Life's a Beach

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  Dude made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, and she kicked him lightly.

  “Let me get my phone and you can give me the number.” Mike wrestled his gear to a rusty old pickup in the parking area.

  When he’d gone, she turned to Dude, who was getting up. “Who is the manager, if it’s not Kai?”

  Dude took her hand, and they walked back to their gear. “Samuel Kincaide.”

  “I thought he was just the owner.”

  “Him and his brother, Marcus, call the shots.”

  “Well, they’re not here, are they?” Amelia crossed her arms and used his own logic back at him.

  “You’ve got a point, auntie.”

  “Shut your mouth, or I’ll shut it for you,” she told him.

  “With what?” He grabbed her to him and was about to kiss her when Mike jogged back up to them. Damn, she wanted that kiss.

  Amelia gave him the number. “Tell him Amelia sent you.”

  “Roger dat. Mahalo.” He gave her the shaka.

  She did it back before easing into Dude’s arms for that kiss. She kept it as chaste as she could because they were in public, but there was a lot of naked skin she was dying to explore.

  “Okay, sunshine, any more and we’re going to get arrested. Where to next?”

  “I’m all yours.”

  A pained look crossed his face, and she wondered at it.

  “For the next few days anyway,” Amelia amended, wondering if he was considering extending their two-week stand. It didn’t have to be so long-distance. If she got a job up here in Hana, it would only be a couple of hours away.

  “Until I say so,” he said with a little growl that thrilled her down to her toes.

  Chapter 10

  Samuel didn’t know what came over him, saying stuff like that to Amelia. But he didn’t like the way she had been fawning all over Mike. And that lolo was ogling her tits, auntie or not.

  “Are you going to recruit someone at all of our stops?” he asked once they were back on the bike and sailing down the Hana highway.

  “I might,” she said.

  Well, if they had to keep up appearances of renovating the hotel, bringing in a few new faces might light a fire under Tetsuo’s ass. He was glad Kai had suggested giving her a percentage of sales. She was worth it. He pointed out several sights and liked how she oohed and ahhed at all the scenery. They made a pit stop at Kaumahina State Park, and she took some pictures while they stretched their legs. Just when he thought he found a path secluded enough that he could wrap her long legs around his waist, a family of tourists came into sight.

  Samuel was seriously getting in over his head. He welcomed the treacherous roads. It forced him to pay attention instead of fantasizing about her sweet mouth all over him. He drove without stopping until they reached the Halfway to Hana stand.

  “Please don’t try to get someone to come sell banana bread at the resort,” he begged after she ate three pieces in rapid succession. He got her a cherry shaved ice and topped it with vanilla ice cream to distract her. But it backfired. Her lips turned a delicious shade of red, and they were icy and tasty when he kissed her. Damn, he wanted her. Whose stupid idea had it been to go all the way up to Hana when they could be fucking their brains out on his yacht?

  Right. He was Dude. Not Samuel. Samuel could charter a helicopter tour of the island and get back into bed with her the instant it was all over. Dude, not so much. He kissed down to her neck and nipped at her throat, just to show her his frustration and because he liked how it made her grab him and shiver.

  “Ready to go?”

  She nodded, and off they went. They had their picnic lunch at Pua’a Ka’a Park and Falls. And he pointed out a few more waterfalls as they passed them on the road, pulling over when it was safe so she could take some pictures. He made her go into the Hana lava tubes even though she thought it was creepy. But once inside, she was enthralled with the tubes. He copped a feel a few times, and she delighted him by giving as good as she got. He was glad when they finally got to Waianapanapa State Park. They’d stay there until their room was ready at 5:00 p.m.

  First stop was the black sand of Pa’iloa Beach.

  “It’s like little pebbles,” Amelia said as they walked along the shore.

  “Yeah. I like the sand back at Kaanapali better for lying out on.”

  They went exploring through some caves and even watched some cliff divers take a leap of faith.

  “Not me,” Amelia said.

  He had to agree with her. As they hiked along the King’s Trail, Samuel got to see the beauty of Hawaii through her eyes. He had to admit, he had become a bit jaded. When his phone buzzed in his pocket, he looked at it as unobtrusively as possible. It was his brother. No thank you.

  When they came across some freshwater pools on their hike, Amelia dived right in, but Dude stayed on the rocks and watched.

  “Oh, man, that hit the spot. The humidity was getting to me. I’m not a hiking girl,” she said.

  “You’re a New Yorker. You walk everywhere,” he said, scrolling through the text messages his brother was now blowing up his phone with. The gist of them were: When did we decide to renovate the hotel instead of selling it? and I know you’re reading these. Call me back, you shithead.

  “When it’s eighty percent humidity, I take a cab.”

  “Ain’t gonna find a cab around here, sunshine.”

  She dove underwater and came up seconds later. “You should come in and cool off.”

  “I think I remember a story about these pools,” he said.

  “It better not involve leeches or water snakes.”

  “There aren’t any snakes on Hawaii,” Samuel said.

  “Paradise,” she sighed.

  “Spiders and cockroaches, on the other hand, we’ve got plenty. We call the roaches B-52s because they’re the size of a plane.”

  “You’re harshing my buzz.”

  “I can open up the wine,” he offered.

  “If I drink the wine, I’m not hiking back. I’ll stay here until I become a prune.”

  “You want to hear my story or not? It’s a romantic one.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She floated on her back.

  “A beautiful queen by the name of Popo’alaea fled her abusive husband and took refuge in these very caves. The king, Chief Ka’akea, hunted her across the island.” Dude stopped. Oh, wait. This isn’t a romantic story.

  “Go on,” Amelia said. “Did her handsome lover rescue her and they lived happily ever after?”

  “Not exactly.” He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to slant the story on the romantic side.

  “Well, did she hide here and then push him to his death when he wasn’t looking? And then she became the ruler of the land?”

  “Nope.” Not even remotely.

  “Well?” she asked, spreading her arms wide.

  “He found her and killed her.”

  “What?”

  “But every year, around the time of her death, red shrimp cover the cave floors, turning it bloody red in honor of the queen’s death.”

  “Dude, we’re going to have to work on what you think is romantic. Do your romantic encounters end in blood and murder?”

  “Not lately.” He grinned at her as she tried to splash him. “Maybe I should have said it was a spooky story? I’ll tell you what—I’ll show you some burial grounds and ancient ruins, and that will be the end of the spooky stuff. Then I’ll put you in charge of the romance.”

  “You sure you want me to be in charge?” She licked her lips.

  “Oh, yeah. For a little while anyway.”

  As she got out of the pools, his phone rang again. It was Kai. Yeah, like he was going to answer that one right now.

  “You feeling all right?” Amelia asked him when they were walking back to the bike.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “How long has it been since you had a beer?”

  “Too damn long, sistah. Let’s grab an early dinner and see about
checking into the hotel.” What he really needed was a jolt of caffeine or he was going to be snoring after he sank himself into that lush, gorgeous body of hers. He wasn’t used to all this activity in one day. He’d been spending too much time on his hammock.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Kai had texted him the address of the bed-and-breakfast. It was called the Honu’ea Inn. Samuel had never heard of it, but new B&Bs were popping up all the time.

  “There aren’t a lot of choices for dinner. And don’t get your hopes up on gourmet food. Hana’s expensive and casual. What are you in the mood for?”

  “Burgers are fine.”

  “Does twenty-one dollars for one sound good?” He couldn’t wait to see her reaction.

  “Is it Kobe beef?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “I doubt it. How do you feel about ahi?”

  “I don’t like tuna, but I could do a white fish like mahimahi.”

  “Okay, let’s go to the Hana Shack.”

  It felt good to sit down on the bike and even better to have her arms around him.

  “I think you’re paying for the view, and it’s worth it,” she sighed into the helmet’s mike.

  It made him think of how she sighed when she was underneath him and, unexpectedly, how he would miss her when she was gone. “So have you figured out what you’re going to do when you get back to New York?”

  “Nope. Short of begging for my old job back at the Goldfish.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a boutique hotel with an aquarium theme.”

  “Only in New York,” he said.

  “And maybe moving back in with Jay until I find another place to live—that is, if Quinn hasn’t already claimed my half of the bed.”

  “I think you deserve better than the Goldfish and Jay.”

  “Me too. But if everyone got what they deserved, Jay would be the one homeless and broke.”

  “Sorry, sunshine. Life sucks sometimes.”

  “But not today,” she said.

  Guilt pricked at him for bringing up such a sore spot. “Am I harshing your buzz again?”

  “Totally, Dude.”

  “I’ll make it up to you.”

  “I keep hearing that. I’m holding you to it.”

  She slipped her hands down to his crotch and splayed her fingers over him, massaging gently. Hot damn, she was jerking him off through his clothes on a moving motorcycle.

  “Sunshine, there aren’t any more switchbacks on this road, but you’re distracting the hell out of me.”

  “Sorry,” she said. But he could tell she didn’t mean it.

  The Hana Shack wasn’t a high-end restaurant—the “Shack” part of the name was a big clue. But it was clean and the food was decent. They waited a bit for a table, then a bit more for their drinks, and a long while for their food. Amelia had her head down in her phone, and he was tired enough to enjoy the peace and quiet. He liked that he didn’t have to fill up every moment with talking and that with her it was a comfortable silence. He enjoyed watching the emotions play across her face, and he could almost see the wheels turning as she bit her lip and swiped at the phone’s screen.

  “Stick with the bottled beer,” he said, clinking bottles with her. “At least you’re guaranteed that it’s fresh.”

  “Are all the restaurants around here as mediocre as this one?”

  He shrugged. “Some are better than others. Why?”

  “Do you know who owns most of these, plus the majority of the hotels here—including the B&B we’ll be staying at?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, it’s not the Kincaide brothers, that’s for sure. It’s Tetsuo Hojo.”

  Samuel grunted. That made sense.

  “It’s like he’s got a monopoly on mediocre up here.”

  “Supply and demand,” he said.

  “The next time I talk to the kahuna, I’m going to tell him to look into the property up here. He can have a sister resort to Palekaiko up here. And then that banana bread lady can sell her bread there.”

  “I knew it.” He pointed at her accusingly. “You tried to get her to send loaves down to Kaanapali when I was in the bathroom, didn’t you?”

  Amelia raised a shoulder in a slight shrug. “I might have mentioned the serious lack of fresh banana bread.”

  Their food came, and it was edible. He was hungry, so he cleaned his plate, but he noticed Amelia only picked at hers. “Something wrong?”

  “Not my cup of tea after all.” The fish did look a little undercooked.

  “We can get something else.” Once again, if he was Samuel Kincaide, they’d be eating at the high-end resort, just steps away from their private balcony overlooking the ocean. Hana had some decadent resorts with world-class food, all of which was out of Dude’s price range. However, at the thought of a lanai, he smiled at Amelia.

  Her eyes unfocused at whatever she saw in his expression and she licked her lips. He wanted to do that, but they were in public.

  “I’m good,” she said. “I’ll just snack later with the wine and fill up on breakfast tomorrow. Do you think the hotel will have pancakes the size of my plate?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  She insisted on paying the bill, even after she blanched at the total. He didn’t want to cause a scene, so he let her. But he’d find a way to pay her back. After all, he’d invited her; it was only fair he incurred the costs. After plugging the coordinates to the Honu’ea Inn into the GPS on his bike, it basically told him, Does not compute. His phone brought up a map, and they found it just as the sun was setting. The inn was a series of cabins surrounded by gardens and lush rain forest. The parking space was overrun with green foliage.

  “Where is everyone?” Amelia asked, her voice sounding loud in the darkness. They made their way to a cabin that looked like an office. He managed to snatch the envelope that said “Kincaide” off the bulletin board before she saw it.

  “Hello?” she asked, poking her head in. But it was dark and no one was around.

  “I’ve got the keys here,” he said, rattling them, while at the same time crumpling up the envelope.

  “Keys?” Amelia laughed. “Why doesn’t anyone on this island have key cards?”

  “Too modern. Too expensive to renovate.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, you sound like Kincaide.”

  Samuel kept his mouth shut because she was on to something there.

  Their room was another cabin, set up high on some rocks.

  “Watch your step,” he said, and helped her up to the door. After a bit of a struggle, the room door opened and the smell of mustiness hit him in the face.

  “Ugh,” she said. “Let’s get some windows open.”

  He turned on the light. He would have walked right back out to his bike, except he knew everything in Hana would be closed. He was going to kill Kai.

  “I wonder what the brochure to this place looks like. Speaking of which, Kincaide has to get a photographer in to take more modern shots of Palekaiko.” She made a face at the grime on the floor.

  Fuck it. He had a platinum Amex. They were so out of here. But if he flashed it, the jig would be up, and he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her. He glanced back out at his bike. Maybe they could try to find another hotel. He could keep her occupied while he paid the tourist-chump rack rate.

  When Amelia grabbed a broom and started sweeping, he was mortified. “Is this lizard poop?” she asked.

  He saw a few go scurrying across the walls. “I think so. Look, we don’t have to stay here. We could be back home in three hours.” He turned on the ceiling fan, but it didn’t work. Great.

  “The boys said it was dangerous.”

  “It’s not too bad. I can get you back safely.” There was a note on the nightstand warning them not to charge their phones or other devices because the power couldn’t handle it. That was it, he decided—they were leaving. They were three hours away from being on a luxury yacht in the middle of the Pacific
with a fully stocked bar and refrigerator. What the hell had he been thinking? He wanted to show off his island to her. And he was making a mess out of it. Hana was beautiful. She needed to see that it wasn’t all like this.

  “Check the bed for bugs.”

  He whipped off the covers. The sheets smelled of bleach. They were as soft as sandpaper, but bug-free. “No critters.”

  “It’s fine, Dude. I love it.”

  He looked at her as if she was crazy.

  “Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. But it’s only for one night, and it’s going to be a beautiful place to sightsee tomorrow. The gardens by where we parked looked gorgeous. Besides, we weren’t planning on sleeping much.”

  “You deserve so much more than this,” he said.

  “I know you wanted this to be special.” Amelia walked into his arms. “It is. Jay never did anything like this for me.”

  “I bet,” Samuel said with a humorless laugh.

  “The most he ever did was level up my priestess while I was at work and trick her out in epic armor. But I suspect that was so I didn’t die in the fifty-man dungeons and leave him without a pocket healer.”

  “I didn’t understand a word of that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s the thought that counts. And you know what? If Kincaide owned this hotel, it would never look like this. His staff would take pride in the cottages. You don’t have his number, do you?”

  “Why, you want to call him? I thought you hated him.”

  “I don’t hate him. I think he’s an entitled shit with his head up his ass.”

  Ouch. But he was beginning to think she wasn’t wrong.

  She held out her palm.

  “Now?” A hysterical giggle threatened to escape from his throat. It had been too long a day for this.

  “His whole thing is that the Palekaiko is too run-down. He needs to see this place. This place makes Palekaiko look like the freakin’ Ritz-Carlton.”

  “I’ll take pictures for him. There’s no need to disturb him.”

  “You don’t understand. Once he sees this place, he’ll be more inclined to fix up his own resort. And if he’s any kind of an entrepreneur, he’ll see if he can wrangle this place away from Tetsuo Hojo and show him how it’s done.”