It's All Relative

by S. C. Stephens

  That phrase seemed to snap everyone out of it and both parents twisted to Kai. “You can’t date her, Kai,” his mother and father said almost jointly.

  Kai smiled and let them voice their concerns for a few minutes. When they both seemed flushed, but done, he merely said, “We’re not related. We can date…and we are going to.” He smiled down at Jessie as she rubbed soft circles into his back. “I love her and I’m not spending another day without her.” Looking back up at his parents, he raised an eyebrow. “Is that going to be a problem between us?”

  They both shut their mouths and their objections. Kai knew that there was nothing they could say to him anyway, not with what they had done in their pasts. He smiled softly and kissed Jessie’s head. Neither parent saying anything else condemning on the subject, Kai looked down on Jessie. “Come on, I want to show you my hometown.”

  She nodded eagerly, biting her lip, then leaned up and kissed him. Kai thought he heard his father sigh, but he ignored him. He ignored everything but the warm woman under his lips. That was enough. She was enough.

  ***********

  After a short flight from the main airport to the smaller airport on Kai’s home island, Kai and Jessie were alone in a car with the man that Kai had believed was his father his entire life. Jessie looked over at her uncle as they drove along in complete silence. She hadn’t ever met the man before, but the resemblance to her was there. Jessie squeezed Kai’s hand as they sat together in the back seat. Before he’d known the truth, Kai had probably had a hard time looking at Jessie without seeing shades of his father in her countenance.

  Kai squeezed her hand back but didn’t look at her. His eyes were locked on his father’s back, both men looked contemplative. With Leilani following in the car behind, the small group eventually made it to one of the two homes that Kai had been raised in. As his eyes took in the modest dwelling, the corners of his lips curved up. Jessie supposed that a part of him was happy to be back here, even if it was sort of painful.

  Her uncle’s house was in a pretty secluded area, green life abundant all the way around it. The flat, black-roofed home had a barn behind it and Jessie remembered Kai telling her about horseback riding here with his dad. Jessie smiled that at least Kai had very good memories with her uncle; they hopefully outnumbered the few bad ones.

  Stepping out of the car, the humid air immediately made her feel dewy. Kai stepped out after her, looking perfectly at ease in the environment. Walking around to her, Kai extended his hand. Jessie grabbed it, sidling up next to him. She noticed her uncle take in their closeness, but he didn’t comment on it. Jessie was glad he chose not to, she really didn’t want to create any tension in her family by loving Kai.

  Leilani pulled up a few moments later and also glanced at Jessie and Kai. She only smiled though and helped Jessie get her bags out of the back of the car. Her uncle helped with Kai’s bags and between the four of them, they had their things situated in Kai’s old room pretty quickly.

  Jessie noticed that while friendly, Kai’s parents were pretty distant from each other. It seemed pretty clear to her that any love between them had died the moment Uncle Nate had discovered the truth. It saddened her that they’d each had to experience such pain and loss, but she was still a little happy about the situation too. It was the only reason she and Kai could be together.

  Leilani stayed for a quiet, peaceful supper, then reluctantly said her goodbyes for the evening. As she hugged Kai for about the fifth time, her face looked worn and sad. She seemed positive that if she left Kai alone with his father, Kai would feel differently about her the next time he saw her. Knowing Kai like she did, Jessie was pretty sure that wouldn’t happen.

  Jessie yawned as she said her goodbyes to Leilani. When the door shut behind her, Kai squeezed Jessie’s waist. “Why don’t you go to bed…I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Knowing that Kai was probably as jet-lagged as her, finally having adjusted to her time zone, she looked past him to her uncle. Nathan had his head down, obviously waiting to talk to his son in private. Switching back to Kai, she hugged him close. “I’m here when you need me.” He smiled and nodded, leaning down to kiss her.

  Hoping the conversation between the two went well, Jessie shuffled off to Kai’s childhood room to get ready for bed. After changing and brushing her teeth, she curled into his twin bed, smiling at all the signs of a young Kai around the room. While it wasn’t a kids room anymore, there was evidence that it had been once – old stickers on the dressers, army men shoved in a gap between the window frame, a poster of a bikini clad Baywatch girl on the wall.

  Smiling at the image of Kai as a boy, the scent of him around the room, Jessie closed her eyes and let the exhaustion flow into her. As she started fading, she heard low voices through the walls. Realizing that Kai and his dad must be right outside talking, Jessie fought through the fatigue to listen.

  Kai’s voice broke through the stillness of the night. “Dad, why didn’t you just tell me? I mean, I can understand not wanting to when I was young, but I haven’t been young for awhile.” He paused for a second and Jessie shifted to face the direction of the open window. “Why send me to Mason?”

  Uncle Nathan let out a long, tired sigh. “I tried to tell you, Kai. You have no idea how many times I stared at you as a child and tried to tell you.” He sighed again and paused long seconds before continuing. “But every time, the anger, betrayal…it all popped back up and I…I just couldn’t make the words come out.”

  Jessie sat up, feeling sympathy for her uncle sweep over her. She supposed that none of this had been easy on him, and he’d been dealing with it for so long. He continued in a soft voice and Jessie tilted her head to hear him better. “After years of that, of not being able to talk to you like I wanted to…it ate at me. I knew I needed you to know.”

  He paused again, and Jessie tried to picture having a conversation like this with her own father. She had trouble picturing it. “I figured, since I physically couldn’t tell you, and Leilani wouldn’t tell you…maybe he…maybe he could tell you?” Her uncle sighed heavily again. “Once I had that thought, it sort of consumed me, and then I needed it to be him that told you.”

  Jessie looked down at the black and white sheets of Kai’s bed, torn for both of them, all of them really. Kai exhaled, not speaking for long moments. “I wish you had somehow found a way to tell me, Dad. It hurt so much to have a stranger do it.” Jessie closed her eyes, remembering how she’d found Kai. She’d never seen someone so shaken up.

  Her uncle didn’t respond to that right away. “I’m so sorry, son. I was wrong. I promise you that I will never deceive you like that again.” Jessie smiled, relaxing back on Kai’s pillows. Maybe they’d all come out of this stronger. “I’m so…I’m so glad you still call me Dad.” Jessie smiled wider after hearing Uncle Nathan say those words.

  Kai laughed a little, the sound lightening the emotion Jessie could feel pouring in from outside. “Of course I’ll still call you Dad…it’s who you are.”

  Jessie heard the men shuffling, and imagined that they were hugging. “I love you, Kai.”

  “I love you too, Dad.” Jessie started falling asleep with a smile on her face and tears on her cheeks, happy that even though the blood bond had been broken between them, the bond of love hadn’t been.

  After that candid conversation, things between Kai and his father were less tension filled. Their relationship seemed to even out some, once the sting of deception and lack of communication started dulling. They often sat on the lanai after dinner, talking late into the night while Jessie crawled into Kai’s childhood bed. Before she fell asleep at night, she’d be comforted by the sounds of their reconnection. Through the walls she would listen to her uncle repeat his guilt and grief at not having had the strength to tell Kai himself. For his part, Kai was pretty sympathetic to the man’s feelings. When Jessie asked him about it, he told Jessie that it wasn’t his dad’s fault that he hadn’t been the one to create him, and he couldn’t
imagine having to tell a child something that hard.

  And after that first day, Kai’s parents, for the most part, accepted her and Kai’s relationship. Jessie had to believe that it was a little awkward for them, especially for her uncle. Being family naturally, there was a bond already in place between them, and he was having a little trouble seeing past the cousin connection, since Kai was as much a son to him as to any father. Jessie understood. Even for her, it was sort of weird to call Kai’s dad, Uncle. A part of her wanted to drop the familial term and just call him Nathan, but it was too ingrained in her head. It seemed to be in his too, since he always called her Jessica, and only Jessie’s family ever did that.

  But he didn’t say anything negative about her and Kai being together, not even when he’d walked in on a pretty heavy make out session that they’d been having on his couch. No, instead of freaking out at the display, he’d only mumbled several apologies and hastily fled the room. Jessie tried to keep the PDA to a minimum after the incident. She really didn’t want to make Kai’s family, her family, uncomfortable, especially in their own homes.

  On their final day in Hawaii, Kai took Jessie to a private beach that he loved, to do something with her that Jessie had been hoping he’d find time to do with her on this trip. Something she’d been dying to do since arriving here. Something she, in all honesty, had been waiting her entire life to do.

  Sitting on a surfboard, Jessie floated in the relative calm of the Pacific Ocean. Being just behind the breakers, she stared over at the tumultuous waves crashing into the seemingly hard beach. She had no idea how people did this. She’d been attempting to successfully ride down one of those waves all morning. So far, she’d swallowed about a quarter of the ocean and hadn’t even successfully popped up on the board.

  A wave of water splashing across her face tore her attention from the pounding surf. The sun beat on her back as the muggy air kept her in a state of warmth, despite the chill in the deep water. Brushing aside the droplets, Jessie looked over at Kai laughing at her. He’d spent the morning trying to teach her the basics on land, but not wanting to be shown up, since Kai had sort of succeeded at skiing, Jessie had insisted that they head out into the water.

  Kai laughed harder at the look of irritancy on her face. The water drops gleamed in his slicked back hair and for a moment, Jessie couldn’t recall seeing anything more natural looking than Kai in the water. Shaking his head, he teased her with, “Not as easy as it looks, is it Mountain Girl?” He laughed again.

  Jessie attempted to douse him with a tidal wave of water, but nearly fell off her floating board. Kai tilted his head toward the sand. “Come on, one more try then we’ll go in.”

  Jessie sighed, but nodded. She could do one more try. Kai chuckled then started paddling away. Smiling as she watched the muscles expand and contract under that exotic skin, his dark as night tattoo matching the black shade of his board shorts, Jessie slowly started paddling out after him. Kai’s shouted some last minute instructions for her, then scanned the break for the wave he wanted. Seeing it, he took off after it. Jessie watched him effortlessly pop up on his board and duck over the top of the wave, hovering on the brink of going over. He held that position, his body gloriously tight as he used ever blessed muscle to steady himself, until the momentum of the wave dropped off and he slid over the end.

  Wondering if she’d ever be able to do that, Jessie searched …for something. Shrugging, since she really had no idea what to look for, she paddled toward the endlessly cresting water. She balanced on her hands and prepared to jump her feet up. This was the part that usually had her flinging herself into the water. Holding her breath, she went for it. Surprise and shock hit her as she managed to get both feet on the board at the same time. She nearly fell off in her excitement, but managed to hold it together long enough to slip over what turned out to be a very gentle wave. Mimicking Kai’s body and position, she made minor adjustments to keep the board steady. She was expecting it to feel sort of like skiing, but it didn’t really. The only thing the two had in common to Jessie was the rush. That was the same.

  She dived off the board at the end, when she finally felt herself start to fall, then grabbed her board and swam back to the shore. Kai was watching her, whistling a bit as he stood on the beach, one hand on his hip, the other on his board.

  Jessie giggled as she ran up to him, excited that she’d actually done it. His eyes flicked down her bikini and she felt a different sort of excitement flush through her. Throwing an arm around his waist, she leaned up for his lips. He congratulated her around their mouths, his hand wrapping around her waist and then down her back to cup her bottom. That gave her a rush too, just an entirely different one.

  Dropping her board into the soft sand near their feet, she reached her other hand up his chest. He dropped his board too, angling it back so it didn’t hit hers. Both hands now free, he grabbed her backside so firmly she squeaked. A pleasing noise rumbled low in his chest. “You were right.”

  Feeling like they should be somewhere more private, so it would be completely okay for those miraculous fingers to slip into the other side of her bikini, she murmured, “What?”

  Chuckling between their lips, he said, “The bikini…you do rock it.”

  Breaking apart from him, she slung her arms around his neck and shook her head at him. Gazing at those eyes that were more amazing than the waters she’d just crawled out of, she felt a pressure in her chest that bordered on the edge of pain. Love beyond reason, that was what she felt for him. She was sure, more sure than she’d ever been in her life, that the man in her arms was going to be her husband. She didn’t quite know how that would happen, since in the eyes of the law they were technically cousins still, and in most States that just wasn’t allowed. But even if it was only symbolic, she knew that Kai was the one – the one she wanted beside her forever.

  He tilted his head at her, grinning crookedly in a way that quickened Jessie’s heart. “We’re heading home tomorrow…are you ready to leave all of this?” His eyes looked around her, at the magnificence of the island’s paradise.

  Jessie’s arms tightening around him, her gaze never leaving him, she firmly said, “I’m going wherever you’re going, whether that’s staying here on the beach, going back home to the snow…or just making out in the back of your mom’s car.”

  He grinned wider, shook his head, then leaned back in to kiss her. “Well, being wet will make you chilly, even here…so let’s get you dry first.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Then we can make out.”

  She laughed and nodded while they collected their stuff. As they drove back to Kai’s strange sounding hometown, Jessie took a moment to appreciate the bounty of life on display for her. She wasn’t sure when she’d be back here after tomorrow, but she felt pretty confident that her future with Kai would include a few more trips this way. He would at least want to see his folks once a year? Jessie had a feeling that she’d be insisting on it.

  Smiling at the waterfalls tucked behind the emerald green vegetation bursting with tropical flowers so bright they almost seemed unreal, Jessie hoped that their next visit wasn’t too far in the future.

  While they had spent the nights here with Kai’s father, during the day, Jessie and Kai had spent most of their time with his mother. Kai’s relationship with her was…different, or so Leilani had confessed to her one afternoon, while Kai had been playing in the surf nearby.

  Listening to Kai’s mother express her grief over the constant lies and deceptions she’d had to tell him, that she’d had to tell both of Kai’s fathers, Jessie couldn’t stop herself from having some compassion for the woman. Sure, she had hurt and betrayed three men…but no one really knows what they might do in a situation, until they’re waist deep in it. And Leilani had gotten in way over her head, so far in, that she hadn’t been able to see a way out of it, except to lie, repeatedly.

  As Kai drove his mother’s car back to her place near the beach, Jessie wondered if Kai and his Leilani would ever
have that tight bond again. She hoped so. Close to her own parents, even though they’d moved away awhile ago, Jessie understood the importance of tight knit parent-child bonds. There was nothing quite like it, knowing that no matter what, no matter who you became or what you did in your life, someone had your back, someone loved you unconditionally. She wanted Kai and his mother to have that again.

  As they pulled up the gravel drive, the tinier, feminine version of Kai stepped from her porch, smiling and waving at them. Her long, dark hair blowing back from her face in the slight breeze, she gingerly stepped over to the car. Kai sighed as he watched her approach and Jessie twisted to look at him. “She loves you, you know.”

  Kai tore his eyes from his mother to look back at Jessie. Smiling softly, he nodded. “Yeah, I know. Sometimes I don’t feel like I know much, but that, I do know.”

  He leaned over to give Jessie a light kiss. Even with all the time they’d had together, even with the fact that they could openly be together now, it still quickened Jessie’s heart when he touched her, kissed her. She had to force herself to not grab a thick section of his hair and forcibly pull him back to her mouth. That just wouldn’t be appropriate, not with his tiny mother opening the car door.