Chapter 3 #2
“Pretty much,” Kekoa said.
“So, when you say bond, what does that entail?” I asked.
“Just, um, you know, kind of what we’ve been doing all morning,” they explained. “Hanging out, vibing, sharing good eats and ridiculous stories. I’m guessing you asked because something has changed with the marks on your wrists.”
“You could say that,” Lani said, holding his wrist out so Kekoa could see the changes in our bondmark.
“It’s not half-formed anymore,” they muttered as they studied it.
“Nope, it’s just about whole,” Lani said as Kekoa reached out until their fingers hovered over it, though they didn’t touch.
“It’s okay if you touch it,” Lani said, peering up at them. “In fact, I’d like it if you did. Maybe it will help with the whole bonding process.”
“You’re certain it’s me?” They asked, still hesitant to touch.
“You’re the only new person we’ve met?” I explained, “And earlier, when you were touching us, riding on us, there was something intensely intimate about it.”
“I felt it too,” Kekoa admitted as they finally traced the marks on Lani’s wrist. “I thought it was just the rush of getting to enjoy the feel of someone else, but this makes it so much more.”
“Yeah, it does,” I said. “You kind of get to decide for all of us how we proceed from here.”
“What are the options?” they asked. “Is there something you need me to do?”
“Just, um, don’t go ghost on us or anything,” I said. “Right now, with us just getting to know each other, spending time together is super important, unless you, um, aren’t interested in being our mate.”
“Oh, I’m interested,” they replied. “And I have no intention of ghosting you, but I have no idea how these things are supposed to work out. Like, you two already live together. Would you want me to move in? Would we maintain separate households? Is there some kind of ceremony to make it official? I can invite my siblings, but it might take some planning since they are scattered all over the place. I told you about my folks, so there won’t be a shovel talk in your future.
I just, I’ve never known anyone who had a mate that wasn’t the same species, so I’m completely lost over here. ”
“What, um, happened to your folks?” I asked. “I know you said they’d passed, and I’m guessing it was sudden.”
“It was a skiing accident of all things,” Kekoa replied.
“Like seriously, I never understood how a pair of jellyfish could be so in love with the cold, but they were caught in an avalanche while on one of their ski vacations. They loved lodge weekends, especially my mom; she had this whole ski bunny vibe going on and constantly sent photos of them in their snowsuits with a mountain of the white fluffy stuff behind them. It was just their thing.”
“I’m sorry,” Lani said. “It can’t be easy moving on after that.”
“No, it wasn’t; let’s just say that my siblings and I hadn’t strayed too far from the nest at that point,” they replied.
“I mean, we’d all moved out and all, but we were still in Santa Monica and constantly dropped by for meals or just to hang out.
Still had our regular family game night every Sunday too, so yeah, it was hard to let go of all that.
We kept the house; they loved that house, and my brother Tristan had just found his mate, so the rest of us agreed that they should have it.
I bummed around coastal Cali for a while, then hopped a flight to Hawaii to work for a housepainter there.
He had a nephew that graduated from high school this past May and started getting into trouble, so he brought him in to work part-time with us, and the kid actually turned out to be a solid worker.
When I saw the job opening here, I jumped on it, since it felt like fate was giving me the chance to do what my parents hadn’t had the chance to do and move back, plus my leaving would allow my boss’s nephew to work with him full time, so it was win-win for everyone. ”
“Including us,” I said. “Where did they fall in love with skiing?”
“Japan,” they explained. “They were stationed there together before they transferred here.”
“Is that where they were when they passed away?”
“No, they were in Aspen; it’s where they honeymooned, so every few years they’d go back to make new memories.
They’d have gotten a kick out of hearing about how we met.
They loved telling the story about how Dad ran a red light and rear-ended Mom’s car when she stopped short to avoid hitting something in the road.
It was mushy as hell, with Dad claiming the rear fender on her old Datsun was so curvy that he couldn’t take his eyes off it and Mom claiming it wasn’t the Datsun’s rear that had captured my old man’s attention.
They exchanged phone numbers, and Dad called to check on her later that night and the following morning, when he offered to bring over coffee and donuts.
She declined because she had to work, so he called back several more times over the following week, checking on her, arranging to pay for the damage, making sure she’d had a mechanic check the car over to make sure the only damage was cosmetic, and of course, to see if she was free to get a bite to eat with him.
After the fifth time he called, she took pity on him and asked him if he wanted to go to her favorite noodle hut. They were married three months later.”
“Sounds like love to me,” Lani said.
“Yeah, I could always tell that they really loved one another,” Kekoa said.
“At night, when my siblings and I were in bed, we’d hear them laughing and giving one another a bit of grief over something that had gone on during their day.
Even when they fought about something, it was never vicious or mean.
It was more like a disagreement, really, since neither were yellers, and they both absolutely hated silences, so they always wound up hashing things out and coming up with creative solutions in the process. ”
“Really?” I asked as I stood and started to retrieve a few things from the cooler. “Such as?”
“Creating a whole new Thanksgiving tradition after they realized that they were both sick of turkey and ham and hadn’t wanted to bring it up because they each thought the other was looking forward to the usual holiday fare.”
I chuckled because the argument was one that had been waged in my parents’ house for several years, until they’d started going out for dinner so they could order whatever they wanted, and no one had to cook.
“So, what did they wind up doing?” Lani asked.
“Creating a sort of family potlatch,” Kekoa explained. “Everyone in the house was responsible for one dish. It could be anything they wanted; the only stipulation was that we had to make sure all of the ingredients got on the grocery list and that we made enough portions for everyone.”
“Ever wind up with a table full of desserts?” Lani asked.
“Twice. The last time everyone made a different pie, and three people paired theirs with ice cream, so we had a very berry a la mode Thanksgiving and overdid it on the sugar. It was epic, as was the stomach ache I had for the next two days.”
“Wait, so you cook?” Lani asked, suddenly looking rather excited, and I knew why too.
“Only if you like your food charred, raw in the middle, or more than slightly over seasoned,” Kekoa said.
“Damnit! But you bake, though, right?” Lani said. “I mean, you made pie?”
“I bought an Oreo crumb crust and filled it with no-bake cookies and cream filling that I dotted with whipped cream out of a can when I was ready to serve it,” they explained. “There was absolutely no cooking involved.”
“Damn,” Lani said.
“At least you were making memories,” I added.
“Yeah, it was always interesting to see what wound up on the table,” they replied, a smile curving their lips upward.
I could tell it was a fond memory for him. That he came from a home with tightly bonded parents left me hopeful that he craved that same kind of bond with us.
“My folks weren’t fighters either,” Lani said.
“They always used the divide and conquer method when it came to tackling parenthood and just about everything else. Their rule of thumb was that whoever encountered the issue first got to deal with it, period, no tagging out or passing it off. The flip side was that they weren’t allowed to hold the results over the other’s head if they were less than stellar.
It worked for them. Personally, it would drive me crazy to not at least have a discussion about certain things. ”
“Yeah, I’m with you there,” I said, while Kekoa just cast sheepish glances our way.
“I’m more of a fix it first, ask questions later type,” they admitted. “That will probably drive you crazy after a while.”
“I’m sure we can work out some sort of compromise,” I said.
“Like not sparing any details when you fill us in,” Lani said. “I think I can handle not being part of the solution as long as I wasn’t kept in the dark about any aspect of what took place.”
“Yeah, see, compromise,” I said, prompting another round of laughter from all of us.
“I can easily see myself learning how to compromise with the two of you,” Kekoa admitted. “Especially once we start getting creative with it.”
“What makes you think we’re not boring as hell?” Lani asked.
“Because that would be disappointing,” Kekoa said, winking at Lani, “so I refuse to wreck the day by considering that possibility.”
This time our laughter had a softer note to it. Mellow. That he was open to figuring things out was everything. Now all we had to do was figure out how to woo our jellyfish and not get our hearts stung in the process.