by Edie Claire
“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t get too comfortable.” I turned and nestled into his arms anyway. “I’m really sorry you can’t meet Makani tomorrow. I know what it would have meant to you.”
“It’s okay,” he answered. “I would have embarrassed you all anyway, what with the screaming and everything.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, probably.”
He gently brushed a strand of my hair across my forehead and behind my ear. “You know what?”
“What?”
“This has been a really fun group to hang out with. But all day long, I’ve been dying to kiss you.”
I smiled and lifted my head. He lowered his.
He stopped. “Incoming,” he murmured.
“Sorry, sorry!” Kylee chirped, bounding up to us at a jog. “Yeah, I know, ‘Go die, Kylee!’ Whatever. Look, I couldn’t say anything in front of Lacey, but… you guys are missing the obvious. Zane, dude, you may not be able to meet this guy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of the whole experience, you know?” Her dark eyes twinkled at us both. “Think about it!”
Zane and I looked at each other. Then slowly, a beaming smile spread across his face.
Oh, right. The creepy spy thing.
“Would you mind, Kali?” he begged. “Would you let me… um… watch the show? Or at least part of it? You can cut me out whenever you want to. But at least I’d get to see him!”
“Won’t you need to be concentrating on something else?” I asked, envisioning him driving wildly across the grass of a quad or walking into a cafeteria wall.
“There won’t be any danger,” he said quickly. “Text me when he shows up and I can make sure I’m someplace safe if you like, but it really isn’t necessary. The only time I’ve ever totally zoned out is when you’re with me and I’m doing the remote drop-in thing. When I’m seeing through your eyes as a beacon, it’s different. I’m channeling you, but I’m still mentally present in both places, if that makes sense.”
“I really don’t like the word ‘channeling,’” I complained.
“But…” he begged, “Makani.” Then he had the nerve to throw me a starving puppy-dog look that was so over-the-top pathetic Kylee nearly rolled on the ground with laughter.
“My work here is done,” she said finally, gasping for breath as she jogged away. “Don’t keep us waiting too long!”
“Oh, knock that off,” I told Zane playfully, smacking him lightly on the shoulder even as I cuddled up to him again. “Of course you can join us tomorrow. In your own creepy way. But only for a little while, while he’s there. I’ll have to lift my blind completely, and I’ve gotten spoiled now, enjoying the peace and quiet of not having other people’s emotions poking at me. Let’s just hope the stupid ghosts leave us alone once Makani has his suitcase back.”
Zane pulled back a little. “Maybe that’s it, Kali,” he said thoughtfully. “Makani. Maybe it’s him the ghosts have been protecting.”
My lips twisted doubtfully.
“Well, why not?” he argued. “Both of the ghosts looked like surfers. And they were real, living people at one time.”
“Oh, come on. So Jabba the Hutt came back from the dead, used all that energy following a suitcase around and throwing punches, and all that time he was just fangirling? Protecting the guy’s dirty clothes?”
“You underestimate how important this is,” Zane insisted. “No Hawaiian has won the world championship since Andy Irons in 2004! No man, anyway. The women are awesome — Carissa Moore’s won three world titles back to back! But only three men have ever won it for Hawaii, and everybody loves Makani. He’s your classic ‘local boy makes good’ story. Started out with no advantages at all and he’s worked really hard to get where he is.” He pulled me closer again and began rubbing my back. “Look, I don’t know why ghosts do what they do. They’re people after all… maybe these two are his relatives, and they’re crazy overprotective? But I can’t believe any of this is really about you. You’re not in any danger. Do you hear me?”
“Mmm,” I murmured.
“Kali?”
“Can’t argue,” I said, my voice muffled by his chest. “Getting backrub.”
He chuckled. “Well, that’s a trick I’ll have to remember.”
Unfortunately, it only lasted about five more seconds. Then he pulled back and lifted my chin with his hand. “You’re not going to drown, Kali,” he said intently. “Now, or ever. It’s… it’s just not going to happen. I won’t let it.”
There was worry in his eyes. A deep-seated, raw ache of fear that I longed to reach out and take away from him. But before I could think of anything to say, he leaned down his head and kissed me.
And then I forgot what we were talking about.
Chapter 16
“This is so exciting I can’t stand it!” Kylee said for the fortieth time. She was pacing between the front window of my house and the coffee table, where my laptop sat next to Makani’s waiting suitcase. We had all been creeping on the guy pretty mercilessly since yesterday, and our favorite pic was currently on the monitor. It showed the shirtless surfer standing by his home break at Ali’i Beach in Haleiwa, smiling broadly as he toted his board under one arm. It was an advertisement for AirTide boardshorts, and we all acknowledged that his perfectly smooth, sculpted chest was probably airbrushed. But still. It wasn’t hard to see how the guy had become a rock star — at least in those areas of the world where people watched surfing on cable.
His hair was an unruly mop of jet black, not curly, but a mass of glossy waves that blew around his face in the wind, revealing to the camera only one dark, twinkling eye. His skin tone was a rich brown, his cheek bones high, his jaw square. He had a swimmer’s build, triangular and lean, with broad shoulders, slim hips, and long limbs. But what captured the imagination — at least of any female — was his smile. It was vintage Mona Lisa. Ever-so-slightly lopsided and puckering only one dimple, it was an irresistible mystery. At first glance it was casual, light-hearted, and friendly. But on further inspection, there seemed to be much more to it… much more that he was thinking, and that he wanted to say. But what?
“I wonder how the German got in there?” Tara asked with a yawn, referring to the bio she’d unearthed when she’d hit the search engines last night. She was sprawled on the couch next to me, sipping at her mango-flavored tea. We’d all overslept this morning, barely leaving enough time to eat some breakfast before he was expected.
“No telling,” I replied with a grin. Tara was fascinated by Makani’s self-reported ancestry, which he described as “African-American, Hawaiian, Chinese, German, Filipino… and probably a bunch of other stuff.”
“However it happened,” Kylee declared wistfully, staring out the window, “it worked out great.”
I took a sip of my own tea and clicked back to a video clip of the final heat of the Billabong Pro Tahiti. Zane had been right. Makani had been wearing the exact same boardshorts that were currently in the suitcase in front of me.
“See how tall he stands as he moves through the barrel?” I pointed out to Tara, who still couldn’t completely grasp the concept of competitive surfing. “He’s always got that look. That casual grace, like what he’s doing takes no effort. Like he’s just chilling out there, having fun. The judges love that.”
Tara’s forehead wrinkled. “Is he supposed to fall off backward and send his board flying into the air?”
“He didn’t fall off!” I said with a laugh. “He did a back flip just for fun, to get back in the water. The ride was over and his board’s on a leash. See? He’s back on it and paddling already.”
“Car!” Kylee squealed from the window. “And it’s… driving by,” she finished with disappointment. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Five after,” Tara replied. “He’s late. What a shocker.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic,” I chided. “Last night you said that you were sure he’d come through this time.”
&nbs
p; Tara was quiet a moment. “I know. I do think he meant what he said. It’s just that I got the feeling there was something else going on with him, you know?”
“Are you kidding?” Kylee chirped, bounding over. “Makani Marro is the ultimate man of mystery! A name that means ‘the wind.’ Those dark, steamy eyes. And that smile! How many nineteen-year-old hotties have ghosts to defend their swimwear? I mean, seriously! I am so in love right now.” She bounced on her toes and returned to the window. “Love at first sight,” she crooned. “Or at least it will be, whenever I actually get to see him.”
Tara and I chose to ignore her. I certainly had no desire to be reminded of Makani’s connection with the dead. All of the theories I had come up with so far to explain the ghosts and their bizarre manifestations either sounded stupid or they scared me, and with Kylee and Tara’s visit nearly half over already, I really just wanted to be done with the whole macabre thing — no offense to Makani intended.
Tara’s phone buzzed, and she pulled it up and looked at her screen. “It’s him,” she reported. “He says he’s stuck in traffic and he’ll be another ten minutes or so.”
Kylee groaned and sank down onto the floor.
“See there!” I told Tara cheerfully. “You were right. He wasn’t blowing you off. He’ll be here.”
She smiled to herself. A genuine, heartfelt smile. “Yeah. You’re right. It was nice of him to let us know.”
“I’ll never make it,” Kylee moaned, lying flat on the carpet. “I’ll die of anticipation.”
“Bummer,” Tara remarked offhandedly. She sat up on the couch. “Hey, Kali, can you click back to that interview where he was talking about having to leave high school? I want to read that one again.”
When a car did finally pull up outside, Tara was deeply engrossed in researching the legal history of the school for children of Hawaiian ancestry that Makani had attended, and I was trying to amuse Zane via text as he sat in a campus auditorium watching a mandatory presentation on drug and alcohol abuse. The video annoyed Zane because it had “the production values of a middle schooler posting a health assignment on YouTube” and because we both knew that he could have done a better job himself if they had handed him the mic and let him tell everybody how he’d wound up in foster care. But they didn’t make that offer, and he was lamenting how much he would rather be with me when I glanced out the window and saw a nondescript little Nissan slowing to a stop.
Kylee, ironically, was in the bathroom.
“He’s here!” I shouted to my friends as I texted the words to Zane. I dropped my phone on the coffee table, took a breath, and closed my eyes. Blinds… dissolve.
I heard a door burst open and looked up to see Kylee racing out of the bathroom. “Let me!” She hustled around Tara to the front door, threw it open, and ran outside.
Tara rolled her eyes, then looked at me. “Well, I guess we’re meeting him outside, then.” She stepped toward the bag. “Don’t touch it, Kali,” she reminded.
“Don’t worry,” I assured. I had no intention of laying a finger on anything belonging to Makani ever again. Only Tara had touched the suitcase since yesterday, and she had handled it minimally and kept it zipped. Since Kylee had seen no more of the ghosts, we assumed this made everyone happy.
Tara picked up the bag and carried it outside, and I followed her. As I shut the door behind me I could just see the disappointed face of my mother as she slinked around the corner into the living room. She was supposed to be working on the kitchen deck this morning, but clearly she’d been eavesdropping, hoping the famous surfer would come inside. No doubt I would see her peeking out of the window soon. A middle-aged married woman! How embarrassing.
Kylee was standing in the middle of our small front yard, halfway between the door and the car, seemingly unsure what to do. The car windows were too tinted to see through, but the front ones were rolled down just enough that you could tell there was one person inside. He hadn’t gotten out yet, though, and Kylee could hardly rush him in the street. But now that she’d left the house, she couldn’t go back in and wait for a knock, either. The predicament was typical Kylee. Act now, think later.
After what seemed like an eternity, during which the driver appeared to have his head down talking on a phone, the car door finally opened.
“Hey,” a surprisingly deep voice rang out pleasantly, even as wary eyes shot a quick look up and down the street. “I’m really sorry I’m late. There was a fender bender — took forever to get around.”
“It’s… no problem,” Kylee answered haltingly, staring. “Are you—”
She didn’t finish the question because Tara stepped up and poked her in the side. But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because the guy couldn’t hear her. He had opened the back seat of his car and was leaning inside.
We all knew what she’d been about to ask. Because the guy who’d just popped out of the car was not what we were expecting. I suppose if we’d given it any thought, we would have known that he wouldn’t be toting a surfboard and flashing naked abs. But in none of our imagined scenarios did we expect to see an ordinary-looking guy in jeans, flip flops, a dull gray hoodie, and a grungy backwards baseball cap blinking at us through a pair of frames that were every bit as dweebie-looking as Tara’s.
He pulled a suitcase out of the back seat, shut the door, then came around the back of the car and walked over. Only then did he take his first good look at the three of us. He was shorter than I would have guessed, slightly shorter than Zane. But despite giving an underwhelming first impression, he was definitely the Makani. A closer view revealed the same handsome face we’d been admiring all morning, just hidden behind the hideous glasses. But what I saw was one thing, and what I felt was another.
As soon as the guy stepped within six feet of me, the emotions started coming. They radiated out like he was a one-man nuclear power plant. But they weren’t all coming from him. They couldn’t possibly be.
Optimism. Dread. Anxiety…
His appearance might be ordinary and his demeanor cheerful, but the very air around him was tainted. It was choked so thick with a fog of gloom that I wondered how he could breathe. Whatever I was perceiving, I knew it wasn’t really visible, it was only in my mind. But where was it coming from?
“Special delivery,” he said with a note of self-deprecating apology. “Finally!”
Stress. His tone was breezy, but some of the anxiety I felt was definitely coming from him. Lust. Well, that one always seemed to show up, didn’t it? I guess we were all wearing shorts and sleeveless tops. Motherly love.
Wait. What the hell?
“Are you Tara?” he asked, holding the bag out towards Kylee. She was the only one of us who had actually spoken yet. We were all kind of in a daze.
Kylee shook herself and snapped back into default flirt mode. “No, I’m Kylee,” she said with a smile. “It’s so exciting to meet you!”
“Kali,” I greeted. “And ditto.”
“I’m Tara,” Tara announced, her face lighting up as she took possession of her long-lost suitcase again. “Thanks for bringing this out. Yay! Now I remember that zebra stripe!” She laughed as she put the suitcase down by its twin and looked at the two side by side. They were indeed identical, except for the ribbons. She picked up Makani’s bag and held it out to him. “Here’s yours. And I’m sorry, too. It really was my fault they got mixed up in the first place. I just grabbed yours and left. I didn’t even look at it closely.”
“That’s okay,” he replied, taking his bag eagerly. Then he cast another wary glance up and down the street.
“Oh, I get it!” Kylee cried suddenly. “Those glasses! You’re like… wearing a disguise!”
Tara’s face turned thunderous.
I didn’t know if Makani was wearing ugly glasses on purpose or not. But as of now, I sure hoped he was.
“Kylee!” Tara fumed. “You are so amazingly rude! I don’t suppose you happened to notice that he’s
wearing the exact same frames that I am?”
Kylee’s brown eyes widened as she looked from one of them to the other. “Holy crap, Tara,” she said with amusement. “You’re right!”
I hoped that Zane was enjoying this. Personally, I wanted to crawl under a rock.
But Makani was as amused as Kylee.
“We do have the same frames!” he said to Tara, favoring her with a killer smile.
Tara offered one of her prettier ones back.
“I always said those were men’s frames!” Kylee exclaimed.
“Actually, they’re unisex,” Makani corrected. “But I thought I was the only person in the world who liked them. Everyone hates the way they look on me, but I don’t care. I wear them when I’m just hanging out because they’re light, but they—”
“They don’t slide around on your face,” Tara finished for him.
They looked at each other. “Yeah,” he confirmed.
Fondness. Lust. Mother love. Sadness.
The warring emotions were freaking me out. No way were they all coming from Makani. I cast a glance at Kylee. Mainly she was watching the couple, but her eyes were darting around a bit. I surveyed the front yard myself and saw only one shadow near the carport, and it was really faint. Clearly, we had ghost company. But on top of the scattershot emotions that kept hitting me, the doom and gloom that surrounded Makani like a cloud was like nothing I’d ever felt before, and it was beyond strange that he himself seemed totally unaware of it.
Despair. Tension. Excitement. Grief…
“I guess you know who I am, huh?” he asked matter of factly.
We all nodded. But although I knew what he meant literally, the larger answer to that question was blowing my mind.
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t call this a ‘disguise,’ exactly, but sometimes life’s easier when I don’t call attention to myself, you know? Like when you thought my name was Tim, I just went with it.”
“Totally understandable,” Tara offered. “Who is Tim?”
“He works for AirTide, one of my sponsors,” Makani explained. “He does the travel arrangements and stuff. I wound up with so much swag coming home from Tahiti that he and his girlfriend went out and got me an extra suitcase. She’s the one who put the ribbon on it, but I didn’t pay much attention to the colors, either.” He grinned at Tara again. “Rainbow, zebra, whatever, right? I just hope…” He dropped down, unzipped the suitcase, and began to rummage. “Yes!” he cried triumphantly, pulling out the boardshorts. “I figured they must be in this one. Everything was so crazy when we packed up, I was just throwing stuff everywhere. And then when we got home it was even more nuts. I didn’t finish unpacking for days. But they would have killed me if I’d lost them, I swear.” He stuffed the shorts back in the suitcase, stood up again, and beamed at Tara. “Wow. Thanks so much. You have no idea.”