Hawaii Five Uh-Oh

by Z. A. Maxfield

  The subtle tingling sensation between his shoulders usually meant someone was watching him. He’d seen no one, heard nothing. Yet he knew…. He glanced around again. Nothing.

  Great. Now he was paranoid too.

  DESPITE STOPPING at his apartment for a quick shower and shave, Theo made it to his mom’s place at sunset. Light spilled from the house over the pathways and into the gardens. They’d strung the patio with ball lanterns.

  Christmas lights clung to the trees, and the pathways glowed with fanciful solar-powered orbs on stakes.

  He entered through the front door, following the Hawai‘ian music to the den, where his mother and stepsister were giving Pia and Antonia impromptu hula lessons. He waved at the girls. As usual, his mother found a way to acknowledge him without letting her body go still or taking her eyes off her hands.

  Laughter erupted outside on the deck. He turned to see who was out there, but a tug on his jacket got his attention. Diminutive and very pregnant Hinata, his stepbrother Jared’s wife, needed him to move out of the way. He persuaded her to let him carry her platter of foil-wrapped fish, and she opened the door for him. They stepped into the balmy evening together.

  Gary stood by the outdoor bar, holding a beer. He looked as relaxed as Theo had ever seen him, in chinos with an untucked Hawai‘ian print shirt. His sons, Grayson and Jared—also proactively dressed for the first-ever casual Friday in their lives, should one ever come—crowded around the chef and the grill. Theo came around the counter and they made space for him.

  That suddenly, he stood eye to eye with grillmaster Koa. Excitement ignited a spark inside him, and his whole body caught fire.

  “Where do you want it?” Theo asked.

  The sly lift of Koa’s brow did sexy things to Theo’s gut. “Decisions, decisions.”

  Koa had to know he was getting to Theo. He made a thorough study of Theo’s entire body and his lips curved into a smile.

  “Here, then.” Theo left Hinata’s fish next to a platter of burgers and stepped out of the charm zone. He should have been more annoyed by Koa’s teasing. Their little flirtation was going to get ugly real fast if Koa was playing with him.

  He would never forget Koa’s casual groping. The memory alone made his skin sizzle inside his clothes. He couldn’t let go of the fierce, brutal pride in Koa’s eyes.

  Fish in a barrel, Te, those eyes seemed to say. Just like always.

  But Koa had ignored him every time they’d seen each other since. Tonight he wore only a tank and cargo shorts. His big, tattooed arms rippled as he snapped his tongs in Theo’s face.

  “What?”

  “Just seeing if you were awake.” Koa laid foil packets, one after another, on the slow part of the grill with precision.

  Theo only tore his eyes off Koa to breathe, and unfortunately that was the exact moment his mother glanced his way. He came to the inescapable conclusion that she knew everything he was thinking. He glanced down uncomfortably.

  You’re thirty-two, for God’s sake. Not eleven.

  This thrilling rush of passion and pleasure was how he’d always felt about Koa, only he didn’t understand it back then. He knew what these feelings meant now, though. Boy howdy. Didn’t make it any easier, but oh, what he’d have given for the answers back then. He wished he’d known everything he knew now.

  You were kids then. You’d have ruined what you had. You weren’t ready.

  What about now? his body demanded. Can we pursue this now? In Koa’s hands, this desire could be a gift or a curse. How was Theo to make up his mind until they tried it?

  “What’s got you frowning?” Alice asked.

  “Waiting for the fish I was promised.” Since they’d lived together, he knew Alice better than the rest of his stepsiblings. Her husband, Raul, was handsome. Well-spoken. An Argentine athlete who didn’t mind taking a back seat to her dad. They had awesome kids. All indications led Theo to the conclusion it was a fairy-tale match.

  “Are you disappointed your mother remarried?” she asked suddenly.

  “Who said that?” Question with a question. She was going to have to try harder to surprise an answer out of him.

  She wasn’t deterred. “You didn’t have to move out. Your mother would be happy to have you stay as long as you want.”

  “Did she say that?” he asked.

  “Not in so many words.”

  He glanced around. “What if I wanted to get laid every now and then?”

  “Did you bring anyone around? We all know you’re gay, except Dad, of course. He doesn’t know, or not know. He doesn’t wish to.” She lifted her hands. “It’s not a problem.”

  “Thank you.” He said the words dryly.

  “I’m sorry.” She flushed. “I didn’t mean that the way you took it, I think.”

  “I apologize too.” He’d only lived alone for a couple weeks, and already he’d become a monster. That was quick. “You know what? If I find someone and it becomes a thing, I’m not going to hide him. Thank you for trying to put my mind at ease about it.”

  “Nor should you hide, is all I’m saying.” She put a reassuring hand on his arm.

  He searched her face. Alice was a kind person. A great wife and mother. She was basically the best person he could have for a stepsibling.

  “Did I ever tell you that you guys”—he jerked his chin at their blended family—“could have been a lot worse?”

  “You too.” Her laughter attracted her kids’ attention. She held her little finger out, and he twined his with hers. They pulled apart with a slide and a fist bump. Seemed silly, but it was nice. Pia and Tonia each wanted to try.

  “So what about Koa, huh?” she teased once the kids were gone. “He’s a handsome guy.”

  Theo turned to stone. “What? Yeah. But no, there’s nothing there, I don’t think.”

  “Only your mom trying to set you up for forever. He’s a good guy, but you want my advice, you watch out for that one.”

  “Koa?” he asked. “Or Mom?”

  “Well, both.” When he laughed, she said, “I’m not kidding.”

  “They’re really tight, huh?’

  “Like a banana and peel, those two.” She watched them fondly. “They each lost something, and the other one makes up for it.”

  Wow. He let that sink in.

  In his worst moments, he gave in to that kind of thinking and the twinges of jealousy it brought. The problem was, he wasn’t clear on who he was jealous of—his mother, for being so close to Koa? Or Koa, for knowing his mom in a way Theo might never be able to match? “She never really lost me, you know.”

  “Oh my God. I never meant to imply she replaced you, or—” She was mortified when she realized what she’d said. With her face in her hands, his oh-so-proper stepsister snorted exactly like her dad. “God. I’m a tactless asshat.”

  “I know what you mean. I wasn’t around for her, so it’s probably true.”

  “You’ve never had kids”—she gave him a shove—“or you’d know better than to say stupid things about mothers. You went to the mainland to be with your dad, right?”

  He nodded. “Boys go with their dads.”

  “Do they?” she asked quietly. He really didn’t know, now.

  “Hey, Al, Theo….” Theo turned and found Koa standing directly behind his chair. Stealthy hotshot bastard. How do you get so close without me noticing?

  How can I make you come closer?

  “Hey, Koa.” Theo didn’t bother hiding his sudden lurch of happiness. Apparently he hadn’t been doing a very good job of it anyway, if everyone knew.

  “Mind if I steal Te for a minute? I need to show him something.”

  “Go ahead.” Alice grinned widely. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Alice.” Red-faced, Theo took off on the path toward the bluffs, leaving Koa to answer her innuendo with a crack of his own. Her laughter followed him.

  Alice was going to make something bigger out of this thing between them, Theo knew it, and
if she did, it wasn’t going to stay between them either.

  “Don’t feed the trolls,” he said when Koa caught up.

  Koa frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Whatever you say in this house goes straight to my mom. The walls talk to her, you feel me? Every word, every feeling, goes straight into her ear.”

  Koa studied him warily. “Alice isn’t a troll.”

  “Maybe not, but I like to keep my business private.”

  “She’s on our side, numbnuts.”

  “We have a side?” Theo asked, with air quotes, “Since when do ‘we’ have a ‘side’?”

  Koa stopped beneath one of his mother’s many torches to stare at him. “C’mon, Te. After what happened, I thought you’d want to talk.”

  “About why you blew me off when I tried to talk to you on Taryn’s birthday? Or about where you’re hiding Spider without trying to bring whoever hurt him down? Or about how you dry-humped me and just left like you think that’s gonna shut me up—”

  Koa’s lips did the shutting up. Theo gasped in shock, so Koa’s tongue invaded, seeking his surrender while leaving the door open to negotiation.

  Theo stumbled, dizzy with lust, with need, with greed for flesh after so long. Sure, Koa had something to do with the conflagration inside him. His lips were soft and plump and warm and languid. Every kiss was sweet and sticky in the best possible way—as if he was kissing marshmallow fluff. He couldn’t get enough. He’d never get enough of Koa.

  Koa’s phone vibrated between them.

  Theo gasped for air. “Goddammit. Can’t you ever turn that thing off?”

  “What do you think?” Koa answered with a word. “Talk.”

  He turned away, but not before Theo got a glimpse of his caller ID.

  “Is that Spider?” Who else would call with his phone? “Where—”

  “Sh.” Koa clapped a hand over his mouth. “When?”

  If the caller spoke, Koa gave nothing away. His eyes were blank, his expression unreadable. After a minute, which seemed like an eternity to Theo, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and let go.

  “Jesus,” Theo wiped a shaking hand over his lips.

  Koa probably saw his arousal. A flash of heat and determination—a flash of fierce possession—lit his eyes. Something hot and yearning. Something that made Theo want to pinch his nipple, just to see if he’d melt again. Theo could go either way with Koa. He could take it, if Koa wanted to be in charge, or dish it out.

  Koa finally sighed with some inner anguish Theo couldn’t interpret. “I have to go. Look—”

  “You don’t owe me anything.” Stung, Theo ducked away. Not because he was shy, and not because Spider had called and Koa was running. But because his cards were on the table and the next move had to be Koa’s.

  “Don’t be like that.” Black eyes glittered with reflected fire. “I can’t talk about this, is all. I have to go.”

  Koa’s pinched lips, his tired eyes, begged Theo to offer some kind of olive branch. A quick glance down told him Koa was definitely hot for him. He bit his lip provocatively.

  “Catch you later, Woodie.” Because oh, yeah. There was an unquestionable show of interest, whatever that was worth. “You know where to find me.”

  With a groan, Koa turned and took the path toward his house. Theo watched him go, filled with longing and a sudden new curiosity.

  Chapter Twelve

  THEO MEANT to slip away before his mother noticed, but as he’d tried to tell Koa, the house whispered everyone’s secrets in her ear. He went out the side gate, but she caught him pulling his helmet on in the driveway.

  She teased, “You running away from home again, little fishy?”

  “Something came up, is all.” He had a narrow window before Koa left his property, and Theo wanted to follow him. Nothing to see here. Just an irrational impulse I can’t seem to control. “Didn’t want to bother you with it.”

  “You and Koa leave suddenly at the same time? I’m not bothered by that at all.” She wrinkled her nose at him. He didn’t know what he was following Koa into. Maybe nothing. Probably a hookup. It didn’t matter. He was sick of not knowing.

  “See you later, Mom.” He kissed her cheek.

  “I love both my boys.” She gave him a gentle shove. “Take care of each other.”

  Throat tight, he said goodbye and made it to the highway just in time to see Koa’s SUV roll past without the candy magnets on the doors. Light rain spattered Theo’s battered old windbreaker as he followed its lights from a safe distance. Koa took the highway into Honolulu, and once there, he wound his way through the downtown streets and into Chinatown—some sixteen city blocks of businesses, most of which were locked, chained up, and shuttered this late at night. The exception was bars, of which several were still doing lively business. None were places he could see Koa frequenting. Theo stayed a good block and a half behind, and while Koa parked in the Kekaulike Street parking lot, Theo rolled his bike into an alley behind a noodle house that was closed for the night. He cut his engine and removed his helmet.

  Theo felt eyes focus on him—a normal fact of life with such a large homeless human population lying on the curbs and in the doorways of this economically depressed part of town.

  Was this where Koa’s special secret key tag opened doors…?

  Despite his misgivings, Theo left the bike with a glare at the closest old dude, who sat next to a rusted loading bay door, picking a scab on his face. Theo stared a half second too long.

  “Boo.” The man grinned after startling him half to death.

  “I want this bike to be here when I get back,” Theo said. “I’ll pay you to look after it.”

  Dude licked his lips. “How much?”

  “Two now, twenty later.” The man smiled at him and held out a filthy hand. Theo gave him a couple bucks.

  Fingers grabbed his wrist in a punishing grip. “Forty later.”

  “Ten.” He refused to flinch. “And let go of my arm.”

  Fingers tightened. “Twenty’s okay. How long you gonna be?”

  “You have a pressing engagement?” Theo did some more visceral glaring. He put his own little spin on it, mad-dogging the guy with attitude. “Let. Go.”

  “A’ight.” Dude finally let him loose. Jesus. “Twenty later. You promised. Don’t fuck me over, ’cause I’ll remember you.”

  Theo rubbed his wrist. “You’ll get your money.”

  “That or I got a new bike.” Dude gave another laugh, and Theo smelled the mixture of alcohol and bad teeth that was his breath. Weird. He found it oddly reassuring. It was familiar. People were only people, after all. Even if they looked like monsters in the night. They had tooth decay.

  He glanced back and saw the man light a pipe. He gazed around as if it was the most normal thing in the world to live on the sidewalk and smoke meth. Theo clung to the shadows as he approached the dilapidated building he’d seen Koa enter. The place gave him the creeps for a lot of reasons. He figured from the mannequins inside, the building had once held a clothing store. He stepped in as quietly as he could but found no way to cross the floor without alerting someone to his presence.

  The room was deeply shadowed and strewn with glass from—he glanced up—a broken atrium skylight. That explained the rustling. Birds in the belfry. He must have bats in his, to be doing this.

  Closing his eyes, he simply listened for what felt like hours. Everything was still. He marked every sound and dismissed each one as the noise of an old building or traffic from the street, until—there. The scrape of a shoe on the once-beautiful terrazzo floor.

  He moved toward his left, into a room he guessed had once been for fittings. A drum-shaped podium sat in the corner, flanked by massive, cracked mirrors. Huge silk drapes hung crookedly from the ceiling. The long, weird shadows they cast seemed to writhe against the wall.

  A bridal shop?

  Sadly diminished, it had probably once been an elegant place. A metaphor for the state of marriage in gene
ral. Glass crunched under his boots as he moved through one doorway and then another, listening carefully. He took each step only when he was relatively sure nothing was going to jump out at him, and waited for the sound of another footfall. A breath. Anything to let him know where Koa went.

  The scratch of a match was like a grenade going off in the silent space. Light flared, blinding him momentarily. “What are you doing here?”

  Koa stood less than a foot away. Gorgeous in his black jeans, polo, and blazer. On his feet, boots, like a paniolo cowboy.

  “Jesus, you’re gonna give me a stroke. How do you—”

  “Are you following me?”

  “Yes.” Theo sagged against the nearest pillar. Don’t quit your day job. “And no.”

  “Which is it?”

  Theo weighed his options. “Yes?”

  A second set of footsteps on the stairs outside.

  “Motherfucker.” Koa stepped into his space and whispered, “You got some bad, bad timing.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Okay.” Koa laid a finger over his lip. Jesus, the barest touch made Theo dizzy with desire. “You gotta get out of here this second, Te. Because—”

  “I said come alone, asshole.” The man who came through the door was definitely not skulking. He marched straight up to them and gave Koa a filthy look. “Why is it you never listen to me?”

  Theo held his breath. His eyes met Koa’s, and in that stricken second, he saw something so bleak his heart tried to stop. He couldn’t have moved even if he’d wanted to, but Koa turned almost casually, keeping his body between Theo’s and whatever threat this new guy represented.

  “He followed me. Dumbass kid.” Koa’s voice had changed so subtly, Theo would have missed it if he wasn’t literally focused on every single breath Koa took. Theo had memorized Koa’s face, his eyes, every tic of the pulse in his neck, each sound Koa made, and tonight there was more island flavor, and the pitch was lower. All information that broke over Theo like an ice-cold waterfall.