Lokahi

by Edie Claire

  Perhaps his standards were higher for girlfriends than for friends.

  My angst was getting worse. He still wasn’t looking at me. He was just standing there, staring out over the city.

  “It’s the same view we’ve always had,” I said. Then I cringed. My mom and I had lived here for a year already, ever since my dad moved out and my brother went away to college. But Matt’s comment was not what made my voice crackle with an undercurrent of anger. That frustrating phenomenon was caused by something else. I’d been trying to forgive Matt for his part in Ty’s betrayal, but frankly, I was having a hard time. He kept saying he was sorry and I kept saying it was okay, but even months later, a part of me was still mad as hell.

  The rest of me just hurt like it.

  “I still can’t believe you’re famous!” Matt burst out with a grin, glancing back at me. Either he hadn’t heard my snarky comment, or he was pretending he hadn’t. He didn’t know how to deal with my continuing anger either, so sometimes we just sidestepped it. “I keep checking my phone to see how far the story’s being carried. Did I tell you I found it in the Florida Sun Sentinel? Add that to the list. But the Sydney Morning Herald! Wow. That’s the coolest.”

  I tried to smile back at him, but my thoughts weren’t happy. Yes, my fifteen minutes — or two days and counting — of fame had been terribly exciting, I won’t lie. It wasn’t every day a girl saved a professional surfer from drowning, particularly Hawaii’s favorite son who was on track to win the world championship in December. But I’d been trained as a lifeguard, so it wasn’t like I’d performed brain surgery with a spoon, and besides, Matt and I had been over this topic before.

  He was stalling, wasn’t he?

  We had been together at Ali’i Beach on Wednesday when the tragedy occurred. Matt had lost track of me in the chaos, and because of some flying rumors he’d believed briefly that I had drowned while attempting the rescue. When he found me I was coughing up a lung and looked like a sewer rodent, but he’d swept me up and crushed me in his arms anyway. He’d carried me all the way to his car and drove me to the hospital and stayed with me for hours in the ER. Ever since, I could swear he had been looking at me differently.

  “Can we see Kali’s house from here, you think?” he asked, gazing off in another direction.

  Moist heat welled up behind my eyes. He wouldn’t look at me at all, now.

  I took in a deep breath and tried to regroup. I must have read something wrong. Matt went out with a lot of girls, and I knew most of them well. The guy had a typical date MO. Getting shy at the point of departure was not in his playbook.

  He’s not into you after all, Lacey. Deal with it. Isn’t that what you wanted?

  I tried to be relieved. If he didn’t want more, I could save myself the grief, right? All these gut-gnawing, heart-wrenching fears I’d been suffering… they would just go away. Matt and I could go back to the way we’d always been. Good friends, best buddies, old chums, old pals. He could go back to telling me I was selling myself short with guys, and I could go back to telling him he needed to date smarter, more enlightened girls who could keep his overblown ego in check. We could even set each other up for dates.

  He turned then and met my gaze full on. Something in his blue eyes twinkled sadly, and a bolt of sorrow shot straight through my chest.

  We had a connection, he and I. It was strong, warm, and solid. If he really did want me that way… If we had a chance, even a small one…

  Oh, God, no! I couldn’t risk it.

  “What’s wrong, Lace?” he asked softly.

  My heart began to pound. The guy was killing me. The look in his eyes now was so caring, so… affectionate. And yet, so very sad.

  Why sad? What was wrong with him?

  “I was about to ask you the same thing,” I answered, my voice barely above a whisper.

  We were standing several feet apart. Our gazes locked, and for a long moment we seemed to be trading silent questions with no answers. Then his lips tugged into a half smile. He held out an arm and gestured to me. “Come here.”

  A warm rush of hope flooded through me, and I returned his smile. I had just lifted a foot, just made the slightest shift of position to close the space between us, when the horrible thing happened.

  I got The Warning…

  Learn more here! Thanks so much!

  Edie