But not this weekend. This weekend, he’d just do pull-ups on the bar in the frame of his bedroom door, and his uncle already knew not to call him in for any shifts. This weekend was just for Kalani.
No, him and Kalani. Both of them. When it finally came, the perfunctory knock made his heart pound. He ran a hand over his shaved head, feeling the brushy prickle of hair under his palm, smoothed the collar of his T-shirt, and forced himself to walk slowly and calmly to answer the door.
Jeannine, Kalani’s home-care nurse, stood there with a friendly smile. He made brief eye contact with her—Where did he go?—before remembering and quickly moving his gaze down to Kalani.
He’d seen Kalani in a wheelchair before, of course, but as much as he’d tried, he’d never gotten used to that downward flick of the eyes. It jarred him every time. “Ho brah, traffic was…” Kalani paused, clicking his tongue against his teeth as if the sound would draw the forgotten word to mind. “Crazy. Yeah.” His smile was uneven: steady on the right side and quivering on the left.
“You look great.” He meant it. Kalani had decided to grow his hair out, and it was long enough now to brush his jaw, glossy black and wavy. His face was gaunt, but every time Ori saw him, his cheekbones filled out a little bit more. “You look great too, Jeannine. Nice to see you,” he added hastily.
She rolled her eyes in a good-natured way. “Okay, let me take a walk around and get out of your hair. You looking forward to your weekend?”
“God yes,” Kalani said.
“Kalani,” Jeannine said crisply, still smiling. “Remember, you can’t overexert yourself.”
Ori looked away, flushed, and stepped aside to let her in. “We’re just going to keep everything, uh, low impact,” he mumbled. Kalani, still hanging around in the hallway, grinned up at him, clearly enjoying his distress. “I mean, watch a couple of DVDs. No explosions, cross my heart.”
“Good,” she called from the bathroom. “I see you’ve got shower bars. Shower stool?”
“Under the sink,” said Ori.
“Good, good, good. You’re comfortable helping him in and out? Kalani, is that okay?” Kalani nodded. He was pushing himself into the room, slowly, breathing heavily. “He says yes, Jeannine.” Ori twitched to help him, to grab the wheelchair handles, but he knew Kalani wouldn’t want that. If he needed help, he’d ask. “I’ve got all the emergency numbers and the med schedule too.”
“Good,” she said. “You can call me if you need anything. Or you call 911 if it’s serious. I’m going to come by once a day still, just to check up on you. Three-ish in the afternoon sound okay? I have a senior two blocks over I see as well, so I can come see you after him.”
“Three’s no problem.”
“Movies with explosions are fine, by the way. Any kind of movies. But no naughty business, okay, boys? Keep it low impact. Aloha!”
They both groaned in harmony the second the door shut behind her. “God,” Ori said. “Is this our life now? Just a long series of embarrassing conversations?” Kalani shrugged. “Eh, once you gotta have a lady help you wash your junk in the shower, you kind of stop worrying about pride.” His dark eyes tilted up, and he reached out one hand to catch Ori by the elbow. His grip was loose, the pressure of the fingers a little uneven, but basically steady. “So. Alone. Hey.”
“Hey.” Ori felt strangely shy. He crouched at Kalani’s side, leaning on the arm of his chair and tipping in to kiss him. So many things about Kalani had changed, but not this. His lips were still soft, still sweet, and he still smiled against Ori’s mouth as they kissed. That same sense of calm. He ran a hand down the side of Kalani’s face, cradling his cheek. “I’m happy you’re here. So what do you think? Want the tour? Something to eat?”
He knew he should just chill out, that Kalani didn’t need him to play host, but he couldn’t help it.
“Can you put me on the couch? I need to rest for a while.” Kalani’s hand trembled, and his arm fell to his side. “Just thirty minutes. Then I need to do my grip exercises. Thirty minutes. Time me.” His voice roughened at the end there, charged with some intense emotion that Ori couldn’t really comprehend.
“Yeah, anything.” He wheeled Kalani’s chair into the living room, next to the futon, and tucked his arms under Kalani’s. “This okay?”
“Yep. Heave ho!”
Ori lifted. Kalani, once bulky, almost flew upward. As Ori settled him onto the couch and rearranged the cushions, the contrast to the corded muscles of his own arms was entirely unavoidable. He’d gained twenty pounds since Leavenworth with the help of six-egg omelets, protein shakes, and intense workouts. Kalani noticed him looking, and he felt ashamed.
“You look really good,” muttered Kalani, his eyes half closed. He sounded sleepy. Ori unfolded the blanket over him. Took out his cell phone to mark the time. “Wish I could see your fight.”
“There’ll be plenty of fights.” He wished Kalani could be there too. It was his first paid fight since the army. Returning to the Octagon. If Kalani was there, cheering him on, he knew he’d win.
The thought dawned on him that Kalani was fighting now too, harder and braver than Ori ever had. He wanted to share the revelation, but Kalani’s eyes had closed, so Ori just brushed a kiss against his forehead and softly stepped away.
* * * *
While Kalani did his grip exercises, Ori put on a movie. One of his approved ‘safe’ DVDs, at first, but they only got five minutes in before Kalani demanded something better, something with explosions, or sharks, or exploding sharks. “Shark Attack 3!” he burst out.
Ori groaned, but put it on, and soon they were cuddled together, Kalani drawing warmth from Ori’s stronger body. The really crazy funny shit, like beating the shark with a baseball bat, wasn’t due to happen for a while, so they talked during the downtime.
“I thought about this movie when I was swimming to Ka’ena Point,” said Ori. “When I saw a shark ‘aumakua. It was fucking huge. It feels so weird talking about that stuff now, you know? Like it never happened.”
“I know. If I couldn’t talk about it with you, I’d lose it. A few months ago, when I was still figuring out how to talk, I’d be going on about the kuewa and the mo’o and the giant caterpillar and the therapist just kept nodding and talking all this shit about hallucinations being completely normal and expected as a part of my recovery and I thought, oh God, am I really crazy, did I really dream it all, and then you came…and then you came and…” He ran a hand down his face, and for a second Ori thought he wasn’t going to be able to pull it back together, but he took a deep breath and went on. “You just came right up and kissed me hello that day, you remember? And I knew it was real.”
Ori didn’t know what overcame him. One minute he was sitting there, chest nearly aching at Kalani’s admission, and the next he was on top of him, straddling his hips, pressing him back over the arm of the couch and kissing him hard, until they were both gasping.
Kalani’s hands, at first splayed across Ori’s back, went limp and fell. “Oh, oh God,” Ori gasped against Kalani’s wet mouth. He shifted his weight so that none of it rested on Kalani, patting and stroking Kalani’s neck all the while. “I’m sorry. You’re not ready for this. I should have—”
Kalani frowned, hands balling into trembling fists. “Dammit.” Tears pricked up at the corners of his eyes but didn’t fall. “Dammit, dammit. When am I gonna be ready, huh? Can’t even jack off, and now you’re here and you’re so fucking hot and you want me and I—”
“We have to wait, that’s all. It’s gonna be so good. We’ll wait. Do it right.” Ori kept stroking his face and neck, trying to calm him. He couldn’t imagine how frustrating it was for Kalani. They were both wanting and waiting, both willing but unable, but at least Ori could let off some steam in the shower. Kalani didn’t even have that.
“Fuck waiting. You’re hard. Let me see you.” “Wh-what?” Ori felt his face burn, but even as embarrassment made him want to run away, the look in Kalani’s eyes…dark an
d eager. Fuck.
“Let me see you. Just here.” He lounged back across the arm of the sofa, running a lazy hand from Ori’s thigh up across his bulge and over the plane of his stomach.
“I don’t want—I mean, I have to take off my shorts. I might fall on you.”
“Then get off me. On the floor. On your knees.” Kalani must have heard the catch of Ori’s breath, because he smirked, and this time the unevenness of his smile was perfectly wicked, perfectly confident, letting Ori know down to his bones that Kalani didn’t have to move to control the space around them and between them.
Ori was quick to climb out of his straddle and off the couch entirely, picking a spot on the floor where he could kneel and Kalani could have the best view.
Kalani wasn’t done ordering him around. “Don’t take your shorts off all the way. Just leave them around your knees. And leave your shirt on too, yeah. But pull it up so I can see your abs. Show me how much you want me.” The authoritative tone touched some deep desire in Ori. He liked this—getting fucked with words.
He lowered himself to his knees slowly and reached with shaking hands to undo the drawstring of his shorts. He pulled shorts and underwear free of his throbbing hard cock, letting the fabric pool around his knees. Pulled his T-shirt up until it was hiked around his chest, just above his nipples, and trapped it there with his armpits. The pose didn’t come natural. It left him awkward and vulnerable and totally exposed.
“So fucking hot.” Kalani groaned, gaze roving over Ori’s body hungrily. There was an energy in his face, a powerful presence, that Ori hadn’t seen in him since the other world, since he was imbued with that strange supernatural strength and gravity. Kalani didn’t rise from the couch, his body still limp and frail, but he didn’t need his body, not for this. Just his voice and his gaze, eating Ori up, consuming him. “Now touch yourself. Don’t jerk off for me, not yet. Rub your balls. Lick your lips a little.”
Ori did exactly— exactly—as he was told. He reached down and rolled and caged his balls in his fingers, hissing as his sac drew up tight. He licked his lips, as much because touching himself like this felt good as because he’d been ordered. His mouth was suddenly wetter than before he’d licked his lips, so he did it again, circling his hot, slick tongue slow and sweet for Kalani.
“Now your six-pack. Pretend your fingers are my tongue, and I’m licking every fucking line.” Kalani was licking his lips too. Ori imagined that tongue tracing up across his belly button, dipping into the shadowed recesses between his abs. Every fucking line.
“Oh, Kalani,” he moaned softly. He knew he sounded like a slut, like a porn star, and that was fine, that was good, good good good…
“Now work that dick. Use the other hand on your nipples—nice and hard, let me see you hurting a little.” Kalani’s hips lifted, every inch of his body screaming with want.
Ori made a fist around his cock and almost came right then. “Yeah,” Kalani said, and Ori reached up and tweaked his left nipple, imagining Kalani’s teeth instead, or Kalani’s fingers, maybe. He bucked his hips, pawing at his own chest and fucking into his hand. A hand that wasn’t fully his own—it was charged with another man’s will like it was fucking electric, creating a sensation so intense that a low groan surged out of his chest. Shameless. Desperate for Kalani’s approval.
“Yeah, oh. Fucking work it. And when you come you’re gonna lick it all up, every drop, so you better get it in your hand, not on the floor.”
The thought of getting down on his hands and knees, lapping up his own cum, never taking his eyes off Kalani…Kalani watching him with his demanding eyes and crooked smile… “F-fuck!” Ori cried. His cock thickened and pulsed in his hand. For you, all for you. Hot cum on his fingers, on his abs, and yes, on the floor too, a couple of drops landing between his knees.
Kalani, Kalani, Kalani.
When the last of the spasms had trailed away into trembling, he looked up at Kalani again, waiting for the order to clean up his mess.
But it didn’t come. Kalani wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at— He was staring at his own cock, at the undeniable erection tenting his shorts. Cupping it tenderly, his mouth open in an expression halfway between surprise and tears. He looked up at Ori: breathless, happy.
“Oh, baby, look at you!” Still on his knees, shorts hanging around his thighs, he shuffled closer to Kalani, until he was right there, close enough to…
Ori wiped off his messy hand against his T-shirt. “Can I touch you?” “Yeah, yeah,” Kalani said. He pressed the heel of his palm into the fabric of his shorts, rubbing down the length of it, outlined rigid and strong. Ori’s mouth watered. He nuzzled into Kalani’s thigh, right at the base of his erection, nudging Kalani’s balls with his nose. Rolled the waistband down Kalani’s hips, and God, it was just as beautiful as he remembered, shaft so smooth-skinned, just half a shade darker than the rest of Kalani, neat silky hair nestled at the root, the graceful curve and dip of his cockhead tempting Ori to follow its line.
He traced it with his tongue as his heart swelled with grateful devotion. Kalani—head thrown back, eyes closed—chanted, “Ori, Ori, you’re so hot, oh Jesus, the way you make me feel.” Ori kissed the slit and imagined the salty taste of Kalani’s cum flooding his mouth, trickling down his throat. Yes. It would be the most amazing—“Fuck, I’m losing it, Ori, I’m sorry, God dammit, I’m sorry.”
Kalani’s shaft softened and curled into his stomach. Still beautiful.“It’s okay. You don’t need to…” He wasn’t even sure how to name what they’d been doing, it was so new. “I love you.” That seemed to encompass it all.
He rested his head by Kalani’s chest. Stroked light circle patterns all over his stomach and hips. Kalani sighed. “I love you too. And I’m happy. Small steps, right?”
“Yeah. Crazy fun small steps. Never knew you were such a perv.”
Kalani laughed. “Neither did I until I saw this body of yours. Damn.” Ori straightened up and struck a muscle-man pose for Kalani, flexing everything he could think to flex, imitating the weird constipated snarl of Randy Couture on the cover of Xtreme Training: The Fighter's Ultimate Fitness Manual.
“Oh stop it.” Kalani kicked out a floppy leg in Ori’s direction. “Call 911,” he gasped, looking weak with laughter. “Call 911! My boyfriend’s killing me!”
A tiny pain, a bubble of unwelcome memory that popped and was gone again. “Yeah? You think that’skilling you?” Ori yanked his shorts up and clambered onto the couch, covering Kalani’s body with his own. “How about I just smother you instead?”
They kissed until Kalani fell asleep.
Epilogue
2012 Saul had watched them grow up together, his son and the boy who became his protector. He’d watched them fall in love. Kalani, who had Malia’s smile and Malia’s eyes, so defiantly full of joy. Ori, loyal to a fault but good, so good, good to the very core of him.
He’d seen them in grief, in happiness, in lust and frustration. He’d seen them fight and make up, tell and keep secrets. From his distance, he saw them become irrevocably entwined, watched them fight fate and then embrace it. And now it was time to say good-bye.
Kalani was finally safe. From his misguided curse, but from the other cruelties of the world too, as long as Ori stayed close. They’d made peace with their past, with the tough realities of their present; they were together. He didn’t know if Kalani could ever forgive him, but he hadn’t demanded a paternity test either.
The house where he and Keola and Malia had briefly made their home was as long gone as the people who had lived there, but the land was his gift to Kalani and Ori: to sell and forget, or to nurture and heal. Malia’s ti plants had withered, but the razorthin waterfall with its rainbow was still theirs to discover. If they wanted.
They’d go, together, into the future. Saul, on the other hand, would return, as much as the living could, to the past. He’d spent so many years in utter misery wallowing in the futility of the present and avoiding the p
ast, it was time now to return to it clear-eyed, to find these old hurts and soothe them.
He’d found a kahuna on Molokai skilled and compassionate enough to teach him truly, despite all the kapu laws he’d broken, all the hurt he’d caused. The work of Saul’s redemption would likely last the rest of his earthly life. But that wasn’t important. When he finally died and left his earthly body, he would be ready to find them again. Malia. Keola. Malia was safe in the clouds, but Keola…oh Keola. Had he gone to another land? Dissolved into the timeless primordial Po—the ultimate dream-sleep end of all souls, even gods? Or was he walking the ghostlands as a starving kuewa?
Saul would be born into the other world and find Keola. Reunite him with Malia. Stay with them for a while, if they wanted. It was time to leave Kalani and Ori’s story and finish his own.
He would look over them and their descendants. Become the guardian of souls.
* * * *
“I think that’s far enough!” Ori called. He hugged himself, too anxious to enjoy the pleasant warmth of the ocean lapping at his calves. Far, far, too damn far out, he could see Kalani’s head bobbing in the deeper swells. Usually they swam together, but today Kalani had insisted he go alone. He was ready, he said. Ori knew he had to trust him.
That was one of the most important lessons of the last few months: to let Kalani make mistakes, to let him be frustrated or overextended or even hurt. Even back when Kalani had been able-bodied, Ori couldn’t stand to see him in trouble or in pain, but now it was more important than ever for him to let that overprotectiveness go. Day by day, he learned that he needed to be the man Kalani needed, not the one Ori thought he should need.
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