by Edie Claire
I did sympathize with her on that one. “Sorry.”
Tara shook her head. “Well, hey, if we don’t connect by the time I have to leave, it’s his loss. Whatever’s in his suitcase that isn’t moldy, my brothers can fight over. Damon would like those boardshorts.”
“Hey, Kali!” a happy voice chirped. “Catch!”
I turned to see Kylee, who had been sitting on the beach what seemed like five seconds ago, now up to her knees in water standing next to Curtis. She was preparing to fling the disc at me, and I put up my hands, but it was only for show. Kylee and I both knew the disc had zero chance of ending up anywhere near me. She flung it with all her might, and it spun out sideways high up in the air.
“I got it!” Curtis’s brother yelled playfully. But no — Curtis’s brother was standing on the far side of Tara. The one currently splashing after the disc was a new guy with sandy red hair and freckles. There were three of them.
“Fished in,” Tara murmured.
“Hey!” Kylee called out to us enthusiastically, greeting us as if we hadn’t seen each other in weeks. “Have you met Flynn and Wes?”
Tara shook her head. “How does she do that so fast?” she muttered to me as the other two guys took the cue and all of them approached us. Kylee was grinning from ear to ear as she splashed over, but as soon as she arrived the smile on her face evaporated.
I cast a quick glance over Tara’s shoulder to see where Kylee was staring. I saw nothing but blue ocean and a handful of kayakers farther out in the bay. Kylee swallowed hard and turned to hold my gaze.
Ghost!
Gotcha.
Curtis made a bunch of introductions and I pretended to pay attention. Kylee didn’t seem afraid of what she was seeing this time. She just seemed… intrigued. She even managed to get some small talk going within the group, even as her eyes kept darting to the space on the water behind Tara. Then she looked at me expectantly.
I made some small talk too, although I have no idea what I said. Then, very carefully, I attempted to lift my new and improved blind. I didn’t want to get socked with a sucker punch of hostility again — or worse. This time, I intended to stay in control.
I began at the bottom of the blind and visualized a tiny crack where the glow lessened and a draft blew through. Then I braced myself.
Lust.
Oh, come on! I looked up at the three smiling, perfectly friendly guys from Tennessee. Curse Kylee’s bikini and Tara’s sexy one-piece! Either the ghost had disappeared already or whatever feelings it had were getting drowned out by those of the living.
I pretended to cough, then took a step back behind Tara’s shoulder, roughly in the area where I thought Kylee had been looking. Then I removed my blind completely.
Lust.
I groaned internally. I tried my best to screen out that particular emotion and search for something else. And there was something else, but it was hard to describe. Kind of like… steadfastness. Or loyalty. Along with a certain defensiveness. And pride.
Say what?
“So, you live here, Kali?” Curtis’s older brother asked. I straightened up to find him smiling at me. “You go to the University of Hawaii?”
I had no idea if he was Flynn or Wes. “No, I’ll be a senior at Frederick High,” I answered. “But my boyfriend is starting at UH next week.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” he replied, even as Kylee frowned at me.
He didn’t look disappointed, but I could feel that he was. Not only that, but his friends were disappointed, too. Guess I’d just ruined the numbers game. Still, Curtis — at least I think that vibe was coming from Curtis — was optimistic. He really, really liked Kylee’s bikini.
Did I want to know all this? I put my blind back in place.
Much better.
Curtis and Kylee kept up their flirting, but lacking suitable encouragement from Tara or me, Flynn and Wes moved off and went back to throwing their disc again. Kylee gave no further signs of seeing a ghost — or if she did, she no longer cared — and after Tara and I had enjoyed a leisurely swim, we returned to the beach.
“No!” Tara shouted the second she replaced her glasses and took a look at her phone. “I missed another call from TJ!” She punched through to her voice mail messages and held out the phone where I could hear.
“Hey. Yeah, sorry. Been on the Big Island. Family thing. Can we maybe, um, do tomorrow? Or… well… just call me back, okay? Bye.”
Tara exhaled with relief. “Well, at least he’s not blowing me off completely. Still, this may go on a while. How much you want to bet he doesn’t answer?” She tapped call.
“I bet nothing,” I answered.
“Me neither.” She waited about twenty seconds, then tossed the phone back in her bag. “As expected. I’m not leaving another message yet. I’m going to keep calling him. I may start texting him, too. In fact, I am about to become Tim Jones’ worst nightmare.”
Kylee skipped up to us. “That was so much fun!” she chirped. “Bummer they have to leave tonight! Wes goes to the University of Tennessee, and Curtis is about to start at crap he’s right behind you again!”
Tara and I both stared at her. “Curtis is what?” Tara exclaimed.
“Behind you!” Kylee insisted. “The new ghost!” Her eyes were fixed between our shoulders. We turned. Of course, we saw nothing.
“I thought he had to stay in the water, what with his board and all!” Kylee continued. “But he’s just holding it now.”
This was getting weirder by the minute. “Another surfer?” I asked.
Kylee nodded. “Well this one is, anyway. I’m not convinced Jabba the Hutt does anything but beat up on people, but this one’s different. He’s normal. He’s not threatening or anything.”
“Describe him to us,” I begged.
She cocked her head as if to study him better. “He reminds me of those soldiers you see in London in those little box things. You now, the ones who are supposed to stand guard with no expression on their faces for hours and hours? He’s short, and he’s bald, and he’s pretty thin, but still muscular. Looks about thirty, maybe. He’s wearing those dorky mid-thigh swim trunks from the seventies, and he’s got tattoos on his arms. He comes and goes, but every time he looks the same. He never moves. There — he’s gone again.”
I considered the idea a moment. “I did get the feeling he was guarding something,” I admitted. “Like by being where he was, or doing what he was doing, he was being loyal. He was defending something he cared about. Something he thought was really important.”
All three of us started looking around on the ground.
“Well, I give up,” Tara announced. “I don’t have TJ’s suitcase here.”
“But we were talking about it!” I recalled. “You had just said that if Tim Jones never called back, you were going to give his clothes to your brothers!”
We stared at each other.
“Please, Kali,” Tara said heavily. “I have enough trouble believing in empathic perception, spectral visualization, and now remote viewing. Do not ask me to believe that all the powers of the afterlife have been unleashed in defense of Tim Jones’ boardshorts.”
Kylee and I dissolved into laughter. “Well,” I said, “if you put it like that, it does sound pretty ridiculous.”
“There must be some other explanation!” Kylee agreed. We began walking towards the car. We had taken about a dozen steps when she stopped in her tracks.
“What?” Tara and I cried together.
“He’s following you,” Kylee whispered, gesturing with her head to the air right behind us.
“So, tell him I got dibs on the front seat,” Tara threw over her shoulder, walking on.
Kylee looked at me. “Can you feel him?”
I shook my head. “I’d rather not try. I need practice with my new blocking technique.”
We started walking again. “He’s gone already anyway. That reminds me,” Kylee asked curiously, “what has Zane seen since we left the Pali? Did he see the guys?”
I shook my head. “He shouldn’t have.”
“But you dropped your blind long enough to feel the ghost, didn’t you?”
Whoops. She was right. What if Zane had tuned in right then? It was pretty unlikely. But still…
I reached into my bag and felt around for my phone. I hadn’t actually checked it since before we went swimming.
“Uh-oh,” Kylee teased. “Hope Zane’s not the jealous type! Didn’t you drop your defenses right when all three guys were there and Wes was hitting on you?”
I frowned at her. Zane was never controlling, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t bother him to watch some other guy flirting with his girlfriend. The reverse certainly bugged the heck out of me. I pulled up the phone. “I do have a text,” I murmured. “But nobody was ‘hitting on’ me!”
“Unless Zane can read lips, he wouldn’t know what Wes was saying,” Kylee pointed out. “And if you put your block back in place in the middle of that conversation, and it’s still working, it could look like you intentionally shut Zane out from that moment on.”
Oh, no. She was right! I pulled up the text feeling terrible.
“Well? Did he tune in then?” Kylee prompted worriedly. “Did he see you with the guys?”
I read the text, then breathed out with relief. My face broke into a smile. “He did,” I answered warmly. “But he’s okay.”
I turned the screen so she could see it.
Good thing I trust you.
Chapter 12
Lacey jumped into my back seat the next morning with a smile wider and more genuine than any I’d seen on her face in ages. “I cannot believe I have an entire day of freedom!” she gushed, dropping her beach bag by her feet and buckling up. “Even if the mechanic fixes the pump today, it’ll still take us all day tomorrow to get the pool ready again. And every day longer it takes to fix the pump is a day I’m not yelling at kids to stop drowning each other! Hoorah!”
Kylee, Tara, and I all laughed as I pulled my dad’s car out onto the street and pointed us toward the North Shore.
“I’m so glad you could come,” I exclaimed, meaning it more than she knew. “Matt told Zane yesterday he didn’t think he had to work the lunch shift today, so we asked him to join us, too. I’m hoping he’ll make it, but so far this morning he isn’t answering.”
“Good luck with that!” Lacey scoffed. “Matt was impossible enough to catch up with before football practice started. Now that he’s working lunch and graveyard and driving back and forth in between, he doesn’t even sleep at home. He and his friend have just been crashing in that room above the restaurant. He’s been bugging me to come hang out on the North Shore all summer, but he knows I don’t have a car, or any time off.”
“Well, I hope he makes it,” Tara offered from the passenger seat beside me. “The more, the merrier.”
I grinned at Tara’s unusually social attitude. She was in a good mood this morning. Not only had we all finally gotten a decent night’s sleep last night, but she’d even managed to have a constructive text exchange with Tim Jones. We were meeting him later this afternoon in Mililani, partway between Honolulu and the North Shore, to pick up Tara’s suitcase and to dispose of its troublemaking counterpart, which was currently stowed in my trunk.
“Matt had better make the effort to join us, at least long enough to say hi,” Lacey proclaimed. “Or else we’re breaking into that restaurant so I can go wake his lazy butt up!”
I chuckled to myself. So far, my plan was going splendidly. Matt and Lacey were finally both single, and slimeball Austin had at least helped Lacey get over her longtime boyfriend and Matt’s erstwhile best friend Ty. Surely now the two of them could get over the crazy big brother/little sister thing they had going on and wake up to the obvious.
We cruised through the middle of the island, up the valley between Oahu’s two mountain ranges, passing an army base and the Dole pineapple plantation before popping out on the coast again, this time on the glorious North Shore. I took the bypass around historic Haleiwa town, not wanting to entice Kylee and Tara with a view of the shops there. But once we passed Haleiwa there was only one road that ran up and down the shore, and between us and Zane lay almost everything else I’d been raving to Kylee and Tara about for months now.
Unfortunately.
“Wait,” Kylee protested, her face glued to the window as the ocean flew by to her left. “Why are all these cars stopped here? What is everyone looking at?”
“Sea turtles,” I said flatly.
“What?” she squealed, practically pulling on the door handle. “Let’s go see!”
“Later,” I insisted, checking the door locks. “There are other turtles.”
We climbed in altitude and came to a bend in the road. I bit my lip as everyone turned to look at the striking panorama — a square white tower on a rocky cliff, overlooking a calm blue bay and crescent beach below. “This is Waimea Bay!” Tara cooed. “Ooh, let’s stop a minute!”
“No!” I barked defensively. “We’re in a hurry!”
The three of them stared at me a moment, then cracked up laughing. “Geez, Kali,” Lacey chided, “you’ve got it bad. You just saw this guy like, when? Thursday?”
“Friday,” I mumbled, leaving the Waimea Bay parking lot behind. They all laughed at me again, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even care that there seemed to be a record number of shadows prowling around on the Kamehameha Highway this morning. If they were transparent, I drove through them. (Although, as always, I was really careful to make sure about that first.)
I didn’t bother to point out Three Tables or Shark’s Cove. I zipped right by the Foodland and didn’t even mention when we passed Ehukai beach. (In my defense, it’s not like you can see the Pipe from the road anyway.) When we finally reached Sunset Beach and turned off onto the narrow lane that led to Zane’s place, I was practically bouncing in my seat. I snagged one of the few parking spots hidden away in the tiny public access area for Kaunala Beach, then handed Tara my car keys. “Lock it up, will you?” I hopped out and pointed down the street. “Zane’s door is around the far side of that blue house, the one with the yellow kayak in the carport. Just give me two minutes first!”
I was off.
Their cackles affected me not at all as I set off down the pitted street at a jog. It was going to be a lovely day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and it would be warm but not too hot. The trees were raucous with the cries of myna birds, local kids were out biking and skateboarding, and tourists were wandering in the bizarrely charismatic neighborhood, which was packed tight with small dilapidated cottages and junky yards. Without knowing what world-renowned attraction loomed nearby, who would guess that even the least of these modest little houses would fetch a cool million?
I jogged up to Zane’s door, which was slightly crooked on its hinges, had peeling paint, and was underwhelming in every possible objective sense. I was breathless with anticipation as I knocked.
Open up, you!
He did. The sight of him was like nectar. He smiled at me with those perfect teeth of his, his face tanned to just the right shade, his green eyes shining with welcome and his still-wet-from-the-shower curls dangling every which way. “Hi there,” he said, drinking in the sight of me with equal enthusiasm before throwing a cautious glance over my shoulder.
“Hi, yourself,” I replied, pushing him inside without apology and kicking the door closed with my foot. “We have two minutes.”
I saw his smile widen briefly before I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his shoulder, hugging him tightly. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a week,” I mumbled, letting his familiar warmth radiate through me in heavenly, healing waves.
Bliss.
He chuckled softly, his breath tickling my ear. “Tell me about it.” He was holding me every bit as tightly as I held him, which made me near dizzy with glee. He had missed me, too. Even if it was only a couple of days. I wasn’t that crazy.
I could have
stood there, just like that, for a very long time. Maybe even the rest of my life. But after what was probably longer than two minutes, we heard a mixture of giggles and footsteps outside.
“Okay, I’m better now,” I announced, pulling away reluctantly. “Fortified for another couple hours. If I’m lucky.” I kissed him lightly on the lips, then stepped back.
He eyed me with a strange mix of contentment and frustration. Then he rolled his eyes good-naturedly and muttered something under his breath about gender inequality.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” he replied, puttering around the room a moment. “Are you going to let them in Chez Svenson? I cleaned up. Can you tell?”
I looked around the tiny cell that someone had the nerve to call an apartment. An amateurishly tacked-on addition to the main house, it consisted of a roughly eight-foot by nine-foot bedroom and a closet-sized bathroom with just a toilet and sink. The house kitchen was shared, and he used an outdoor shower behind the carport. But the room was private and it was practically on Sunset Beach, and Zane was content. Thinking again how he could have rented better, when instead he spent his money buying plane tickets for my friends, nearly brought tears to my eyes. “It—” I began with good intentions. “Well, no, actually,” I finished with a laugh. “It looks the same. Sorry.”
He made a face at me. “Come on. When have you not seen clothes on the floor before?”
I raised an eyebrow and pointed to a stack of folded laundry by the door. There was no closet and no furniture except the bed — all of his belongings were in stacks and crates. “What is that?”
“Those are clean!” he protested with mock hurt.
I chuckled at him. “Oh. No dirty clothes, you mean. Then yes, I’m impressed.”
“You should be,” he insisted. “That hasn’t happened since the first time you saw it!”
“It looks fabulous,” I agreed. “As good as it can possibly look. I don’t even see any ants!”
He made another face at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh again. We both knew the place was a hovel, but it hardly mattered, since he literally did nothing but sleep here. Unless it was pouring rain, he spent his time outside. He even ate his meals in the carport, since any kind of crumbs brought on an invertebrate invasion.