by J. C. Long
“Before you drink more, we need to get some food in you, okay? There are buffet tables over there.”
I made three attempts before I finally managed to get to my feet, using the table and the back of my chair for balance. Dizziness swept over me in waves, some worse than others. How was that even possible? I hadn’t had that much to drink, had I?
I studied the table for some clue to my inebriation. I saw my mason jar was empty, and Maka’s was getting there. And yet he seemed to be perfectly fine. How? Was he secretly Superman and I just hadn’t caught on?
“Come on, Gabe.” Maka slid one arm around my waist as he guided me through the throng of people to the tables laden down with food. I stumbled once, but Maka’s arms held me up. “Haole are such lightweights.”
“I’m not a lightweight,” I protested, turning my head so he could see my glare. I needed, needed him to see my glare at that moment. “Look at it! Look at my glare.”
“It’s terrifying. Look.” Maka gestured toward the buffet. “What do you want to eat?”
Everything on the tables looked delicious. I pointed things out to Maka as we went down the line, and he dished it out onto plates.
“Maka, howzit, brah?” I glanced around, trying to find the source of the words, and looked at the big MC. “Who’s your haole friend?”
“He’s talking about me,” I informed Maka, in case he didn’t realize. “I’m a haole.”
“This is Gabe,” Maka said, giving me a bemused look. “My neighbor.”
“I slept at his place last night,” I put in, trying to be helpful.
The MC tried to hide his smile, raising an eyebrow at Maka. “That so?”
“It’s a long story, Hiapo. He’s only been in Honolulu for a few weeks. Thought I’d show him the best lūʻau on the island.”
Hiapo clapped Maka’s shoulder appreciatively at the compliment. “You picked the right one then, brah. So, haole, you ready for choke grindin’?” He eyed the plate Maka was carrying for me. “I’d say you are.”
“Grinding?” My mind immediately went to a dirty place, and I imagined myself grinding hard against Maka’s buff body. What are you doing? wondered the last sane voice in my head. It was that voice to which I normally listened, but tonight I was far too lost to the moonshine to care.
“He means eating,” Maka hurriedly explained. Something in his heavy gaze told me Maka knew where my thoughts were. Something else—thought it could have been my imagination—told me he didn’t disapprove.
“I got the best thing for yah, my haole brother. Come with me.”
Hiapo threw his heavy arm around my shoulder, and I staggered, Maka again catching me. “Lemme guess, okolehao?”
At the mention of the potent alcohol, I perked up. “We should totally get more of that!”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve about had enough,” Maka argued firmly.
“The man knows what he wants,” Hiapo said firmly. “He wants okolehao, he gonna get okolehao.”
“I like this guy,” I informed Maka decisively. “He knows me.”
Hiapo’s booming laughter vibrated through my body, and I laughed too.
Maka finally led me back to our table, plates laden with food.
Hiapo made good on his promise, sending out another pitcher of pineapple juice and another mason jar of the drink that was my best friend for the rest of the night.
At some point throughout the festivities, a hula show began, with male dancers on the stage and female dancers working their way through the audience, along a 360-degree view of what the performance looked like instead of just a front-facing view.
Like the fire dance, I found myself mesmerized by the sway of the hips, the movement of the grass skirts—the pa’u—and the flickering torchlight reflecting off of the kupe’e on their wrists and ankles. If I could do that, if I could pull off those moves, then I would never stop dancing.
“Gabe, you’re going to fall out of your chair,” Maka said.
I wondered what he meant until I realized I was dancing in my chair. I stopped, embarrassed, and returned my focus to the dance. One of the dancers wound her way through the tables, coming close to ours. She smiled at Maka, beautifully dark-painted lips spreading to expose white teeth. She winked at him, tossing him the lei from around her neck, while the onlookers cheered.
It was a meaningless gesture—and an understandable one, because Maka was a stud, as he put it—but it set my blood boiling. I gripped the glass of pineapple juice and okolehao so tightly I thought my knuckles were going to burst through my skin. When she offered me a smile, I stuck my tongue out at her.
That would show her.
When the dance finished, Hiapo announced a grand unveiling. He called everyone to gather around a big circle off to the side, surrounded by more torches. The circle, I saw when I stood there looking down at it next to Maka, was made of sand.
“And now,” Hiapo said loudly, “what everyone’s been waiting for! Let’s see it!”
At his words, two men in the fire dancer costumes came with shovels and began uncovering something in the center.
“What are they doing?” I asked Maka in a loud whisper. He just shushed me and pointed to the sand. They eventually uncovered what looked like a bamboo lid underneath a bunch of palm tree leaves. “What’s in there?”
He didn’t answer. Somewhere drums began beating a rapid tempo, though I guess I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t in my drunk imagination. The lid came off and delicious smelling smoke wafted up. The men hefted a long pole, and from the hole, they lifted what everyone had been waiting for.
“It’s a pig!” I cried, pointing at it. “That poor pig!”
“It’s dead, Gabe,” Maka assured me, not bothering to hide his amusement. I was happy to be entertaining him so much.
“I know that,” I said, hoping that the withering tone would be enough to disguise the fact that I did in fact not know that before he spoke. “What I want to know is what is it doing in the ground?”
“That’s the kalua pig,” Hiapo said like he was explaining something to a child. Then again, in an altered state, maybe I was, because instead of really listening to Hiapo explain to me how the pig was cooked in a stone kalua oven in the ground, I was staring into the unseeing eyes of the pig, wondering to myself if they left its genitals intact.
The night became hazier from that point on, as if the extra alcohol I’d had from Hiapo suddenly caught up with me. The pork got passed around, and I remembered asking Hiapo if I could take the pig’s head home and trying to get the hula dancers to show me the steps.
I have no idea what time it was when Maka helped me into his car, all I know is that I begged him to play “Barbie Girl” by Aqua on the way home. He complied, much to my surprise, and even played Ken to my Barbie in a really bad version of carpool karaoke.
I fell asleep in the car at some point and came to when Maka gently shook my shoulders. “Wake up, cutie,” he murmured, his words not doing much more than passing through my mind. “We’re back.”
I fumbled with the seat belt for several seconds, confused as to why the latch just wouldn’t release before I realized I was no longer buckled; Maka must have done it before waking me.
I managed to get out of the car by myself, even though the world felt lopsided. I closed my eyes, willing everything to straighten back up, to just go back to normal, but when I opened them again, nothing had changed. If anything, the ground beneath my feet felt even more crooked.
“Thank you for being a fun night, Maka, brah,” I said, patting his muscled bicep.
Feeling worn out from the night’s excitement, I stumbled off toward my apartment with its stupid lock that didn’t know how to do its damn job. Someone needed to give the stupid thing a good talking to. Since it was my place, I guess that someone would have to be me. I was up to the task.
“Whoa, where are you going, exactly?” Maka jogged up to me.
“To my sleep so I can bed,” I said, resisting Maka’s grip on my
arm. What did he have against sleeping that he had to keep getting in the way? First, he woke me up in his car, and now he was trying to physically come between me and my bed. What was up with that?
“Your new lock won’t be installed until tomorrow. Back to my couch for the night.”
I tried to keep my feet planted, but Maka was too strong, so I gave up and stumbled along with him into his apartment. Just inside the door, I nearly tripped over my own feet, and once again, Maka caught me, supporting me against his body, and once more, I noticed the body heat that roiled off him. Jesus, did he have a mini sun hidden beneath his skin?
“You know, you’re really hot. Not physically—I mean literally hot. Temperature-wise.”
“You don’t think I’m hot physically?” Maka’s beautiful lips—really, they were quite kissable, I decided—made an O of shock. “You might be the only one. That hula girl tonight sure did.”
“That’s not what I—I hate her,” I added with venom. “Winky wiggling hula lady. Who goes through a crowd, winking at men just to get more tips shoved in her up’a—”
Maka nearly doubled over with laughter, and I stumbled out of his reach, sitting down shakily on the couch. “It’s pa’u.”
“Whatever, it doesn’t—I’m getting off track.” I shook my head, hands cupping my temples, trying to recapture my train of thought from the stingy hands of drunkenness. The alcohol struggled valiantly, but I managed to work at least some of it free. “I’m just saying that your body is warm. You have a lot of body heat.”
“I’ve been told that before,” Maka conceded, sitting down next to me on the couch, our knees and shoulders almost touching. “Some lovers didn’t like it very much.”
“I like it,” I said quickly—far too quickly, the slowly sobering part of my mind said. It sounded like I was volunteering myself to be his lover, and while I didn’t think I would mind filling the role, I didn’t want to sound so desperate about it. “When I was with Trevor…I don’t know, he was just cold. Not just emotionally distant, but his body was always cold. And the sex? Ugh.” I let out a frustrated sigh and threw my head back, staring up at Maka’s ceiling.
“Not good?” I didn’t have to look at Maka to know that he was smirking. Hell, I’d have been smirking too, were I in his shoes.
“Not good at all. How do I say that in Hawaiian?”
“Maika’i ‘ole,” Maka supplied. “What was bad about it?”
I paused for a moment. It was a question no one had ever asked me before, so I didn’t know how to answer it for a moment. I hadn’t ever really tried to break it down in my own head, never searched for the trouble spots; I just knew it was bad. “Everything,” I said at last. “He lacked passion. He was so…limp. It was just plain and boring and didn’t even feel that good.”
My brain became aware of Maka’s closeness, aware of his smell, his own personal scent of cedar and male mixed with sweat and smoke from the lūʻau. This god was sitting next to me, within easy reach, and I was sitting here thinking and talking about Trevor? What the hell was wrong with me?
“You, though,” I said, trying to redeem myself and turn the conversation as far away from my incredibly awful ex as I could, “are the opposite. You’re…hot, and just looking at you I can guess that you’re passionate. You’re probably amazing in bed.”
It was the okolehao speaking and acting for me, I knew, but the alcohol was only acting on actual thoughts and desires in my mind. I couldn’t deny my attraction to Maka, especially not with my subconscious rubbing it in my face with dreams like the one I’d had of him on the beach. A drunk tongue speaks a sober mind, right?
Maka peered at me through hooded eyes, a question in them that I didn’t know, but knew I wanted to answer. “I’ve been told that.”
Such simple words, but they sizzled over my skin like lightning bolts. Instinct drove me, and I closed the distance between us, pressing my mouth against his. I regretted it the moment our lips touched, but then he kissed me back—hard, searing, powerful—before breaking away, standing up.
Why? demanded the drunken voice in my head. Why did we stop? He kissed back—why aren’t we still kissing?
“You need to get some sleep,” he said, chest heaving, eyes wide as he looked at me. That question was still there in his eyes, but this time tinged with something else, something like regret. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
With that, he hurried into his bedroom and shut the door.
Chapter Ten
I kept my eyes closed for several moments when I woke up, anticipating a rush of nausea or the splitting pains of a hangover headache. Surprisingly, neither came, and I opened my eyes tentatively, like a dog that doesn’t quite trust the hand being held out to it.
Aside from not particularly enjoying the okolehao on my breath, I felt fine. I had that exhausted-from-not-sleeping-too-well feel, and my body ached from sleeping on the couch, but other than that, I was okay.
Physically, anyway.
Moments after opening my eyes, memories of the night before danced before my vision, each one seeming to taunt me with its stupidity. Did I actually refer to one of the performers as a winky wiggling hula lady? And how much had I actually begged Hiapo to let me take the pig head? What did Drunk Gabe think he was going to do with a pig’s head? I remembered my miserable attempts at hula dancing and had vague recollections of getting upset when Maka had me return a large bundle of leis I’d spent the evening collecting.
They all paled in comparison, though, for without a doubt the most embarrassing memory from the night before was my conversation with Maka on that very couch, my pathetic come-on and then—sweet Jesus, did I really kiss him? I prayed that part was some alcohol-induced hallucination and not a true memory. It was too real, though, unfortunately.
“Gabe Maxfield, you are an idiot.” It was an important enough statement that I needed to hear it said aloud to reinforce exactly how stupid I was.
I checked the time on my phone—which was on its last legs at two percent—and saw it was nearly seven. Where was Maka? Why hadn’t he woken me up already, like he had the previous day? Did he leave the apartment in total mortification after my stupid kiss? Was he hiding from me in fear I’d kiss him again?
He kissed me back, a voice said quietly in my mind, though the rest of me pounced on it, squashing it silent because it was definitely not helping. It was right, though. I distinctly remembered him returning the kiss, for a second or two.
Maybe he was still sleeping? It was the weekend, after all, and surely even detectives got to sleep in.
I decided to figure it out later; at that moment, my bladder was screaming to be emptied after all the alcohol and pineapple juice I had the night before. I rolled to my feet off the couch, grateful the only aftereffects I felt were in my bladder, and tiptoed down the hall, just in case Maka was still sleeping.
I reached for the doorknob just as it opened outward, revealing Maka, a very thin, white terry cloth towel held precariously around his waist by his left hand. His body was still damp from the shower, a small cloud of literal steam flooding into the hall from the open door.
I was speechless. The way his hair fell, tousled and free of product, the way droplets of water slid slowly down his body toward the towel, the way the towel’s thin material practically clung to his body, the way I could clearly see his cock outlined against it. All of it took my breath away.
“I didn’t think you’d be up before noon, given the way you drank last night.”
“I told you I can handle my alcohol. Ignore the fact that I wanted to carry the pig head home. Thanks for saying no, by the way.” Don’t look down. Stop looking down. He can see you looking at his dick.
“Did you really think I was going to let you bring a severed pig head in my car?” Maka stepped around me, making his way into his bedroom. As he walked through the door, he released the towel, exposing his bare ass, and I think I made a noise deep in my chest, but I couldn’t be sure. If I did, I hoped to God he did
n’t hear it. My luck, though, he did.
I was hoping he would turn around, expose himself more, but instead, keeping his back to me, he pulled a pair of tight Andrew Christian underwear on over the round swell of his ass. As he lifted his leg to step into them, I did get a glimpse of heavy balls hanging low, and I thought I saw the head of his cock.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said, mouth going dry for a reason that had nothing to do with drinking the night before.
Maka turned back around now to face me, and I was unable to resist looking down to see how his cock and balls looked hugged by the tight material. I doubted even someone with an iron will would have been able to resist looking at this work of art courtesy of Mother Nature and genetics.
“Red’s a good color on you.” Maka looked confused for a moment before looking down and seeing he was wearing red underwear. When he looked back up, I’m sure my face was as red as the fabric clinging to his body.
I’d never before been jealous of fabric, but I was now.
“Thanks,” he said with a grin. “They better look good on me, considering how much they cost.” Maka made a show of admiring his ass in them. If I had to guess, I would say that Maka was having a damn good time making me feel uncomfortable.
A sadist, I decided. He’s a sadist.
“Well, uh.” I cleared my throat. “I’m just going to—you know…” I pointed to the bathroom.
“The bathroom?” Maka filled in the blank. “That okolehao will go right through you.”
I hurried into the bathroom and closed the door behind me, beyond embarrassed. It only got worse when I looked down and saw the blatant bulge in my pants where my stiff cock was pushing the fabric out. If I could see it then Maka could as well.
Kill me now. I would have climbed through the window in the bathroom, but it was far too small and my hips would have probably gotten stuck. I wanted to leave Maka’s apartment with at least some of my dignity intact.
It’s really hard to pee with an erection, but I managed, somehow. I emerged from the bathroom to find that Maka was in the small kitchen area, a pair of gym shorts pulled on over the red boxer briefs but still no shirt. Thank God for that small favor.