our best selves.
Frustrated at the impossible fantasy, I huffed out a breath, tossed the satin pillow aside and flipped over. Makani’s words echoed in my head: Things won’t be different till someone sticks their neck out.
Me. Somehow Makani believed I could make a difference.
I didn’t see how.
My brother of all people knew the uphill battle I’d face to even introduce Mase to the rest of my family. If I still lived at home? I’d be immediately grounded.
But what was the worst they could do to me?
What’s the worst they could do to Mase?
I cringed at the thought. Not just my family, but others like them. Intolerance ran deep toward foreigners on our islands. With good reason. An overpowering reason, in their minds.
Unable to work out a solution in my head, I sighed.
For over an hour, I tried to quiet my mind. Did my best to sleep. But my thoughts kept drifting to Mase: my personal shade of gray. Because every next time I thought about him, the color of his skin became less and less of a problem, grew to be the last thing I focused on.
Instead, an image of him naked—only a split second of time that had forever seared into my brain—kept taunting me. The lean muscles of his body. The carefree way he moved, comfortable in his own skin.
Soon, other memories flooded in. The way he’d laughed when I’d teased him. Held me close when I’d jumped into his arms, protecting me against sharks…or my fear of them. The heat in his voice when he’d teased me about other things—sexual things—but held back, protecting me from his own predatory moves.
Even deeper moments shimmered to the surface. How he’d held me when I’d gotten so drunk I’d been sick, even though I didn’t remember it. What he’d finally said when I’d asked him “why” again: Because you’re worth it.
Why had I been afraid to hear his answer? Because there had been more to giving in to Mase than an obligation to my brother. And hearing Mase say the words aloud, voice it from his side, made the unnamable, indescribable, impossible-to-have-happen thing already happening between us all too real.
The loop replayed in my mind, more memories merging in at the end. His hand flowing through the water, almost touching my bare bottom. His lips hovering less than an inch from mine.
When had my room gotten so hot?
The air had grown stifling. My skin felt feverish. Once-slow breaths had shortened.
On a restless huff, I slapped my hand down on the bed and sat up. Need to get busy. Work. Mase had given me a list of construction materials to order; I needed him out from under the same roof. Something to occupy my mind and get him off it.
I stared at my beloved desk, realizing one thing was missing. Something my new paycheck could afford.
Padding barefoot on the hardwood floor back out into the living room, I fired up Makani’s laptop that sat on his desk along the wall.
A muffled sound came from the vicinity of where Mase hung in the darkness, in a hammock behind a screened-in corner of the lanai. Forcing my mind off all things not normally under our roof, I began clicking away, surfing the Web.
“What the fuck?” Not muffled at all. A hard thump echoed behind me. Then the door opened, slammed shut. “What the hell is that piercing sound?”
I’d gotten so use
d to the high-pitched noise, I’d drowned it out. Or gone deaf. “Coqui frogs.”
“Damn things won’t shut up.”
“Be thankful you weren’t here a year ago when they were worse. They’re invasive, but U of H just got over a million dollars to try and wipe them out.”
When he didn’t reply, I turned.
My breath caught, mouth falling open.
The sexual mental image from earlier stood there in the flesh, only a few feet away, eyes half-lidded, scraggly hair rumpled. My gaze drifted over his bare chest, down sleek abs, between a defined V of muscles that angled from lean hips, arrowing into a faint line of hair that trailed low, lower…
Board shorts hung on his gorgeous body now—but my sinful mind filled in one very big blank. Skin flushing hot again, I forced my gaze to meet his. One side of his mouth quirked up, then he yawned and rubbed a hand through his hair.
Seeing him without a shirt for the first time since…that first time…I noticed something different, even in the dim light. “You get new ink?”
He glanced down at a black tribal band that circled his raised biceps. “Yeah. In Tahiti, day after you left.”
I nodded, gaze stuck on the intricate design that caressed his skin. Then I crossed my arms, aware my nipples had hardened, rasped against the thin fabric of my dress.
“Can’t sleep?” His intense gaze held steady with mine.
“No.” Not with sexy haole you under the same roof.
My whole world had turned upside down in under a week: new job handed to me on a platter, new guy totally into me, who I couldn’t stop thinking about, travel I’d wanted so badly—all revolving around surfing, which I loved almost as much as breathing.
All because of Mase.
In slow motion, greater understanding sank in. I forced out a shaky breath, admitting to myself why my sex drive had blown off the charts. Not only because of who he was versus who I was. And not as simple as his chemistry meshing with mine. It was because he was here—and wasn’t supposed to be. He wanted me and shouldn’t. Yeah, I wanted him too…but couldn’t.
