Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
K imo holds my hand as he walks me home, even though I insist I can make it back just fine on my own. “Maybe I’m the one who needs protection, karate kid,” he teases me.
The reference triggers something in my brain, but it’s gone before I can latch onto it, and then I’m distracted by the whole hand-holding thing. His big hand enveloping mine, his warm skin, the light squeezes he’s giving me to remind me he’s there. Hand-holding is fine, right? It doesn’t have to mean anything. Friends hold hands all the time. Maybe fuck buddies do, too, although never a fuck buddy that I’ve had before.
“I wish I could say that was an unusually crazy night at the Kapono household,” Kimo tells me. “But it’s not. Actually, back on the Big Island, it’s even wilder than that most of the time. Three of the seven houses on my street are owned by relatives, and we eat together almost every day. Sometimes the neighbors pop in, too. Sometimes my cousins bring their football teammates. So, yeah, it’s a bit of a free-for-all.”
“It’s nice,” I tell him honestly. “That sounds...nice.”
We walk in silence for a moment. Kimo swings our hands idly and does that thing where he runs his thumb over the back of my hand. Somehow that gesture feels more intimate than anything we did back in that hotel room on Mackinac Island. “We’re only here in Chicago for the court case,” he explains to me after a moment. “Once it’s resolved, we’ll go back to the Big Island.”
My heart seizes in my chest. I knew this would be coming at some point. This is where he starts hinting about how things will only be temporary, letting me know that I shouldn’t get my heart set on anything. Usually that isn’t a problem for me. But I’m starting to worry it might be this time. Still, I force myself to nod and try to smile. “You miss it?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kimo shakes his head, lost in some memory. “We live about a two-minute walk from the beach, so when you fall asleep at night, and when you wake up in the morning, you can hear the ocean humming outside your window. I like to get up really early and go out to the water first thing. Sometimes I swim or surf. Sometimes I meditate or do Tai Chi. I just like having a little quiet time to say hello to the day, just by myself, you know?”
I try to picture it, but I can’t. There’s nothing in my experience that gets anywhere close to that. I’ve always lived in a city, surrounded by people. “A two-minute walk?” I echo. “You didn’t splurge on a house right on the beach, Kimo Hood?”
He groans at the nickname, but answers my question nonetheless. “Nah. We thought about it, but it would mean leaving the neighborhood, and we’ve been there forever. It’s nice to be someplace where no one cares about my money, but they’ll still remind me about the time I ditched school to go skinny-dipping and got my clothes stolen, so I had to walk home naked with nothing but a shell over my junk.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “It made the local paper.”
I smile despite myself. He has a way of doing that, of making me open up even when I want to stay closed. “I’m sure your mother loved that.”
“She got it framed and made me hang it in my room, to remind me what happens to young men who bring shame to their families.”
We laugh together. Kimo rubs his thumb over the back of my hand again. My heart squeezes painfully. I wish he wouldn’t do that if he’s planning on leaving in a few weeks.
Oblivious, Kimo continues on, “My mom is really tight with my neighbors, especially since my dad left. They really stepped up. My next-door neighbor is the guy I consider to be my real father—he’s the one who had to deal with my rebellious years and my party phase. I’ll owe that guy forever for keeping me from throwing my life away.”
I look up at him in surprise. “Your father left?”
“Yeah. When I was thirteen.”
For a moment, I feel like I can’t breathe. It would be easy to just not say anything, to let the moment pass. But I’m surprised at how much I want to tell him. I’ve already mentioned it to Aunty Kapono, so it’s likely he’ll hear about it anyway, but somehow it still feels terrifying to say it now, in this moment, to him. Not only because it will show him my vulnerability, this soft spot in me, but also because it will be this thing that bonds us, that deepens this , whatever this is, when I know it can only be something temporary.
“My mom left.” I carefully avoid his gaze as I say this. “When I was ten.”
Kimo doesn’t say anything for a moment, doesn’t stop holding my hand or stop walking, but I feel the shift in the air. I feel him treading carefully, searching for the right thing to say. “Man, grown-ups suck sometimes.”
“Yes,” I agree curtly. Too curtly. I feel myself pulling back, but surprisingly, I don’t want to. I want to stay connected to him, but I don’t know how. “Not you, though,” I blurt out. “You’re not leaving Nalani and Makoa.”
“I couldn’t.” Kimo shakes his head. “Not after what my dad did to me. Even if things go wrong, even if I lose the court case, I’ll move wherever Pika goes, stay nearby so I can always be there if they need me.”
“That’s really nice,” I say, or start to say before a blinding flash takes me by surprise.
Kimo pulls me behind him, though his voice is still affable as he calls out into the dark. “Hey, brother, no pictures, please. Just out for a walk.”
I glance behind me and see a few others have pulled out their phones to record us. I look to him, uncertain how to proceed. “Kimo...?”
He glances back, seeing the growing crowd, and swears under his breath. “How’s your cardio these days, Mattie?”
“My cardio is always excellent,” I reply honestly.
Threading his fingers through mine, he tugs me into a run.
We sprint down several city blocks, hand in hand. I’m determined not to let him outpace me, though it’s difficult with his height advantage. Still, I manage to hold my own. I’m not sure who starts laughing first, but soon we’re both howling as we barrel down the sidewalk at full speed. It’s not the most incognito way to make an escape, but if anyone’s trying to follow us, they’re going to have a pretty hard time keeping up.
When we’re a safe enough distance away, Kimo finally tugs me to a stop. He pulls me into an alleyway, pushing me up against the wall. He looks around us with exaggerated diligence. “Hold on. I need to protect you with my body in case anyone’s following us.”
He crowds me up against the bricks with his big, strong body, trying his best not to smile. I fight my smile, too. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to protect you?”
“That was obviously just for show. I’m a big, strong masculine type who can protect his lady.”
His lady? Hearing that sends a weird thrill through me. I press myself up against him, batting my eyelashes. “That was so terrifying. My weak feminine sensibilities are too fragile to handle it. Please protect me, big, strong masculine type.”
Grunting alpha-male style, Kimo tilts my chin up and looks deep into my eyes. “Is it weird this is actually really turning me on?”
“Kiss me,” I tell him.
He does.
I haven’t spent much time kissing just for the sake of kissing. Kissing was always the prelude to something else, the first step you take so you can get to the thing you really want to do, like eating your vegetables so you can eat your dessert.
Kissing Kimo doesn’t feel like the prelude to the next thing, though. Kissing Kimo feels like the main event. I’m caged in by his strong arms, the heat of his body pressing me into the bricks. His mouth is somehow both soft and firm, exploratory but sure, as if he knows exactly how to kiss me to turn my knees to jelly and my brain to mush. We are no longer in an alley in the middle of the city. We are alone in a vacuum, where nothing exists but us.
When we break apart, I’m breathless, trembling with want. The look in Kimo’s eyes tells me he feels exactly the same way. “How far?” he wants to know.
“Six blocks,” I tell him.
Twining his hand through mine, he tugs me back onto the sidewalk and sets a brisk pace.