by Eden Butler
How much he loved her.
I’ve…never loved anyone like… she’d told Kona, telling him what Luka had meant to her—only Luka. Kai would never measure up. Why bother trying? He knew the logic behind that question, but couldn’t eradicate the urge to stand behind her, wrap his arms around her waist and kiss her neck, remind her how it had been between them. How it could be again.
But that wasn’t what she wanted.
Gia had made so many excuses in her dance around the truth.
She wanted someone she could never have again and Kai wasn’t that guy. He never would be. He had to stop pretending he could be.
“There’s coffee in the pot if you want a mug,” he said, feeling awkward and clumsy as he stood behind her, shoving his hands and cell into his pockets.
“No, thank you,” she said, turning to face him. It had only been a week since Kai left Gia crying on his cousin’s shoulder in that Philly restaurant, since he realized why she’d gravitated to all those men in all those pictures. Despite what he knew, his fingers ached to touch her. His body felt weak just being this close to her. “There is a reason I came to see you,” she continued, brushing the hair from her shoulder as she stood in front of him. It took her several seconds before she spoke. Gia seemed distracted as she watched Kai—her gaze moving over his face, her lips pressed together as she shifted her weight on her feet like she wasn’t sure what to do with herself when she stood this close to him.
“What is it?” he said when he couldn’t take her scrutiny.
The question pulled the pleasant smile from her face, had her features instantly tightening and the muscles around her mouth pulling her lips into a line. “Mills,” she said, crossing her arms. “He saw us that afternoon you came to my place.”
“Okay…and…” He didn’t understand the issue. Plenty of people saw Gia and Kai speaking before and then, like a snap, with her frowning and worried, he understood what she meant. “He saw me kiss you.” She nodded, curling her arms closer together when a breeze whipped through the balcony.
“This…could be a major problem and I thought you should be aware.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, keeping his tone even. “I mean, if anyone says anything, I can honestly say that you and I have a professional relationship.” He stepped closer, his throat felt tight, just watching her. “You were the…college girlfriend of my…cousin and I just remind you of him. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
The second he said them, Kai regretted his words. They stung her, that much he saw in how she flinched, in the quick moisture that formed between her lashes.
“I…just thought you should…” Gia took a second, turning away to look at the river, her hair flying into her face with another whip of wind that move by them. “Anyway,” she said, lifting her chin. “Mills can be handled. If anything comes of this and you feel you need representation, the team will provide a mediator.” She straightened her shoulders and moved past him.
“Gia…wait…” he tried but stopped when she held up a hand to silence him.
“I apologize, Mr. Pukui, for any difficulties I may have caused you. I was unprofessional and irresponsible.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her, not touching her, not liking it when she nodded.
“It was…deserved, I suppose.” She glanced down at her feet, looking like it took effort to even be near him. “Please… call the office if you need anything at all.” She looked out of the window and Kai thought he spotted her eyes going glassy and wet. “We’re…um…we’re of course, happy to help our players when we can.”
And just like that, the Steamers general manager left Kai’s home and it killed him watching her walk away.
24.
GIA
THE FIGURINE WAS PLACED in a prominent position in the center of Gia’s desk. Normally, it sat proudly, its wide grin and round belly welcoming visitors as it stared at them. Today, however, she needed to hold it close. The wings were gold and wide, but the edge had become worn from the times over the years that she’d rubbed them, sometimes for luck, mostly for comfort. Luka had picked the flying pig for her as a means to encourage her, telling her who she was didn’t matter. He believed more than anyone else in her life that the only limits came from the hurdles she placed in front of herself. Luka had always believed she could clear each one.
She held the pig against her chest, looking out of her office window, cradling it because she needed its comfort. Mills had made hints, small suggestions in the team meeting that he might have let Ricks know what he’d seen between Gia and Kai.
This might be the hurdle Gia couldn’t clear, but it wasn’t the only one that worried her.
You were the…college girlfriend of my…cousin and I just remind you of him. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Kai had never been cruel to Gia. From the first second she met him, Gia believed there wasn’t any meanness in him. But those words from him were laced in bitterness, dipped in anger and she felt their sting just as surely as if he’d slapped her.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Hadn’t she wanted this? Hadn’t she asked for it? Months and months she’d spent driving him away, wishing he’d stop pursing her, hoping she could make him for get her. She’d wanted to remind him there could never be anything between them. He was too young for her. He was her player.
He was Luka’s cousin.
Now he seemed to agree. Now he seemed ready to walk away. Of course Mills’ threats were nothing to him because now Gia wasn’t either.
She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not here. Not in her office where the owners met upstairs, likely discussing her, possibly deciding her future. She wouldn’t ruin Cat’s perpetual good mood now that her assistant and Wilson were fast becoming an item. So, Gia kept her back to her door and her attention on the window, holding tight to the last sweet reminder Luka had left for her.
The size of your wings doesn’t matter as long as you’re using them to fly, he’d written to her. She wanted to fly now. She wanted to soar. She wanted to be free.
Three quick knocks tapped against her door in rapid succession and Gia swiveled around, her eyes rounded when she spotted Kona standing in the doorway.
“Is this a bad time?” he asked. His large body filled the entry as he stood there waiting for her to welcome him inside. “If you’re not busy…I hoped I could have a few minutes.”
Kona was polite, his tone soft and Gia was struck by how different he seemed to her now. This wasn’t the advice-wielding jock she’d known in college warning her away from his twin. This wasn’t the irritated ballplayer barely over his tiff with that same twin mildly amused that his brother’s girl was screaming at him. This was a grown Kona. The same Kona Hale who shared with Gia the loss of something they both missed so desperately. They were the only people left in the world who loved Luka fiercely. They were the only ones remaining to mourn.
“You’re not bothering, Kona. Please,” she said, meeting him in front of her desk. Gia took the kiss he offered to her cheek when he gave it, smiling at his awkward tenderness, then hurried to shut her door before she waved him to sit, taking the seat next to him. “What’s up?”
His gaze moved down to the pig she still clutched, his expression frozen as he stared at it and Gia offered it to Kona, figuring he might need the comfort it provided.
Kona held it between his large fingers, rubbing his thumb over the wings and across the belly like she often did. He wore an expression of mild amusement, mingled with a little astonishment, likely a little amazed that his twin had held this figurine, had spent some time fretting over if this was the right one to give to Gia.
“He was…always thinking about other people,” Kona said, motioning with the pig in his hand. “My guess is it took him weeks to find the right one.”
“How do you know?”
Kona sat back, moving the figurine on his knee as he spoke, his attention on the spinning motion he made of it with the spread wings hel
d between his index and middle fingers. “It was his way. Once, when we were ten, our kuku got sick. The flu, I think it was and he’d been talking out of his head about Saimin, something one of his wives made for him when he wasn’t feeling his best and how he hadn’t had it in years.” Kona shook his head, rubbing his eyes as he seemed to think about the memory. “Luka went to four different Korean vendors in the Market, two Bahamian farmers and I’m pretty sure one old hoodoo priestess looking for kamaboko, something none but the priestess had heard of to make the damn soup for kuku.
“There he was, ten years old, clueless about cooking a thing, but he followed the recipe he somehow dug up from God knows where, the whole while our makuahine telling him it was useless, that kuku would never eat it and then finally, at eleven o’clock that night, Luka finishes.” Kona’s slow smile spread across his mouth, held for several seconds, but then lowered. “The little idiot plates up sweet bread and this bowl of soup, wakes up kuku and makes a big deal of telling him he’d made Saimin for him with real white noodles. He was so proud.”
“And did your grandfather eat it?”
Kona nodded, that wide smile returning. “Every drop.” He looked at the pig again, rubbing the belly once more before he gave it back to Gia. “The next day we had to take kuku to the hospital for food poisoning but he made us swear never to tell Luka.”
“Oh no!” Gia said, not able to keep from laughing. “That’s awful…”
“It was a mess, but hell, Lu tried.” Kona watched her, leaning forward as he kept his attention on her face. “He kept you from me and I get why. At first, I kept Keira from him. We were always in competition. We’d always gone after the same girls and then would kick each other’s asses when things didn’t work out like we wanted. But with Keira…and with you, I suppose, that all changed.”
Gia didn’t understand why Kona had come back here to talk about things that didn’t matter anymore. It was all in the past. Things that happened between he and his brother, especially the mistakes they made, held no weight now.
“If I’d known…maybe…” Kona looked at the silver band on his left hand, rubbing it around his finger. “I had no one back then, when I got out and I missed my brother.” He glanced at Gia, holding her attention. “I pushed everyone away because I was so scared if I let anyone else close to me then I’d run the risk of feeling the same pain when I lost them too. To me, back then, it just wasn’t worth the risk.”
“Kona…” she tried, aware now where he was leading to and why he’d come unannounced. The prospect of what he wanted terrified her.
He held up his hand, keeping her quiet. “From what I made out between you and Kai, there’s been a lot you didn’t say to him. There’s been a lot you haven’t said to anyone. Maybe it’s because you’re still scared of the risk too.”
Gia shook her head, looking away from him, the grip she held on the pig so tight now that it dug into her palm. “This…isn’t your business.”
“My brother loved you, G.” Kona grabbed her hand, holding it between his. “You were the last love of Luka’s life. That makes you family. My kaikuahine.” When Gia frowned at Kona, confused, the tightness in his features eased, and he rubbed her wrist with his thumb. “My sister.” He was kind enough not to mention how quickly her eyes filled with tears. Kona, in fact, looked away from the emotion on her face. “I take care of my family.”
Something inside her chest fractured when Kona looked back at her. There was a fierceness in his eyes that Gia knew she shouldn’t discount. He wasn’t feeding her a line or telling her anything he thought she might want to hear. Why would he? Kona had no reason to be here but to do what he thought was right.
“What…what do you want?” she asked him, resigned to let the man say what he wanted.
He nodded once and the fierceness in his eyes transformed into something that looked to Gia like resignation. “Come with me?” he said. “It’s time.”
25.
GIA
“IS IT SAFE?” she asked, taking Kona’s hand as he led her up the rocky terrain. “I would have thought your mom would have wanted the city…”
“The city was too crowded. Luka didn’t like a crowd, you know that.”
It was true. When they were together, Gia had always believed it was the clandestine nature of their relationship that kept him wanting to hide her away from anyone’s notice. But one trip to the fair during a bye week, seeing how uncomfortable Luka had been weaving through the crowd and she understood he simply didn’t like being around people.
“Why wouldn’t it be safe? Watch yourself,” Kona said, holding her bicep when Gia slipped.
“The lake’s so close. Won’t it flood?” There had been so much flooding in the area the past few years. Gia had heard of homes and schools flooding and the stadium had been destroyed during Katrina. She couldn’t imagine if this place took on too much water—
“You haven’t been living here long enough, kaikuahine.” He dropped her arm as they came to the incline and a clearer walkway. “Lakes don’t flood.” He moved ahead of her, guiding her past a row of stone benches and a section of trees that lined the bank that led to the lake. “It drains into the river over there, see?” Kona pointed into the distance and Gia squinted, making out the winding bend of a larger river that surrounded the North Shore.
“I didn’t know he ever came here.”
“Once, with me when I was trying to sneak Keira out. Some asshole flattened my tire and Keira was having a…rough time with her mom. Lu brought me here and we got Keira out of her house for a couple hours.” They moved closer down the embankment and came to an old cabin. “This place was all overgrown and vacant and he camped out on the bank while I talked Keira off the ledge.”
Set back on the property was the ruins of an old sugar mill. The charred, weathered mossy rock remains stood in tall columns on one side of the structure with the half-leaning chimney from the fireplace sloping against a cluster of heavy rock. But the roof, sides and framing of the structure were all gone.
“Lu loved it here. He said it was peaceful so when my kuku died and my makuahine decided not to bury him in the city, and none of his ex-wives’ families would let him have a plot back in Maui, I bought this place.” Kona nodded, pointing beyond the ruins to the sunset and the circle of large oaks cascaded around a small cemetery. “This is where we brought Luka.” He looked away from the newer headstones, two of them, like he couldn’t stand to look at them for long. “I…I couldn’t leave him in that crowded cemetery where Mom buried him. So, he’s here. With kuku and whoever else once lived here a hundred years ago.”
“And your mom?”
Kona shook his head, giving her a dismissive frown. “With her sister’s people on the Big Island.”
Gia had avoided saying goodbye to Luka for so long she wasn’t sure if she could walk any farther. Kona made three wide steps, stopping when he glanced at his side, turning to face her. He’d brought her here for a reason. She understood that and she knew that what lie in under the earth wasn’t her Luka. He was everywhere and nowhere. He was above her and around her.
But Kona thought she should have her goodbye. She saw that plainly as he watched her.
“Gia,” he called, reaching for her.
She took a step, but only one, spotting the top curve of his headstone, seeing the black letters that spelled his name but couldn’t make herself move any closer. Then, Gia knelt into the ground, holding herself around the middle as Kona lowered his outstretched hand and sat next to her, resting his large forearms against his knees.
Gia could only watch her hands and rub her fingers together until she felt strong enough, ready enough to walk the rest of the way to that headstone.
“You know,” Kona started, his head turned toward Luka’s grave, “I lose my brother every day.” Gia looked up at him, confused by his meaning, but the man turned back to face her, making her calm with the small lift of his shoulders. “At first, it was small things, like not having to co
mplain when he left water all over the sink after he washed his face because I was in a cell and Luka wasn’t there anymore to wash his face.”
Kona waved a hand, his eyes losing focus as though some memory had latched itself to his attention for longer than he’d intended. He managed to blink, shifting his gaze and his concentration back to Gia when he spoke again. “Then, later, when I got out and I was so lonely for him, for Keira too and I’d be at the team house watching a movie, the same movies I’d seen a dozen times before with my brother, movies that always made me laugh, but didn’t anymore. They couldn’t because he wasn’t there to laugh with. He wasn’t there to share those stupid inside jokes with.”
Kona looked down, like Gia had, staring at nothing, seeming to let his grief, his loss and the sting of Luka missing from his life wrap around him has he recalled how hard that time had been for him. “His clothes weren’t in his room anymore. And my makuahine sold his car like it was nothing. Then, she took down his pictures and put them all in boxes like it was some sort of sin to be reminded that Luka had ever lived.” He shook his head, the muscles around his mouth hardening. “She pretended like his entire life had been one giant mistake. That’s how she grieved him.
“But I came into this world with him, G,” Kona said, looking back at her. “I shared blood and breath with him. It’s a connection I don’t think anyone can understand unless they’ve experienced it and then one day…that connection is just…severed. I had to learn a different kind of living without Luka. I’m guessing you did too.”
Her life had not been lived, not how it should have been. She’d admit that. She’d owned her mistakes. Her family had often worried, had always tried to fix her. Gia supposed that’s why she’d stayed away from them. If she didn’t have that space, she might be forced to confront what she ran from. She might have to face what Kona led her to right now.