by J. M. Snyder
“Your mother and I aren’t staying at the hotel,” Remy’s father said.
Remy let out a bark of laughter that surprised him. “No, of course not. Why would you? We only booked the rooms months ago! Fuck the deposit!”
“Jeremy,” his mother started.
Remy’s voice rose an octave, but he couldn’t help it. “Where the hell are you going to stay, hmm? Tell me that.”
“We called the hotel back in August,” his father explained, holding up both hands as if hoping that might calm Remy down. “We’ve rented a camper and are just going to putter around the island a bit. But it’s okay, son. The hotel canceled our room and won’t charge you for it, so don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” Remy cried. His voice went up another notch, threatening to crack. Hell, he felt as if his whole world nothing more than wafer-thin, and one more problem, one more issue, one more anything would send it all shattering down around him. “I’m getting married in ten days. Between Christmas and the weekends, I have exactly four days left to get everything lined up for the ceremony, but the woman I hired to take care of it all has gone surfing for God knows how long. I don’t have a marriage license yet, and am not likely to get one because I didn’t know I had to bring along proof that I was divorced.”
“Jeremy,” his mother said again, a worried look on her face.
“My ex-wife has proof,” Remy ranted, “but she’s trapped back in Virginia, where a freak blizzard has all flights grounded for the foreseeable future. So it’s just me, and Lane, and Braden, because the idiot who booked our tickets put my son on the same plane as us, when he should’ve flown in with his mother. I was hoping to be able to spend a little time with my boyfriend alone before the wedding, and I thought maybe you two would finally step up and act like fucking grandparents—”
Lane cautioned, “Rem, don’t—”
Remy ignored him. “But no, apparently you have your own agenda. Hope you can find a spare moment during your Hawaiian vacation to drop in on my goddamn wedding!”
“Son,” his father said.
But Remy had had enough. He spun on his heel and stormed off.
“Jeremy, wait,” his mother called. “What about lunch?”
“I wouldn’t want to hold you up,” Remy snapped over his shoulder. “You’ve got a camper to catch.”
He kept a fast pace, sure his parents wouldn’t follow. Though he didn’t look back to check, a moment later he heard a flurry of footsteps race to catch up, then Lane appeared beside him, Braden right alongside. His son turned and walked backward a few paces. “Are we just leaving them here?” the boy asked.
“They have other plans,” Remy told him. Anger bunched his jaw and fisted his hands at his sides.
Lane rubbed the small of Remy’s back. “Hey, it’s okay,” he murmured.
Remy sighed, and felt his emotions disperse at his lover’s touch. “It just makes me so mad. I can’t believe they didn’t say anything earlier!”
The hand on his back was warm and comforting. “I know,” Lane said. “I’d be mad, too.”
Braden stumbled, so he turned around the right way and hurried ahead. “So we’re really just going back to the hotel now? Without them?”
“Without them, yes,” Remy confirmed. When his son started to say something else, he added, “No more questions. I don’t want to talk about Nana or Pops anymore, okay?”
Braden pouted. “I was just going to ask if I could play my game again when we get back, jeez.”
Remy rolled his eyes. “You and that damn game. We’re in paradise and all you want to do is sit inside glued to the television all day long.”
“I like video games,” Braden said, defensive.
Lane’s arm eased around Remy’s waist. “You know, we don’t have to go straight back to the hotel.”
Glancing at his lover, Remy asked, “What’re you thinking?”
“There’s so much Hawaii is known for,” Lane said. “Beaches. Pearl Harbor. Rain forest. Volcanoes—”
“Vol-cay-noes!” Braden jumped up and down, hands clenched under his chin. “Oh Daddy, yes, yes, please, yes, let’s go see a real live volcano!”
Remy grinned. “After lunch.”
Braden raised both arms in victory. “Yes!”
* * * *
Neither Remy nor Lane wanted to linger at the airport, and with keys to a rental car in Remy’s pocket, all of Honolulu was at their disposal. Now it felt as if their vacation could really begin. Remy couldn’t call it a pre-honeymoon, not with Braden in tow, but he hadn’t wanted to leave his son with his parents if he didn’t even know where they were going to be staying. A camper might be fun for them, but if Kate showed up and wanted to know where their son was, Remy knew his ex-wife well enough to know he better have an answer for her…or else. And “with my parents” wouldn’t cut it. He had enough headaches already; he didn’t need any more.
So they found a nice little local place to eat, bypassing the McDonald’s Braden wanted to stop at. “You can eat a Happy Meal back home,” Remy told him. “Let’s try something you can’t get back in Richmond.”
“Like what?” Braden groused. “I like Chicken McNuggets.”
“You might like other things, too, if you just give them a chance,” Remy said.
Lane typed in food on the car’s GPS and laughed at the first result that came up. “Eat. Who names a restaurant that?” he asked. “Maybe it’s a glitch.”
But Remy said, “No, let’s try it out. It sounds perfect. If it isn’t too far?”
With a shrug, Lane selected Eat Honolulu and sat back in the passenger seat. Turning to look at Braden, who was sitting behind Remy, he asked, “Want to eat at a place called Eat?”
“That’s not it’s real name, is it?” Braden asked.
Apparently it was, and judging from the number of cars in the parking lot, the place was popular with the locals, too. Seating was set up in quaint, cafe-style tables, and Lane found an empty one with enough chairs for the three of them. The menu was mostly high-end burgers and fries, but kid-friendly, and there was something for everyone. Braden wanted to be finicky and wanted just a grilled cheese sandwich, but added tomatoes and sugar spice bacon to it, as well as an order of polenta fries. “Are they like French fries?” he asked the server.
She shrugged. “Close enough.”
Remy got the surf and turf burger, a local beef patty topped with a soft shell crab, and Lane tried the Guava-Q, a burger topped with barbeque guava glaze and housemade coleslaw. As they waited for their lunch, Remy dug out his phone and searched for local volcanoes. Braden kicked at the base of the table, obviously bored. “Why do you guys always get to bring your phones everywhere,” he asked, “and you won’t let me bring my DS? That isn’t fair.”
“We use the phones to call people and stay connected,” Remy told him, Googling volcanoes in Honolulu, “not play video games.”
From the corner of his eye, Remy saw Lane slide his phone across the table to Braden. “Thanks!” Braden cried.
Without looking up, Remy told his lover, “You’re just encouraging him.”
“He’s bored,” Lane replied. “It’s either drain my battery or feel him kick the table for the next half hour. Which would you prefer?”
Remy shook his head but grinned and didn’t respond. His smile faded, though, as he read the search results on his own phone. “Damn it,” he murmured.
“Hmm?” Lane tried to look across the table at Remy’s phone. “What’d you find?”
“Here’s an interesting tidbit.” Remy scrolled down the page a bit more, scanning quickly. “Apparently there are active volcanoes on Hawaii…”
Lane waited for him to continue; when he didn’t, Lane prompted, “Okay?”
Remy glanced up at his lover. “But we aren’t.”
Lane’s brows knitted together in confused. “What?”
“On Hawaii,” Remy explained. “We’re, in fact, on Oahu.”
“We’re in Hawaii,” Lane sai
d. “Honolulu, the capital city of Hawaii, the fiftieth state.”
“Yes, the state,” Remy agreed, “but not the island. We’re on the island of Oahu. Honolulu isn’t on the island named after the state. Go figure.”
Lane frowned at Braden, who was already absorbed in another round of Angry Birds and completely ignoring their conversation. “So where are the volcanoes on Oahu then?”
Remy looked up at Lane over his phone and shook his head.
Lane mouthed the word, “None?”
Remy shrugged. “There’s a big crater at the end of Waikiki Beach we can go look at, but basically that’s about it. Nothing actively spewing lava, though.”
“So where are they all?” Lane wanted to know.
“On Hawaii,” Remy said. “The island, and while technically we’re in Hawaii, we’re not on Hawaii.”
Lane asked, “How do we get there, then?”
A few more taps on the phone’s screen gave Remy the answer to that. “We take a plane.”
Lane groaned. “God, we’ve been here less than two days and I’m already sick of the damn airport. I have to go back tonight, too, when Angie and my parents come in.”
“Maybe they’ll rent a camper and take off on their own vacation,” Remy replied sourly. It still rankled him that his parents hadn’t even bothered to let him know they weren’t planning to go along with the program—his program. They were only on Hawaii for his wedding! If they wanted to sightsee afterward, fine, but everything before his big day should focus on him—or was that asking too much? “If they do, hopefully they tell you first so you don’t bother driving all the way out there to pick them up—”
“Hon, let it go.” Lane covered Remy’s hand with his and rubbed gently. “Also, Emma just turned one. I don’t think any of them wants to be holed up in a camper with a baby for any length of time, do you?”
Remy grinned. “No, I guess not. Well, we’ll check out this crater today, and maybe Kate will want to fly over to the Big Island, as they call it, to look at the active volcanoes whenever she and Mike finally get here.”
Lane laughed as Remy pocketed his phone. “Yeah, like she’s going to want to get back into a plane again anytime soon.”
* * * *
After lunch, they visited Diamond Head, the large volcanic crater towering at the southern tip of the island. Braden was impressed when he saw it from the car, but less so when he learned it wasn’t spewing out lava and smoke. “So it isn’t going to burn us alive or anything?” he asked, disappointed.
“Thank God,” Lane murmured.
The dormant volcano was actually a state park, and they had to drive inside the crater to visit it. Braden gaped at the grassy walls of rock that towered around them as they descended into the crater, and Remy watched his son’s expression in the rearview mirror. Lava or not, he thought Braden was suitably impressed. When they entered the Kahala Tunnel, Braden actually gasped. “This. Is. Awesome!” he whispered, shaking the back of Remy’s seat in his excitement.
They parked the car and got out to explore the area. Even though Braden was nine, Remy tried to take his hand as they headed for the information booth, but he shook his father off and raced ahead. “Be careful!” Remy called. “Watch your—”
Braden stumbled over a large rock and almost fell, but caught himself at the last second.
“Step,” Remy finished.
“I’m all right!” Braden assured him, running on.
Remy felt a warm hand fold into his, and Lane leaned against him. “I’ll hold your hand,” he said, bumping Remy’s hip with his. “Brae doesn’t know what he’s missing.”
With a sigh, Remy rested his head on Lane’s shoulder. Lane eased an arm around Remy’s waist and hugged him close. “Hey, you okay?”
Remy smiled up at him, then burrowed closer against him, wrapping both arms around his waist. “Yeah, it’s—I’m still upset about my parents. I shouldn’t have gone like that earlier—”
“No, no, you’re fine,” Lane assured him. “You have every right to be pissed. I mean, your mother called at what, four o’clock this morning? And she didn’t think then to tell you about the whole camper thing? Seriously?”
“Part of me wants to just say the hell with it,” Remy admitted. “All of it, everything. Just pack our bags, check out of the hotel right now, and catch the next flight back home. We’ll stop at the court building first thing in the morning and be married by sunset tomorrow. Done. You know?”
Lane laughed. “Well, one, my family will be mad if we do that, because they’re halfway here and won’t want to turn right back around and go home when they land. And I know they’re all dying to meet you, Ange especially. She keeps saying no one can be half as great as I make you out to be.”
Remy stopped in mid-step and leaned back to give him a quick kiss. “You’re too good to me, you know that?”
“You deserve it,” Lane said, returning the kiss.
Up ahead, Braden tugged on the door to the information center, yanking it open and letting it fall closed. “Come on already!” he hollered. “Jeez!”
Sharing a laugh, the two men started moving again. After a moment, Remy asked, “What’s two?”
“Two what?” Lane asked.
“You said one, your family would be mad,” Remy said. “So there has to be another reason. You don’t say one without following it with a two.”
Lane nodded. “Well, two, and this is the big one, really, but if Kate’s stuck in Richmond because the weather’s so bad, planes aren’t taking off, then that means planes aren’t landing there, either, are they?”
Remy gave his lover’s stomach a playful slap. “Well, shit. We really are stuck here after all, aren’t we?”
“Might as well make the most of it,” Lane said, nodding. “I could think of worse places, though.”
Remy glanced up at him. “Yeah? Where?”
“Stuck in Richmond,” Lane suggested. “Snowed in.”
“Da-aad!” Braden called, swinging on the door. “You guys are walking too slow!”
Remy sighed. “If we were in our own home, it might not be so bad.”
Braden tugged on the door handle. “Dad! Dad! Dad!”
“Alone,” Lane added.
“Oh God, yes,” Remy agreed.
Chapter 10
The tour of Diamond Head took a good two and a half hours. Remy and Lane walked at a leisurely pace, enjoying the weather and the terrain, as well as each other’s company, while Braden ran ahead, sometimes so far up the trail that he disappeared from view. Lane knew they’d find him eventually, lingering over an oddly-shaped rock or particularly breath-taking view. From the highest point along the ancient volcano’s walls, all of Honolulu stretched out before them on one side, and on the other, the crater gaped like a grassy pit dug deep into the earth. The ocean glistened off to the south, and the beach was a dazzling array of sand and brightly-colored swimsuits from this height.
By the time they made it back to the car, all three of them were tired and hungry, throats parched, feet sore, heads hot from the afternoon sun. Remy handed Lane the keys and laid the passenger seat back to stretch out a bit on the ride back to the hotel. When the elevator passed the second floor, Lane caught a whiff of something cooking in the restaurant and his stomach growled appreciatively. “Tomorrow we should stop by the store and grab a few things to keep in the room,” he said. “Snacks and drinks, stuff like that.”
“Cereal!” Braden cried out. “I like Fruity Pebbles!”
Remy stretched. “Shit. Weren’t we going to do that today?”
“Do you feel like going back out now?” Lane asked.
Remy shook his head. “Maybe after we eat dinner…”
But Lane reminded him, “I’m picking up Angie and my folks when their plane lands at eight.”
“That’s right.” Leaning against the mirrored wall, Remy rubbed Lane’s back and asked, “Do you want us to come?”
“Do we have to?” Braden complained. “I haven
’t been able to play my games all day.”
“Boo hoo.” Lane tousled Braden’s hair, tugging on a lock behind the boy’s ear.
Braden tried to shrug him off. When that didn’t work, he slapped Lane’s hand away. “I don’t want to go,” he said with a pout. In the mirrored door, he looked at his father’s reflection. “Dad, do I have to?”
“If Lane wants us to, then yes,” Remy said. “Stop pouting about it. We didn’t come all this way just so you could play video games and you know it.”
Lane waited until they reached their floor and the doors opened, and Braden stormed off the elevator before taking Remy’s hand to hold him back. “Actually, Rem,” he said softly, so his voice wouldn’t travel far, “I don’t think there’ll be enough room for all of us this evening.”
Remy stopped on the elevator’s threshold. “What do you mean?”
With a shrug, Lane pointed out, “It’s going to be a tight squeeze as it is, with both my parents, Angie and her husband, plus the baby. We’re probably going to have to split up, some of us coming back in the car and some taking a cab, or maybe getting another rental. I don’t know what they’ll want to do. But if you and Braden are there, too, then…”
“Yeah, that is a lot.” The elevator doors started to close but stopped when they bumped into Remy and popped open again. He stepped out into the hallway and pulled Lane out after him. Wrapping his arm around Lane’s waist, he kissed Lane’s cheek and said, “Well, I know someone who’ll be happy to hear he isn’t going back out again tonight. Listen, how about I order an appetizers tray and some wine up to the room for when you get back? Once they’re settled in, they can come over and hang out for a bit, we can get introduced, break the ice…how’s that sound?”
Lane hugged Remy tight. “That sounds wonderful, actually. Too bad your parents aren’t here to join in.”
But Remy shook his head, dismissive. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”
* * * *
After a restful nap, Remy ordered room service for dinner. Braden was happy, because that meant he could eat while playing his video game. “You know we’re never going to be able to watch television as long as he’s over here, right?” Lane joked. He and Remy ate at the kitchen bar, while Braden balanced a plate precariously on his knees while he played.
