I was late, and I hauled ass through the back door of The Grill, berating myself for not remembering to bring my goldendoodle his chew toy. The previous night’s lack of sleep was affecting me, or I’d have remembered the last time I left Jack without something to gnaw for an entire shift, he ate another waitress’s pretty platform shoes. That adventure had cost me a night’s tips. Telling him to lie down in his bed we kept on the restaurant’s enclosed back porch, I went on in to the kitchen.
“What’s the rush, girl?” Leesa, one of the owners of the Hilo Bar and Grill, asked me without even turning around.
“I’m fifteen minutes late, in case you hadn’t noticed,” I responded through my huffing and puffing as I tied my apron and pulled my blonde dreadlocks up in a ponytail.
Leesa was standing at the enormous kitchen stove stirring a pan full of red meat and vegetables. I could smell the pineapple relish she’d probably spent all afternoon preparing, and I felt my stomach clench up because I hadn’t eaten since eight that morning. The sauce she had on a back burner made a gentle bubbling noise, and through the doors to the front of the restaurant I could hear laughter and dishes clinking.
“And what’s that fifteen minutes going to do?” she asked, laughing, as she turned to look at me. “Is it going to mean all of our customers quit eating here? Is it going to pollute the beach or stop the waves from rolling in?”
I sighed. Even though I’d been in Hawaii for three years now, I still couldn’t manage to adopt the native’s lax view of time. Leesa was constantly lecturing me to slow down, enjoy myself more, take it easy, and as much as I wanted to follow her advice, I just didn’t have it in me to hang loose the way the Hawaiians did.
“Alright,” I said. I smiled back at her as I reached into a drawer and grabbed a handful of flatware. “I’ll slow down, but I do want to get everything set up before the rush starts.” I filled salt and pepper shakers, as well as rolled table settings. It wasn’t long before Heidi, one of the other dinner-shift waitresses, came in and set up the tables as I got the items ready for her to take out to the main dining room. We sang the newest Pitbull song as we worked, my iPod cranked on the kitchen speakers. Heidi chimed in with the chorus each time she reentered the kitchen. I did the rapping parts and Leesa looked at us both and smiled.
I had worked at The Grill, as it was called around town, ever since I’d come to Hilo. I’d started off working full time, and then when I qualified for in-state tuition, I enrolled in classes at the university and cut back on my work hours. At twenty-one, thanks to taking classes year round, I was now a sophomore in college, and the de facto head waitress at The Grill.
The swinging door from the bar area to the kitchen opened and Leesa’s husband, Raoul, peeked in, his eyes lighting up when he saw her leaning over to get a pan from underneath the large stainless steel island. I looked at him and pointed my index finger in his direction.
“Don’t even think about it, mister,” I chastised.
“What?” he responded, barely able to take his eyes off of his wife’s ass. Leesa stood up, turning and fixing him with a scowl.
“Listen to him,” she reprimanded. “You’re a dirty old man, you know that?” Raoul threw his hands up in surrender. “I’m just admiring the most beautiful thing in the room,” he said. “And I’m not a dirty old man if I’m looking at equally old women.”
I tried to smother my laughter as Leesa’s face grew red and her lips pursed tightly. Muttering to herself in a mixture of Hawaiian and English, she stomped off into the storeroom.
I glanced at Raoul. “You are in so much trouble.”
He walked over and gave me a one-armed hug, his face somewhat pale, even beneath his dark complexion. “How are you sweetheart?”
“I’m good. Classes start tomorrow so I registered for everything today. How’s it looking out front? You seem tired, has it been arough day?”
He headed over to the stove and took a spoon out of a drawer underneath the cooktop, then dipped it in the large vat of bar-b-que sauce on the burner. He winked at me, placing his finger over his lips. “That. Is like nectar of the gods,” he whispered as he closed his eyes and savored the tangy sweetness of the best bar-b-que sauce this side of Honolulu. He put the spoon into the sink and crossed his arms as he leaned against the counter. “Heidi’s got the front handled, but it’s starting to pick up. You want to come help out at the bar until your section starts seating?”
“Sure,” I said. “But let me check on Jack before I head out there.”
“Just bring him on out front,” Raoul responded. Jack was the one thing I’d brought with me to Hawaii after I left my old life. Well, the one thing I’d brought that I got to keep. I’d lost everything else the night I ran, and the fact that he’d been with me through it all made him even more special. But he was also a fifty-pound dog who wasn’t really supposed to be in a restaurant.
Raoul whistled sharply, the sound echoing around the hard surfaces of the kitchen, and Jack came scrabbling across the hard tile floor to him. “That’s right, keiko,” Raoul said, reaching down and patting Jack on the head. “You come up front with me and the other guys, these women might give you a nice bed, but we’ll give you beer.”
I frowned at Raoul. “You know he’s not supposed to go past the back porch. You’re going to get a health code violation for sure.”
“Ah, hell,” he responded as he started walking toward the front of the restaurant, Jack hot on his heels. “The last time that health department guy stopped in you were still in diapers, and I gave him so much free Beachside Porter he had to leave his car here and walk home.”
Nick
Gabe and I spent the first half of the day surfing, and then the remainder standing in fucking lines trying to get the classes we needed at the university this semester. We were tired and sweaty and if ever a beer was needed it was then.
I’d moved to Hawaii a few weeks earlier, after spending the last year at my folks’ place in Northern California. Gabe had been here three months or so, coming straight to Hawaii after his commission was up. When I got to Hilo we rented a two-bedroom apartment near campus, and I’d spent the last few weeks on the beach and laying low, getting a feel for the place. This was my first real night out since I’d moved, and while I was a little unsure about the whole bar scene, Gabe had promised me that the bars at night here were as mellow as the beach during the day.
We pulled up to the Hilo Bar and Grill and hopped out of my truck, making sure that our shortboards were locked up in the bed before we headed inside.
The Grill was right on the beach, with a deck on the sand, facing the water. The air around the deck was hazy with moisture, and the dark-tinted windows reflected the setting sun. It looked like the perfect place to decompress after a long day. We headed inside through the main doors, my stomach rumbling as we stepped in and I smelled beef grilling and the yeasty odor of microbrews. Burgers and beer. It didn’t get much better than that.
Then I saw her . . . and realized it could get a whole lot better and a whole lot worse all at the same time.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Other Books
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Chapter Thirty Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty One
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Preview of Camouflaged
Preview of Hidden
About the Book Designer
Copyright Notice
Concealed - A Hiding From Love Novel #2 Page 23
