11. Kai
CHAPTER 11
KAI
K ai didn’t know where Jason got his endless supply of energy; he really didn’t. Maybe it was genetics, or maybe it was just determination mixed with caffeine. But one minute they were sitting on deck chairs, relaxing in the morning sun, and the next Jason was wrangling them all to go out on jet skis to “make the most of this vacation.” Kai had wanted to keep dozing in the sun like a cat because that was how he intended to make the most of his vacation, but Jason had literally grabbed his hand and hauled him up from the deck chair, so that was that.
Where on earth they had procured four jet skis from, Kai had no idea. He didn’t bother to ask, though. Sometimes it was more fun just to live in the mystery of it all. And as much as he would have loved to be asleep on deck right now, he had to admit that zooming around at breakneck speed appealed to his inner ten-year-old very much indeed.
Poor Amy, it turned out, was not that keen on the idea of operating a jet ski.
“Don’t you need a license to drive one of these things?” she asked, eyeing the vessel over with a frown. It took a lot of self-control, but Kai managed not to laugh. He maybe couldn’t match her level of grave seriousness, but he could avoid laughing at the very least.
“You don’t need a license,” he assured her. “It’s really easy. You just turn it left or right.”
“Oh, like a car is really easy, huh? Remember when you said driving a car was easy, Kai? Sorry if I don’t trust your judgment on vehicles anymore.”
Kai tried not to laugh — he really did — but he failed and ended up snorting so hard he nearly fell over backwards into the water. Amy gave him an unimpressed look.
“You know what, I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “You’re right. You shouldn’t be in control of anything with an engine.”
“That was a quick turnaround.”
“I’m just having flashbacks to you trying to get your driver’s permit for the fourth time in a row and failing.”
Amy gave him a sour look. “It’s heavy machinery. There’s a lot to learn, okay? And I drive just fine now.”
“Fine is one word for it.”
She was just about to throw seawater in his face when Jason intervened.
“Hey, man,” he said to Amy, because she had been dubbed with “man” just like anyone else that Jason considered a friend. “I get it. And I mean, safety first is always the best strategy. But don’t you worry. I’m going to teach you the basics, and you’ll be zooming around like a pro in no time. I guarantee it.”
So that was how their morning went. It was a strange division of their little group, with Kai and Jess racing around on their own jet skis at a frankly terrifying pace, with Jess beyond fearless as soon as she’d gotten on the jet ski. The only reason she was even wearing a life vest was because Jason had insisted, and even then, she’d agreed with a begrudging roll of her eyes. Meanwhile, Kai would look over and find Jason patiently teaching Amy how to drive a jet ski, explaining every knob and switch, and after an hour of careful persuasion, he’d convinced her to slowly but surely drive the jet ski in rings around the yacht, riding right beside her on his own vessel and cheering like he’d just coached the winning team at the Superbowl.
All of it made Kai happy . And maybe there was a fancier word to describe the feeling, something more poetic and dramatic, but then again, the simplest word seemed to be the exact right one. Right at that moment he was happy in a way that he hadn’t been for a very long time. He was happy that he had accepted the invitation to come out on the yacht, even if he’d done it while accidentally lying about having a fiancée. He was happy that it had given him an opportunity to actually get to know Jason beyond the business side of things. The man talked like he was a caricature of a stereotypical “cool dude” from a cartoon, but he was actually a really good guy. He treated his wife like a queen and had all the time in the world for Amy, nothing but a perfect gentleman. And with that knowledge, Kai now understood why Jason had reacted so badly to him canceling their meeting at the last minute with no real excuse other than “something had come up.” He was a guy who only ever wanted to do the right thing by everyone, so when someone screwed him over, it must have stung on a way deeper level than just business, especially if he’d started seeing Kai as a friend and not just a business partner.
But the part of this that made Kai the happiest of all was that he’d been able to spend more time with Amy. God, how many years had it been since they’d spent an entire day together, let alone a whole week ? Even amongst the quiet joy, he was devastated that he’d drifted so far from her in the first place. That time was lost forever. He wasn’t going to let any more opportunities slip through his fingers…
Amy had retreated back to the edge of the yacht when Jason went off with Jess, and Kai rode over to her.
“Come on,” he said. “Let me show you how fast these things can really go.”
“No, thank you,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to go fast.”
“Well, how about I show you how smooth and uneventful it can go?” he offered instead. “Give you a ride where you don’t have to worry about steering.”
She eyed him skeptically, but Kai held out his hand and waited patiently. Sure enough, she sighed and clambered onto the jet ski behind him.
“Please don’t go super fast,” she repeated, lips right by his ear. “ Please .”
“I won’t,” he said, patting her hand where it was grabbing at his side like an anchor. “Promise.”
He kept his promise, knowing that this wasn’t a time for practical jokes or trying to be funny. There were very few things in this world that Amy was truly afraid of, but this seemed to be one of them.
“You’ve got a life vest on,” he reminded her over the hum of the engine as he slowly drove around, increasing the speed a little at a time. “If you fall off, you’ll just bob around. And you can swim, or did you forget about that little fact?”
“I won’t get chopped up by the propellers?”
“It’s a jet ski. It uses water jets, like the ones in a hot tub, to push it forward.”
“Oh… you guys could have told me that like two hours ago and this whole thing would have been way less terrifying.”
Kai couldn’t help it and started laughing. Amy was even brave enough to let go for a second to slap his shoulder. But he slowed down to a stop, pulling back up to the yacht where the other jet skis were being moored. It had been fun, that was for sure, but he was kind of tired of the sound of an engine constantly drilling into his ears, and Amy looked thoroughly done with the whole adventure as well.
He swung off and helped Amy get back onto the yacht without falling into the ocean before they wandered up on deck to go and find lunch.
Did she hold onto his fingers just a fraction longer than was necessary? Or was that just wishful thinking?
The afternoon wore on in a haze, and Jess and Jason spent it in the jacuzzi, all over each other. Clearly a morning spent apart, even if it was just a few hundred yards between them, had taken its toll. They weren’t shy about public displays of affection at the best of times, and by this point Kai didn’t even really notice it anymore. But for some reason right now, it struck a nerve that that was what a loving couple should look like, arms all over each other, their faces glued together at the lips and quite literally inseparable. And apparently Amy had picked up on his sudden mood shift as he thought all of this over.
“You look like you’re thinking too hard about something,” she said, drifting around in the pool without a care in the world.
When Kai looked at her, she pointed to her forehead. “If you keep frowning like that, your eyebrows are going to fall off.”
“You sound like your mother when you talk like that.”
Amy shuddered. “Never mind, then. Frown all you want.”
Distracted, Kai looked back at Jess and Jason in the jacuzzi, but now Jason saw him looking and lifted a hand in a wave. Kai returned it, then turned around and swam over to Amy, embarrassed.
“What?” she asked as he drifted to the edge of the pool beside her.
“Just thinking if we’re selling this whole being engaged thing well enough.”
“Why?” she asked. “Did they say something?”
“No, it’s just… they’re all over each other. And we’re not, and should we be? You know, all over each other? At least once?”
Amy looked at him blankly. “You might need to ask that more concisely, because right now you sound like you’re having an aneurysm.”
He knew she was poking fun at him, seizing the opportunity to torture him, just a little bit. But still, Kai could have done without it. He was doing a fine job of torturing himself without her assistance. In fact, he’d like nothing more than to hop in a time machine and undo what he just said, realizing how ridiculous it sounded. In lieu of that, he could always sink below the pool’s surface and drown; that would be a good solution. Should we be all over each other? Had those words seriously come out of his mouth? Unfortunately, he couldn’t see a single way to back out of the situation without making it ten times worse than it already was.
“I just meant…” he said, using every fiber of his being to sound as rational and sane as possible. “If we’re trying to sell the image of being an in-love engaged couple, maybe it would be prudent to at least kiss in front of Jess and Jason. Just once. To sell it. But I realize that it’s maybe beyond the limits of this whole endeavor that we’ve agreed on. So never mind, forget I said anything. In fact, let’s go back to our regular programming. Okay?”
Amy’s face was perfectly blank in the very specific way that meant she was borderline hysterical with laughter and determined not to show it. Kai honestly didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse about the whole situation.
“You know what?” she said with a serious nod. “You’re right. We should kiss in front of them. Just once. To sell the vision .”
Kai was glad that he was clinging to the edge of the pool. Otherwise, he might very well have just sunk right there and never surfaced again.
“Sorry, what?”
“Yeah!” she said brightly. “We’ve had a lovely day out on the water. It would be perfectly normal for us to kiss if we were getting married. We must seem like a couple of prudes compared to those two.”
“Well, yes, then. We should kiss. If you’re okay with that.”
“I’m okay with it. Are you sure that you’re okay with that?”
“I’m okay with it. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”
“Because you seem kind of not okay with it,” she said dryly. “I’m not going to give you cooties.”
“I don’t think you’re going to give me cooties .”
“Then why are you acting like it’s such a big deal?”
“Because you’re you, and it’s weird.”
“Do you want a shovel for the hole you’re digging yourself?”
“Are we going to kiss or not?”
“Are you two all right?”
Kai and Amy stopped their bickering and looked up at the jacuzzi, where Jason and Jess were watching them with slightly confused expressions. Kai hadn’t realized how loud they’d grown over the course of the conversation. Maybe it really would be better if he just sank and drowned right about now. It would certainly solve a lot of problems.
“Amy’s just being mean!” he called, making a joke of it.
“You two are like little kids on the playground, I swear!” Jason said.
Screw it. At this point it really was needed to sell the fact that everything was just fine and dandy.
Before Amy could tease him any further and before he could overthink himself to death, Kai looped his arm around Amy’s waist, pulled her in tight and put his lips to hers. It was a chaste sort of kiss at first. The type of kiss strangers do when they’re acting in a play in the community theater group, arms all over the place but lips dry and shut tight, pressed to each other’s faces with a carefully calculated amount of pressure. But then it started to morph into something else. Amy’s arms gripped his shoulders tighter as she fought for balance while they floated in the water, and he held her just as tight, a hand moving between her shoulder blades. Their lips were no longer stiff and firm, but softening by the second, their noses pressed together and Amy’s breath tickling his cheek.
Kai wanted to dive into that kiss, to submerge himself and never come up for air again. But Amy pulled away, and before Kai could catch her eye, before he could get his brain working enough to say anything at all, she was looking over his shoulder at the upper deck.
“Aw, man,” she said and looked over at the others. Jason and Jess weren’t even looking in their direction, hopping out of the jacuzzi to go and get dressed for dinner.
“It was worth a shot,” she said, quickly releasing Kai from her grip and swimming over to the ladder to climb out of the pool. “But we should probably get ready for dinner too.”
“Uh, yeah. Probably.”
With that she was gone, scurrying away and not once looking Kai fully in the eye. Like she was embarrassed about what had just happened. Meanwhile, Kai felt years of suppressed feelings rush to the surface of his mind so fast that it made him dizzy.
God, he was such an idiot. He really was. And his brain was a complete traitor, coming up with that idea to make their fake relationship more believable. As if kissing awkwardly in public wouldn’t be a completely obvious sign that they were fabricating the whole thing.
But it really hadn’t been awkward at all, maybe a little at first, but after that… then it had been in the process of shifting into something else entirely before Amy had pulled away. While everyone was inside, Kai dunked himself under the water, trying to clear his head and failing miserably. He wanted to kiss Amy again. And again and again… If he could just do it forever, he’d be the happiest man alive. He had always wanted to kiss Amy, and it was only just now that he was brave enough to admit it to himself.
He had no idea what he was going to do for the rest of the trip, how he was supposed to stay even halfway sane. Because now that his feelings for Amy were properly unlocked for the first time in over a decade, he had no earthly clue how he was ever going to shove them back down again.