“Yeah… yeah… Change your whole life,” Chyna wrongly repeats Robin’s last words. She has one ear on the conversation and two eyes on the businessman.
Robin slaps Chyna’s arm to get her to snap out of it and focus back on the conversation. She gives her a wide-eyed glare as to say Pay Attention! Chyna returns Robin’s glare and shrugs her shoulders pretending as if she had been paying attention the whole time. She looks over at Lopaka and realizes she has to make this speech quick, if she wants to make some money tonight.
“Look kid, you wanna know the truth? Ready or not, here it comes… If he wanted to be with you, he would be with you. That’s it, nothing more. None of this, ‘I’ll text you,’ ‘keep you hanging,’ ‘making you doubt your own worth’ shit. Nuh-uh. You’re settling and you know what the saddest part is… you know you are.” Chyna puts Lopaka in his place then looks back over at the businessman, but he’s gone. “Oh great, Robin, see what you did? He could’ve been my future husband,” Chyna fumes. Now pouting, she slumps in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest.
“You have a past and present husband. I think you’ll be alright,” Robin reminds her friend.
Lopaka chuckles slightly. The two ladies stop their bickering and look over at him. “Ohhhh, there he is,” Chyna starts. “There’s that handsome Hawaiian boy that we’ve all been missing.” She starts physically poking him, making trouble and trying to get him to lighten up. “Alright, I’m starving. Who wants tacos? What day is it? Taco Tuesday?” Chyna gets up and heads toward the register.
“It’s Friday,” Robin corrects her friend.
“Well, it’s Taco Tuesday somewhere, right?” Chyna responds without waiting for an answer.
“It’s not like Happy Hour. That’s not how it works,” Robin shouts, but realizes Chyna is already ordering. She redirects her focus back on Lopaka. Touching his cheek gently, she says, “You’ll be alright, babe.”
8. Trash Can
- 1 oz. (30ml) Vodka
- 1 oz. (30ml) Gin
- 1 oz. (30ml) Rum
- 1 oz. (30ml) Triple Sec
- 1 oz. (30ml) Blue Curaçao
- 1/2 oz. (15ml) Peach Schnapps
- 1 can Energy Drink
Back outside the locked entrance of Violet Nightclub, two more bartenders, Beau and Chico, round the corner and walk toward the slowly-growing group of Violet employees. Each gnawing on a slice of pizza, the two boys flash the ‘shaka’ sign with their free hand to the other boys chatting on one side of the car. Ashley and Momi continue to have their own private conversation on the other side of the car.
Beau, the self-proclaimed “Straight Cheyenne Jackson,” has the bone structure of a young Johnny Depp. His dark brown hair falls perfectly to one side and his light blue eyes are the color of a community swimming pool the first day after cleaning. He’s a similar height to Parker, but slimmer like a ‘Gap’ model.
Ashley notices the two boys first and says sarcastically to Momi, “Here comes your favorite.”
Momi glances over her shoulder to see who Ashley is speaking of and immediately regrets looking. Beau catches Momi’s glance and puckers his lips in a kissy way. She quickly turns back to Ashley and says “Ugh, I can’t stand him.” Momi rolls her eyes.
“Who? Chico?” Ashley plays dumb, all the while knowing Momi is talking about Beau.
“No, Beau!” Momi proclaims with intense eyes.
Ashley laughs then says, “I know, I know. I’m just ‘making.’ Hey, you’re the one who dated him!”
“I did NOT date him!” Momi defends herself. “We slept together one time… ONCE!” She uses her index finger to indicate how many times. “Everybody thinks he’s so cool, he’s so hot…”
“Especially himself,” Ashley adds.
“Okay?!” Momi concurs. “And the truth is, he’s not even that good in bed.”
“Ooop!” Ashley makes a noise to indicate that Momi just threw shade.
“He thinks he can get any girl he wants,” Momi continues
“Well, he did get you, girl.” Ashley brings up the facts.
“Shut up!” Momi starts to get annoyed with her cousin. “Ugh, you wanna know the T? He’s overcompensating.”
“It’s like they say, ‘Big Head, Small Head.’” Ashley points to her crotch on the latter ‘Head.’
“That’s for sure,” Momi concurs.
“I like Chico, though.” Ashley redirects Momi’s focus.
“Oh, I LOVE Chico! He’s always so chill, always helpful…”
“Always high,” Ashley takes the lead nonchalantly, “and always hooks me up with the best weed!” The two girls chuckle.
Chico is not as tall as Beau or Parker, but not small either. He’s an average height Latino male, with a big smile that would make the cheshire cat feel jealous. At a young age, he lost his parents in a tragic car accident, which left him to be raised by his Mexican grandma he calls ‘Abuela.’ She taught him to see the good in every situation which is why he’s always got a positive outlook on life. Liked by everyone, he seems to be the only person at Violet that dodges any drama. However, his amazing advice in every situation often gets brushed off and disregarded because he’s a stoner.
“Chico and his boyfriend are such potheads,” Momi states.
“And I love it!” Ashley replies. The two girls giggle.
From the other direction, Tisha, another bartender, turns the corner and walks toward everyone with her “right off the runway” look. A tall glass of chocolate milk, she’s an African American dream with skin as dark as midnight. A former stripper, she’s got the body that make men go crazy, but having dealt with so many abusive men in the past, she’s now a full blown lesbian.
Momi notices Tisha right away. “God damn,” Momi says under her breath
“What?” Ashley turns to see who or what Momi is looking at. She realizes quickly who Momi is going ‘ga-ga’ over. “Oh, here she comes,” Ashley says, “I’m not even in to chicks, but she’s gorgeous.”
“You don’t even know the things I fantasize doing to her,” Momi says with her mouth almost drooling.
“Ok. Calm down horndog. You’re like a high school boy right now.” Ashley tries to snap her cousin out of it. “Wait, I don’t get it. Why don’t you just sleep with her and make your fantasies reality? You guys sleep with everyone else.”
“I can’t,” Momi says all depressed. “Parker and I have one rule…”
“Don’t tell me he’s racist,” Ashley tries to guess.
“NO! Not at all. Not that,” Momi exclaims. “We can sleep with whoever we want, but we can’t sleep with close friends.”
“Ahhh” Ashley says being enlightened. “Yeah, I guess she is a close friend, huh? At least I know I’m safe,” Ashley jokes
“Ew, you’re family, you're not even an option!” Momi says grossed out.
Ashley laughs and sarcastically says, “ Well, I guess you just gotta sleep with your boyfriend then! What a tough life.” Momi rolls her eyes and then goes back to watching Tisha walk toward them.
With one arm holding her purse, Tisha smiles and waves femininely at the group of boys. She B-lines straight to Momi and Ashley.
“Hey girl,” Ashley says and then kisses Tisha cheek-to-cheek, pretending as if they weren’t just talking about her.
“Look at you, girl, with those red booty shorts on!” Momi flirts.
Tisha turns around and shows off her butt, completely unaware that Momi is checking her out. “You like it?” Tisha asks innocently. “I just bought it today.”
“I love it!” Momi responds out loud and finishes her sentence internally …and I love you.
“Oh she definitely loves it,” Ashley remarks, making fun of Momi. Momi elbows her cousin as to say Shut up!
Tisha leans in to kiss Momi hello. “Good Morning, boo.”
“Hi babes.” Momi receives the kiss and then goes for a hug too. Ashley and Momi make eye contact while the hug happens and Ashley shakes her head in a disapprovin
g, but entertained way. Momi closes her eyes and enjoys the embrace for as long as she can.
Just as the hug is coming to an end, a loud crash startles the girls. Both groups, the girls and the guys, turn to discover Yuki with his ass on the pavement and a trash can overturned. His skateboard is rolling away from him and trash is everywhere.
“Ho her gawd,” Momi says mimicking the ever-popular ‘Oh My God,” another one of Violet’s adopted slang. Momi gets irritated with Yuki, thinking he just ruined the perfect moment.
“Are you ok?” Parker yells over to Yuki.
“I’m good, I’m good. That trash can just came out of nowhere,” Yuki yells back, still on the ground.
Yuki is a klutz. He’s a small, Japanese transgender boy in his early twenties, who’s always falling and hurting himself in some way. How he came to be the barback of Violet, no one really knows. Balancing stacks of cups and lugging multiple buckets of ice becomes a daring circus act when Yuki is working behind the bar. Being a transgender male in mid-transition, his hormones can sometimes be all out of whack. Most of the time a goof, he can sometimes go from tears of happiness to tears of sadness in a small amount of time. Regardless of his vices, Yuki is harmless and always means to do well.
“Do you need help?” Beau asks, knowing full well that he has no intention to go over and help Yuki.
“Ugh, I can’t with him,” Ashley says unimpressed with yet another clumsy Yuki occurrence. Momi just shakes her head.
“Be nice,” Tisha tells the other two girls gently with a smile. She turns around and walks toward Yuki to help.
From the boys group, Chico starts heading over to Yuki as well. Chico, being just a pace behind Tisha, does a little skip to catch up to her. “Good Morning!” He says in his usual jolly tone.
“Oh!” Tisha gasps, just the tiniest bit startled. Realizing it’s Chico, she smiles and responds, “Good Morning, baby.” She kisses Chico on the cheek and they walk together toward Yuki.
Chico offers his hand to Yuki while Tisha just stands back and smiles. Yuki pops up off the ground disregarding Chico’s gesture and pretending as if he hadn’t just fallen flat on his ass. In his mind, he’s humiliated, but wanting to prove that he’s one of the boys, he dusts himself off and says, “Sup guys!”
“You ok, boo?” Tisha asks still with a smile on her face.
“Oh who? Me? Yeah I’m good. So good. Totally fine!” Yuki counters, acting as if he isn’t going to wake up with a big bruise on his ass tomorrow morning. Yuki runs to grab his skateboard, which is still slowly rolling away like a leaf on a lazy river.
Chico and Tisha look at each other and smile as to non-verbally communicate Gotta love Yuki. They wait for him to return with his skateboard then head back to the group.
“Yuki!! WOO!!” Beau cheers mockingly like a frat boy as if Yuki just won gold at the Olympics. The entire group of boys join in, clapping and shouting as to tease Yuki in a loving way.
Yuki blushes in embarrassment, but decides to make his way to the center of the boys and relish in the moment anyway. He bows a grand bow as if he had just finished receiving a standing ovation for his Broadway debut.
“I guess we should go and join them, huh?” Ashley says to Momi from the other side of the car.
“I guess.” Momi responds acting more ‘over-it,’ than she actually is.
As Yuki is taking his final bow, the girls barge into the group. “Alright, alright. Circle Jerk is over boys,” Ashley proclaims sarcastically.
“…unless, I’m invited,” Momi finishes. The whole group laughs. The girls split up and stand next to their boyfriends.
“Wait. Why are we all still outside?” Yuki interrupts the laughter.
Ashley looks at Yuki and says, “Guess.”
“The reason we’re always outside, Yuki,” Momi responds as if Yuki should already know the answer. Yuki looks at everyone blankly, completely clueless. No one said he was the brightest crayon in the box.
In unison, the group says, “Kaleo!”
9. Blow Job
- 1/2 oz Kahlua
- 1/2 oz Baileys
- 1/4 oz Amaretto
*Served as a shot, then topped with whipped cream
Kaleo shakes his head with frustration. He’s stuck in traffic. Driving his black Toyota Tacoma, his right arm steers as his left arm sits in the window sill, holding his still pounding head. Moving at a snail’s pace, he knows he’s going to be more than a little late. He grabs his phone and starts to text his best friend, Parker.
“I’m gonna be late,” Kaleo texts.
“We know lol,” Parker texts back swiftly. This isn’t the first time this has happened.
Kaleo and Parker have been friends since high school. Having joined the canoe paddling team as strangers, they quickly became friends when they were placed in the same boat. Over the course of their Junior year, they became so close that seeing them together was as common as seeing rice on a plate lunch. They pushed each other to be the best they could be by making one golden rule: “You gotta finish what you start.” Whether it’d be a long distance run for practice, taking a course they weren’t comfortable with or even finishing a big meal, they had to see things through ’til the end.
They told each other everything, created a secret handshake and even shared answers on tests, but there was one thing Kaleo never shared. Closeting his true self in high school, Kaleo kept the fact that he was gay a secret from everyone, including Parker. That is, until one day in the boys locker room…
* * *
Canoe paddling practice just finished and while most of the boys leave straight from the Ala Wai canal, Parker and Kaleo head back to school to shower before going home. Having just got his driver’s license a couple months prior, Parker would drive Kaleo home everyday after practice. With no rush to go home and do the boring task of homework, the boys take their time and find themselves to be the last ones remaining.
In the locker room, Kaleo and Parker unlock their lockers and slowly undress. Kaleo watches Parker from the corners of his eyes, admiring him and taking in every muscle of Parker’s freshly pumped body. Usually, Kaleo could check out Parker without getting hard, but today was different.
Just the night before, Kaleo had a wet dream where he was giving Parker a blow job in the boys’ locker room showers and now here they were… in the boys’ locker room about to head into the showers. Trying to suppress the vivid images in his mind and trying to stop his dick from rising, he stops undressing and sits down on the bench.
“You ok?” Parker asks Kaleo, completely oblivious to the thoughts racing through Kaleo’s head.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m good. You go ahead. I’ll be right there,” Kaleo says calmly on the outside, while slightly panicking on the inside.
“Ok,” Parker responds. He casually pulls down his boxer briefs exposing his perfectly pink penis and heads into the showers.
That’s all it took. Kaleo’s semi-chub turned into a full-on boner with a single glance. He thought to himself, Shit, this is bad! I can’t go into the shower with a raging hard-on, but if I don’t shower, he’s gonna know something is up. What do I do?! He tried to calm himself down and started thinking of things that don’t turn him on. He started with baseball.
Ok, baseball is not my favorite sport, it’s boring, it’s hot… oh, but the guys on our baseball team are super hot and they have nice asses… oh shit, NO! Ok, SOFTBALL! Yeah, softball. There’s only girls in softball and I don’t like girls, so that works.
While still mostly hard, his little friend below slowly began to descend. Yeah and UGLY girls too. Yup. Ugly girls playing softball. Gross OLD ugly girls playing softball, yeah like grandmas. Ugly grandmas with their old dried up vaginas playing softball with other old ugly grandmas. That seemed to have done the trick. While not completely flaccid, he went back into the semi-chub stage which hung enough to where Kaleo thought it could just pass as a thick dick.
As Kaleo exhales a sigh of relief, Parker calls from the showers
“You coming in?”
Kaleo, having finally calmed his rebellious rod, yells back, “Yeah, I’m coming in now.” Kaleo removes his underwear, heads toward the showers and takes a deep breath before turning the corner. I got this.
He walks a couple more steps and sees Parker standing under the shower in all of his naked glory just like he was in his dream last night. And, as the old saying goes… “The penis has a mind of it’s own.” Kaleo’s semi-erect dick, once again, turns into a full-blown raging boner. FUCK! Kaleo freaks out internally, but before he can cover his junk, Parker looks over and sees Kaleo standing there, looking at him with a stiffy.
“Dude…” Parker is surprised and confused. He’s slightly defensive, but remembers that it’s Kaleo, his best friend, so he doesn’t want to take it too seriously.
Kaleo stands there stunned with his hands covering his dick. His worst fear had just come true. Without saying a word, he runs back to his locker and quickly starts putting on his clothes.
Parker, trying not to think too much of it and actually finding it kind of funny, turns off the shower, grabs his towel off the bathroom rail and wipes himself down. He wraps the towel around his waist and then heads back to his locker. He turns the corner and notices Kaleo sitting on the bench, fully clothed with his backpack next to him, struggling to put on his shoes. “Dude, it’s ok. It happens.”
Kaleo looks up at Parker, shakes his head and then looks back down at the floor. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Parker responds. “Man, seriously it’s cool. I get it. They come out of nowhere sometimes. Like today, I had a hard-on in physics. PHYSICS! What’s sexy about physics, right?! And we had a test! So, why was I hard in a completely quiet room, looking at a piece of paper with multiple choice on it? I don't know, but they come when they come. That’s why they call it a head, right? Cause it has a mind of it’s—”
On the Rocks Page 3