“Deep breaths,” she whispered to herself, ignoring the stare of an older woman at the next sink. Lou confronted her reflection with a reproachable glare. “Pull yourself together,” she told herself.
The woman at the sink next to Lou gave her a funny look and hurried out of the restroom without drying her hands.
Lou sighed and pulled her emergency makeup kit from her bag. She looked terrible. Her hair was a mess, and there were dark circles under her eyes. When she looked into her own eyes, she saw someone she didn’t recognize. Someone who’d cheated on her boyfriend, and didn’t regret it. The only thing she regretted was leaving Keoni.
She looked away from her reflection, choking back a sob. She yanked a brush through her tangled hair, smelling the coconut shampoo from Keoni’s shower. She touched powder over her nose and forehead, then dabbed on some lipstick, all without meeting her own eyes in the mirror.
Goddammit! What was Paul doing here? She hadn’t asked him to pick her up. Closing her eyes, Lou bent her head over the sink and tried to work through a plan. She needed a plan, she thought, hitting her forehead with the palm of her hand. Lou always had a plan. The moment she’d deviated from it, all hell had broken loose.
Steeling herself to face Paul, Lou washed and dried her hands, straightened her posture, and went back out into the airport. She would tell him she was tired, she thought, fleshing out a thin plan. She would tell him she was exhausted and needed rest, and then she would crawl under her covers and figure out the rest in the morning.
Lou saw Paul right away. He was standing inside the doors of the airport smoking a cigarette. His eyes swept over the crowds with a look of disdain. She knew he hated traveling, and he hated the airport. Lou imagined it had cost Paul quite a bit to show up here to collect her.
She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. He was a tall man with an imposing air of authority. He was dressed impeccably in a black raincoat that covered an expensive suit. His face was half hidden under the brim of a wool hat that sparkled with raindrops.
Lou felt a pang in her heart looking at him. Had she ever really loved him? Or had she just loved the idea of him? He was smart and ambitious, handsome and strong. But he didn’t make her laugh, and he didn’t kiss her as if it was the only thing in the world he wanted to do.
Their eyes met over the crowd, and Paul smiled, pulling a bouquet of drenched flowers from behind his back. He dropped the cigarette to the ground, crushed it under his shoe, and strode toward her.
Lou reminded herself that Paul Sullivan was everything she had always wanted in a man. She smiled back and went to greet him.
The flowers were red roses. They were wilted with the weight of the rain on their petals, and they smelled like wet wool. They were a far cry from the fragrant lei Keoni had slipped around Lou’s neck in Honolulu.
“The flowers got a little wet,” Paul said. “Sorry about that.”
Lou took the flowers and tilted her face up for a kiss. Paul brushed his lips over hers. When Paul tried to linger, Lou turned her cheek and buried her face against his collar. He patted her back and after a moment released her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, holding back tears.
Paul’s eyebrows lifted under the brim of his hat. “You aren’t happy to see me?”
“Of course I am,” Lou said. Her head began to ache with the effort of trying to smile. “It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.”
“Of course,” Paul said, the cheer returning to his voice. “Penny looks like someone’s been beating her with a stick. Both of you girls need some rest.”
“Yes,” Lou said.
She let Paul lead her through the airport.
“You’ll never guess where I had dinner tonight,” he said.
“Where?” Lou asked, fixing her hood over her hair as they walked outside.
“Dr. Martin’s,” Paul said.
Lou had no idea who Dr. Martin was, but she said, “Really? That’s wonderful.”
“It is! I think he can get me a position with Judge Sodderman this summer.”
Paul led Lou to the car and opened the passenger door for her. Penny was already in the back seat. Lou turned to look at Penny as Paul walked around the front of the car.
“You okay?” Lou asked.
Penny shrugged and looked out the window. She didn’t say a word the entire ride home.
When they arrived at their apartment, Paul carried their luggage upstairs for them.
“Geez,” he said, struggling with the heavy suitcases. “These weigh a ton.”
Lou didn’t invite Paul to stay, and he was disappointed but didn’t push her.
“I’m too tired,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Paul pulled her into his arms. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“It’s Monday,” Paul said.
“Oh, yes,” Lou said. On Mondays, they went to Jefferson’s. “I’ll meet you there,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek and pushing him out into the hall.
She closed the door and leaned against it, listening to Paul’s footsteps fade away down the stairs.
Penny went into the kitchen to call Henry. A few minutes later, she came back with no news. He hadn’t answered.
They sat down on the sofa to wait. They were both exhausted, but there was no way they could go to sleep without hearing about Bones.
“Are you going to tell Paul about Keoni?” Penny asked.
“I don’t know.” She stood up and paced the room. “Are you going to tell Joe?”
Penny nodded. “I’m breaking up with him tomorrow.”
“Penny!” Lou cried. “You don’t mean it.”
Penny glared at Lou. “I do mean it.”
“At least think about it for a few days.”
“Oh, come off it, Lou!” Penny said. “You don’t care about me and Joe. All you care about is living out your plan no matter what the cost.”
“That’s not true.”
“Of course it is. You could have had two weeks with Keoni if you wouldn’t have been so stubborn.”
“I wasn’t being stubborn,” Lou insisted. “I was trying to be faithful.”
The words came out harsher than Lou had intended.
Penny flinched as if Lou had struck her. “Guess you didn’t try hard enough,” she said.
Hot tears spilled down Lou’s cheeks, and she turned away. A moment later, she felt Penny’s arms around her.
“I’m sorry,” Penny said. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I know,” Lou said, hugging Penny.
“Do you love him?”
Lou knew Penny wasn’t talking about Paul. She was talking about Keoni.
Lou nodded. Yes, she loved him. Yes, her heart was broken. But at least Keoni was alive. She would never see him again, but at least she knew he was safe, at least for now. She couldn’t imagine the pain Penny was feeling, wondering if Bones would live through the night.
“I’m sorry, too,” Lou said.
They went back to the sofa, and settled in to wait for a phone call from Hawaii, praying it would be good news.
Molaka’i
Keoni
* * *
The living room of the Keaukalanis’ house was packed with people, but hardly anyone was speaking to each other. Everyone was gathered around the kitchen table, drinking strong coffee and staring hopefully at the phone.
Bones had been missing for over six hours. The sky was growing dark, and they had only a few more minutes of search time before they had to give up.
Keoni finished the song and started playing Otis Redding’s hit again. Thoughts of the last time he’d played the song on the beach with Lou filled his head. He remembered the way she had looked at him across the fire.
Keoni’s hands stilled on the guitar, and he sighed heavily.
Lou had done nothing but give him mixed signals the entire time she’d been in Hawaii. She’d reeled him in with a glance or a casual to
uch, and then she’d pushed him away. He’d resisted her, telling himself she was off-limits because she was a tourist. Keoni should have followed his instincts and stayed the hell away from her. His predictions had come true.
He’d fallen for Lou, and now she was gone.
Keoni was left picking up the pieces, just like when Claudia had left six years ago. Keoni had only been nineteen years old when he’d met Claudia Jones and fallen in love with her. He’d always blamed his stupidity on youth, but he was a man now and had no one to blame but himself.
“Play us another.”
Keoni pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked up at the woman standing in front of him. Only a few months ago, Ryla had been a girl. It seemed she had blossomed into a beautiful woman overnight. She wore a colorful strapless dressed tied in a knot between her breasts that hung loosely to her calves. She had flowers woven into her waist-length dark hair. She must have just come from her gig at the airport—she was still wearing her stage makeup.
Keoni adjusted the strings on his guitar and began playing a traditional Hawaiian folk song. Ryla smiled as she recognized the tune, but her eyes were haunted with worry. She sat down on the floor at Keoni’s feet and began to sing.
The crowded room went silent as Ryla’s enchanting voice filled the air. She sang the lyrics in the old tongue, and her voice was so filled with emotion and beauty that Keoni felt his eyes fill with tears.
As Keoni strummed the last note on his guitar, his eyes met Ryla’s and they smiled at each other. They had always made a good team. Ryla’s sweet soprano voice blended effortlessly with Keoni’s deep baritone.
“Another?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
Keoni nodded and adjusted the strings for another song. Playing guitar and singing usually took his mind off his troubles. Tonight it was proving hard to forget about Bones and Lou. He had to force himself to focus on the chords.
If only he hadn’t fallen asleep, Keoni thought. If he’d been on the dive, Bones would have never gone missing.
Keoni stopped playing in the middle of the song and pinched the bridge of his nose to clear his thoughts. Lou had told him he was egotistical thinking that he could save everyone. She’d said he was no more responsible for Eddie’s death than he was for Kimo’s safety in Vietnam. Keoni wished he could believe it. He wished Lou was here now to tell him again, to hold him and give him her strength.
He felt Ryla’s hand on his arm, and he opened his eyes to look at her.
“Don’t stop,” she said, squeezing his arm. “You’re making everyone feel better with your music.”
Keoni shook his head, looking deeply into Ryla’s brown eyes. She had a rare beauty that matched her exquisite voice. With her full mouth and dark eyes, Ryla looked exactly like the drawings of the Hawaiian goddess Pele.
Why couldn’t Keoni have fallen in love with Ryla instead of Lou? It would have been so much simpler. Ryla was equally as beautiful as Lou, maybe even more so. Ryla was kind and loyal. She loved her family as much as Keoni loved his. And she was Hawaiian. She would never leave the islands and abandon her home. Keoni had known Ryla since they were kids, and even though he was older than her, it wasn’t by that much. They were both adults. It could have worked.
Unfortunately, Keoni loved a woman who had refused to give him more than one night of herself. But what did love matter anyway?
Keoni glanced up at the clock on the kitchen wall. Time moved slowly as they waited. Hopefully, it was slow enough to allow Bones to resurface. Once darkness fell, his chances of being rescued were slim to none.
The shrill noise of the phone ringing pierced the tension in the room. Auntie K snatched the phone off the wall before it could ring twice. She held the phone to her ear, and the tears started flowing before she even said hello.
Keoni’s uncle pried the phone from his wife’s hand. “Hello?” he asked, his gruff voice crackling.
The entire room went still. Except for Auntie K’s crying, there wasn’t a sound.
“Oh, thank god, son!”
Bones was okay. Everyone began talking at once.
“Keoni,” his uncle said, waving him over to the phone. “Bones wants you.”
In two long strides, Keoni was at his uncle’s side, reaching for the phone. Tears were already shining in his eyes as he held the phone to his ear.
Bones’s voice came booming over the line. “Howzit?”
“You’re alive, then?” Keoni asked, not caring that he was crying openly. Half the people in the room were bawling, and the other half were opening cabinets and finding the stash of booze the Keaukalanis had in their cupboards.
“I’m alive,” Bones said.
It was enough for Keoni just hearing his voice. “I’m sorry I was late.”
“It’s not a problem. I get to keep all the cash myself, eh?”
“We thought you were dead,” Keoni said, feeling the initial euphoria give way to despair. He’d let Bones down, and he would never forgive himself.
“Did they leave?” Bones asked, the bravado in his voice disappearing.
“Yeah, they’re gone, bruddah.”
“K’den,” Bones said. “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” Keoni said, although he wasn’t sure he agreed. He would have given anything to have Lou’s arms around him right now.
Arrangements were made for Bones to be picked up in Moloka’i. He’d ended up swimming nearly five miles to get there after coming up from his dive to find the current had pushed him out of sight of Henry and the boat. He’d walked down the road from Keawanui Beach to the first phone he found and called home. He was still wearing his wetsuit.
The Keaukalanis were ecstatic over Bones’s miraculous reappearance. Those not going on the rescue mission to retrieve Bones from the small island off Maui decided to throw an impromptu party that began with cups being filled from a jug of swipe, the potent homemade liquor that Hawaiians were famous for brewing.
Henry came over to hand Keoni a cup, and they toasted to Bones’s life.
“Do you want to call, or should I?” Henry asked.
“You,” Keoni said.
They drank to Bones. Keoni gulped half the contents of the cup in one long sip, then put it down with a gasp. The brew was so strong that it stung his throat as he swallowed. His eyes watered and his chest burned as the liquor spread through him. He took another sip and felt pleasantly numb all over.
“Easy with that,” Ryla said, laughing at Keoni.
“I can handle it,” he said, taking another sip as if to prove it to both of them. He eyed Ryla over the lip of the cup. “You’re the one who should be careful. You’re half my size.”
“I’m not a little girl anymore,” Ryla said, smirking as she raised the cup to her boldly painted mouth. “In case you didn’t notice.”
His eyes dropped down her body. Her strapless dress displayed the smooth skin of her shoulders and a daring amount of cleavage. He noticed.
Keoni raised his cup to Ryla in silent cheers, and drank deep. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast with Lou early that morning, and the swipe was going straight to his head.
It had been one of the longest days of his life, and he was thankful that it would soon be over. He’d lost the love of his life, but at least Bones wasn’t dead. At least he didn’t have another death on his hands.
He felt like getting smashed.
“You want to get drunk?” he asked Ryla. Without waiting for an answer, he refilled their cups with the jug of swipe. “Let’s get drunk.”
“Okay,” she said, laughing. “It’s been a rough day.”
“The worst,” Keoni agreed.
He tipped back the full cup, gulping it down.
“How’s Kimo?” Ryla asked.
Keoni shrugged. “He’s awrite I guess,” Keoni said.
Keoni hadn’t heard from his brother since he’d left for San Diego. But Keoni didn’t think that was unusual. He wouldn’t officially start worrying about Kimo until he was fighting i
n Vietnam.
His mind wandered to Lou and her brother, John. Lou hadn’t heard from her brother in a month. Was he still alive? Keoni shoved the thought of Lou away with another long sip of swipe.
His entire body was buzzing now after two cups. He knew he shouldn’t play around with swipe. Made from fermented pineapples and sugar, it was a potent liquor that the Keaukalanis were famous for all over the island. Mr. K wouldn’t share his secret recipe with anyone. One thing was for sure if you wanted to get drunk quickly, swipe did one hell of a job.
One cup of swipe could make you forget all your problems. Two cups could make you feel like conquering the world. Three cups could bring problems you didn’t know you had. Keoni had seen brothers try to kill each other over too much swipe. He’d seen grown men pass out in their plates after drinking too much. Swipe was dangerous, and it was already going to his head.
“Excuse me,” Keoni said to Ryla, getting up from the sofa.
He felt nauseous, but he made it to the bathroom without getting sick. He closed the door behind him and stuck his head in the sink, splashing water over his face. The cold water shocked his system, and finally, the room stopped spinning. Keoni ran his hands through his hair and took a long look at himself in the mirror.
Everything is going to be okay, he told his reflection.
Lou was gone, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He would wake up tomorrow, and it would be a new day. He would move on. Lou would move on. The earth would keep spinning.
Keoni reached for the door, trying to decide if he wanted to keep drinking or go home. Getting drunk wasn’t making him feel any better. He should go home.
He stepped out into the hall and started back to the living room where the volume of noise seemed to have risen while he’d been in the bathroom. Were there more people in the house now than when he’d gone into the bathroom? It was a chaotic scene, everyone talking at once. Keoni’s head spun with the noise. He leaned against the wall for support and closed his eyes.
“You okay?” Ryla asked.
Keoni opened his eyes and squinted down at her. He shook his head. No, he wasn’t okay. “It’s too loud,” he said, gesturing toward the crowded living room.
Try Easy: A Slow-Burn Vacation Fling Love Story (Aloha Series Book 1) Page 16