Man Buns

by Shari J. Ryan

  “Mmhmm,” Lea replies.

  “Are you home or at Noa’s?”

  “I stopped home to get stuff for work. I figured you might need your things too.”

  “You thought of me?” I gasp.

  “Yes, Kai. I thought of you.”

  “When are you heading over here?” I ask.

  “In five. What room are you in?”

  “I don’t know. Hold on.” I jog over to the door and stick my head out to find the room number. “Twelve twenty.”

  “The Kai I know would never not know the number of her hotel room. How drunk were you last night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Mm-k. I’ll see you in a few.”

  The guests are waiting at the gates for the pool to open, with hopes of snagging the perfect lounge chair to throw their towel and sunscreen on, staking their claim for the day. Some of the guests are like human compasses, predicting what location the sun will be hitting for most hours of the day. The funny part is, it’s usually in the spots that are in the shade this early.

  “I hope you put sunblock on,” I hear.

  The voice is familiar to me now, and I turn, ready to give him a look or maybe a snide remark, but thankfully I look before speaking because he’s talking to his daughter. How would she be putting her own sunblock on?

  “Dad?” She laments, cocking her head to the side. “You know I can’t put my own sunblock on, silly.”

  “What? Since when?” Denver replies to her, dumbfounded.

  “Since forever. Geez. You just put it on me yesterday. Don’t you remember?”

  “No, I don’t remember at all, actually,” Denver continues.

  “You’re embarrassing me,” his daughter says, placing her hand up to him. I accidentally let a snicker out while watching their banter.

  “Aya, if there is one thing I’m good at in life, it’s embarrassing pretty girls.”

  “Lame,” she says, strutting over to the lounge chair by my left side. She tosses a towel down onto the chair and pulls her bathing suit cover-up off, then tosses her little pink sandals to the side. “Ready?”

  “I haven’t even said good morning to Miss Kai yet, Aya. Relax,” Denver says.

  I love how he’s talking about me as if she should be familiar with me by now. It’s only been a day, even though it feels like a week has passed since yesterday morning.

  “Who is Kai?” Aya asks while sitting down at the edge of the pool and dangling her feet into the motionless pool of glowing blue chlorine.

  “This beautiful woman behind you,” Denver says. I’m glad I have my sunglasses on because he just admitted that he has a knack for embarrassing women, and yet here he is, doing it again. I don’t want him to think he’s having an effect on me, though, so I’ll act complacent.

  Aya turns around, squinting against the sun peeping through the thick palms. “You are pretty,” she says. “You kind of look like a hula dancer. Do you hula dance?”

  “Aya!” Denver snaps. “That’s rude.”

  “Why is it rude?” I ask him.

  “To insinuate that because you’re beautiful, you must be a dancer of some sort.”

  Oh my God. He’s good. Asshole.

  “Aya, I do dance the hula here once a week during our traditional Luau. It’s tomorrow night, as a matter of fact,” I tell her.

  Aya stands up from the edge of the pool and runs up to my guard chair, wrapping her hands around my ankle. “Will you teach me?” she asks. Whoa. I wasn’t expecting that. Without making assumptions, I would be hard-pressed to assume her mother isn’t a native. She has darker skin than Denver, but a combination of dark and light hair with crystal blue eyes. She’s gorgeous, definitely a mixture of two good-looking people.

  “Oh, I’m sure your mom wants to teach you that,” I tell her. I am definitely not stepping on anyone’s toes.

  “Uhhh,” Denver interrupts. I look over at him, and he’s slicing his hand across his throat and shaking his head.

  No. No. No. Her mother is dead. No. Crap.

  “Um, you know what, Aya. I would love to teach you. Will you still be here at lunchtime?”

  Aya turns around, facing Denver. “Dad, can we stay for lunch, then go to the house?”

  Denver crosses his arms over his broad chest and grins a half smile. “Sure, baby.”

  Aya squeals and claps her hands together. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ve always wanted to learn how to do the hula dance!”

  “I actually teach a class here at lunchtime, so there will be other kids too. Is that okay with you?” I should have said that first. I hope she’s okay with that.

  “Of course!” she says without blinking. “I could use some new friends now that we’re living somewhere new anyway.”

  I think my heart just broke. She’s so strong for moving somewhere new and just looking to start a new life here without a crack in her smile. Unfortunately, most of the kids at the hotel are guests and don’t live anywhere near the island. “Friends are a great thing,” I tell her with a smile.

  “Yup! I don’t have any right now, so it will be good.” Aya runs back to the edge of the pool and sits back down, repositioning her legs so they dangle in the water. That’s so sad.

  I’m nervous to look over at Denver this time. I know he heard the conversation, and I wonder what he’s thinking. If her words hurt me, they must not feel good to him.

  He’s concentrating on the back of Aya’s head with an uncertain look on his face. “She’ll be okay when school starts in the fall,” he says, still staring at her.

  “Oh, of course she will,” I tell him.

  Denver doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he makes his way over to the chair Aya dropped her things on and takes his shirt off, dropping it over her pile, then slips his flip-flops off and walks past me without another glance. He sits down next to Aya, lowers his feet into the pool, and leans in to give her a kiss on her head.

  My hand instinctively moves up to my chest, and I feel the thudding beats of my heart in response. If I had to make up a story for them, I don’t think it would be a good one. I don’t know what happened to her mom, but I’m wondering what kind of pain it left them in. I know that pain. I know it too well. I hope I’m wrong … and possibly the worst story creator in the world.

  Chapter Eleven

  Denver

  For a minute while Kai was talking to Aya about hula lessons, I almost burst into laughter because I thought for sure she was joking, but now I see she wasn’t.

  Kai left us just a few minutes ago and told me she needed to clean up before the lesson starts. We’re waiting under the palm trees on the white powder beach where she told us to meet.

  It’s funny, considering how long I’ve lived in Hawaii, how little time I’ve actually spent being a tourist. I’ve spent most of my time working or doing non-touristy things. It’s almost ironic that I don’t ever remember exploring the islands or just sitting down, staring out into the ocean, and taking in the beauty of it all. Aya doesn’t know any different, in fact. We were always at a beach swimming, snorkeling or skin-boarding during the weekends in Oahu, but Maui is a little different. It’s not so crowded. It’s more peaceful, I guess. I didn’t think there would be a drastic difference between the two islands, but it feels a lot different.

  “Do you dare me to get that coconut down?” Aya asks, standing on a boulder behind me.

  “No, I don’t dare you to climb ten feet up a palm to get a coconut down,” I tell her, keeping a serious tone so she doesn’t try it. I’m almost positive there’s no way she’d make it even a foot up the tree, but I’ve learned the hard way; it’s better not to test her.

  “Come on, don’t be a wuss,” she tells me.

  “Excuse me?” I turn around with my hands on my hips, engaging her in the parental stare-down.

  “I’m just kidding,” she grumbles. I swear she’s gone from seven to a tween overnight, but at least she still looks like a little girl. I’m not ready to take on
what comes next.

  “I wonder why no one else is here to take the class,” I say out loud, not really to Aya, but just thinking out loud. Maybe Kai doesn’t really teach classes, but I don’t think she would fool Aya into thinking she does.

  “Are you ready?” I hear from behind.

  Kai’s sweet voice isn’t for my attention. Her questions were directed at Aya, who jumps off the rock in her sandals, and my heart catches in my throat. I do my best not to overreact to everything she does, but she’s going give me a heart attack one of these days. “Aya,” I scold quietly.

  “He’s being a butt. Don’t mind him,” Aya says, righting herself after falling to her knees in the sand.

  I give up fighting with her. If she’s on a mission to push me today, I’ll need to be a little pickier with my battles. After my nerves unhinge from Aya’s stunts, I notice Kai has changed from her guard bathing suit into a tied, yellow sarong—at least that’s what I think it’s called—and a matching bikini top. I think it’s a bikini top. I could probably call it a bra too and still mean the same thing.

  Whatever the case is, she’s gorgeous and has the body of an athlete. She’s wearing the purple flower in her hair, the one I sent to her, and instead of her waves being tied up in a twisted knot, her hair is loose and dangling long behind her back, nearly reaching her waist. She can’t be real. Every time I see her, I notice another beautiful feature. Her flawless appearance has me enamored, that’s for sure.

  “Am I the only one in the class?” Aya asks as Kai places her bag down by the rock she was standing on. She takes her phone out of the front pocket of her bag before standing back up and checks the display.

  “Hmm. We’ll give it another couple of minutes. It’s the middle of the week, so sometimes there aren’t a lot of people to take the class, but summer vacation just started, right?” Kai asks Aya.

  “Yup! Last week. I graduated from second grade.”

  “Wow,” Kai says, with more excitement than I probably mustered on Aya’s last day. “That’s so exciting. Oh my gosh, that means you’re going into third grade at the end of the summer?”

  “I know. The time just flies by,” Aya says, sounding like me as she shakes her head with wonder.

  Kai laughs at Aya’s lively way of communicating. I swear my child would be the perfect actress.

  “Do we dance to music?” Aya asks.

  “Of course, we do.” Kai kneels back down to her bag and sweeps her silky hair back over her shoulder, so she can find what she’s looking for.

  I should stop staring. Maybe I should say something too. I’m acting like I forgot how to talk.

  “So, are there different types of hula-ing?” I ask Kai.

  “Hula-ing?” she repeats. “The Hula isn’t a verb. It’s a noun, a type of dance—a ritual. Did you ever leave base on Oahu?” She laughs after questioning me, but I guess I’m still acting like a Texan, with my lack of Hawaiian knowledge.

  “Dad, how did you not know that? Even I knew that,” Aya digs the fact in a little harder.

  “I don’t know how I missed the memo,” I tell her.

  Kai pulls out a portable speaker and pairs her phone to it. “I guess it’s just going to be us today, but that’s okay. I can give you a private lesson.”

  Aya doesn’t seem to care either way. I know she mentioned making new friends, but she always has her own agenda. If other kids want to join her, she welcomes them, but not much stops her from whatever path she’s going down. I’d like to think I had something to do with that. I want her to be a leader and never feel like she has to follow someone else’s dreams.

  Kai turns up the music, and the sound of a ukulele and a steel guitar offer the soothing sounds I’ve become accustomed to.

  “Aya, come on over here,” Kai says, pointing to a spot in front of me in the sun. With one more trip to her bag near the rock, Kai pulls out a grass skirt and a lei. She quickly helps Aya into the skirt and places the lei of flowers around her neck. “Okay, now you’re ready.”

  Aya has a smile from ear to ear with pure happiness. “Are you just going to stand there and watch, or are you going to join us?” Kai asks me.

  I laugh. “I’m a guy, so I’ll just watch.” Nice try.

  “Uh, men dance the Hula all the time, Denver. Don’t be insulting.” Of course, I would insult her. What else could I possibly do to her? “Let’s go. You’re wasting our time.”

  Since I didn’t move quite fast enough for Miss Kai, she lunges toward me and grabs my wrist, pulling me over to where Aya is patiently waiting. “I want to watch Aya learn,” I say, trying my best to get out of this. Last night was enough entertaining to last me until at least tonight, when I have to do it all over again.

  “No, no, it’s important that you learn too,” Kai says with a devilish smirk. This is payback for what I did to her. Definitely payback. “First, cup your hands over your chest, like this.” She does as she instructs, gently resting her cupped hands over her bare chest.

  “Like this?” Aya asks, mirroring Kai perfectly.

  “Exactly,” Kai replies enthusiastically. “This means aloha to the guests who may be watching our dance.” I glance over to see if Aya is following directions and she is, so I cup my hands over my chest, feeling like a tool. “Very good. Now, we slowly open our arms out like this to say welcome.”

  “I love this!” Aya shouts, not so eloquently.

  Kai giggles and steps out of our three-person line and watches us perform her instruction. “That’s great.” She’s not paying much attention to me, thankfully, but it also makes me feel like a bigger moron for standing here out in the open—hula dancing. I realize it’s a common tradition here, but we’re surrounded by passing guests, not locals.

  “Well, that was fun. I think I broke a sweat,” I tell her.

  “We’re not done,” Kai says, pointing at me. “Hush.” Did she just hush me? “Now, we’re going to learn the basic hula arm movement. I want you to place both of your arms out to your right side, keeping your hands gently cupped.” I’m watching Aya follow Kai’s instructions, still being mildly inattentive, on purpose. “Aya can you show me what an ocean wave looks like as it’s rolling into the sand? Show me with your hands.”

  Aya perfectly swoops her hands down and up in a wave motion while looking up into the sky. It’s as if she’s done this before, following the instructions so flawlessly. If I tried, I’d look like an Egyptian mummy trying to break free from the wrap. “How’s that?” Aya asks.

  “Oh gosh, that’s absolutely perfect, Aya. You’re obviously a natural.” Kai crosses her arms over her chest and heads over to me. “And you?”

  “You don’t want to see my wave,” I tell her.

  “I do. I’m teaching a class, and you’re my student. I don’t want to get in trouble for not doing my job.” I can’t tell if she’s being serious or not since she’s obviously mastered the best poker face I’ve ever seen, which is a lot to say after some of the men I spent years around.

  “Fine.” I toss my hands out to the side, doing little to cup my hands. I’d rather they hang from my wrists. Complying with her demand would be too simple. If she’s going to force me to dance, I’m not going to make it easy. Rather than getting annoyed with me though, she takes my hands and gently shapes them into slight cups.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen what a wave looks like,” she says.

  “Never, actually.”

  Kai wraps her small hands around my wrists and guides me in the correct motion. “See, that’s not so hard. Is it?”

  “Nope. Not hard at all,” I say, louder than I intended.

  “Good. Now, switch sides, and do the same thing on your left.” Aya has lost herself in the music and is dancing away to her own beat. “Now that we have the hand gesture down, we can add in some hip movement.”

  I swear the record just scratched, but that would only be in my head. “Oh, I already know how to do this,” Aya says, showing us that she does, in fact, know how to sway her hip
s to the same rhythm of her hand movements.

  “Good job, Aya,” Kai says while moving around behind me. What is she doing—

  Kai’s hands fall softly onto my hips. My trunks are lower than I thought because her hands are on my skin, and I need to think of hurt puppies or Aya’s mom—something horrible—or this won’t end well.

  “Like this,” Kai says softly. She knows exactly what she’s doing right now. Unbelievable. Is it, though? I did this to her last night. She guides my hips slowly from side to side, and she needs to take her hands off me–like–right this second.

  “Okay—so game, set, match—you win. Yup. We’re good. I—um—can you watch Aya for a sec? I need to run to the restroom really quick.”

  Kai chuckles. “Of course. Oh, Denver, did you want a lei to take with you? I have an extra.”

  I turn to face her, dumbfounded, wanting to ask if she’s kidding, but by the arch in her brow, I don’t need to ask. I turn back toward the pool area and continue walking, thinking about everything and anything except for Kai’s hands on my hips.

  “Twenty Waia Road,” I tell the driver.

  “Are we going to see our new house now?” Aya asks as I buckle her into the cab.

  “Yup, and our truck should be there by now too.”

  “I hope my room is purple,” she says.

  “Well, we can paint it if it’s not, so don’t worry about that.”

  “I had fun today. I wish we could live at the hotel with Miss Kai.”

  My heart does a little flip at the sound of her name coming out of Aya’s mouth. “Baby, Kai doesn’t live at the hotel. She just works there, and people don’t typically live at a hotel.”

  “Fine. Then maybe we should have Kai move in with us,” she continues.

  “Aya, you just met her.”

  “So did you,” she points out.

  “I’m not the one suggesting she should live with us or we should live with her.”