Chapter Six #2
“No worries. She is still fine, and so is her. But I’m not into femme nicknames.
Also, I don’t really identify as a woman, but I do often like presenting cute or femme.
Mostly, I identify as a trash panda.” They laughed.
“I’m still figuring it out. I’m also bi.
Not sure if that bothers anyone. I sometimes get pushback because people think you can’t be non-binary or bi, or the fact that my ex had a dick. ” Kai’s eyes rolled.
“That's not an issue,” I replied, taking a sip of beer. “My cousin’s trans and I remember us explaining to the older generation over and over about pronouns and chosen names, and yes, he can have a boyfriend even though he’s trans.”
Kai smiled. “I had to have conversations like that when I changed my name to Kai, but fortunately I have some very supportive and belligerent aunties willing to hit people with slippers when they mess up.”
I laughed. “We brought an airhorn to Thanksgiving and blew it every time somebody used the wrong name or pronoun. Christmas and New Years too. By the next event, people no longer forgot.”
“I love it,” Kai replied.
It had been pretty epic.
“We both use he/him, and I don’t use my first name. I just never felt like a Gary,” I admitted.
“Are you thinking of changing it?” Kai asked.
I shook my head. “Probably not. Right now, I’m perfectly happy to go by Ashton. In hockey you go by your last name or nicknames most of the time anyway.”
Steven reached over and squeezed my hand.
“You’re hockey players and you lost a bet, so now you’re supposed to show me around town? What kind of bet?” Kai studied us with intensity.
Steven’s head hung. “I lost the bet that I couldn’t stay out of the penalty box.
I mean it wasn’t fair. I think the other team knew and they went after my Ashton.
So, I had to beat them up. I couldn’t just stand back and let them beat on my boyfriend.
I guess Ash didn’t have to come along, but I mean he’s my boyfriend.
We’re also a package deal. Not that this is a date, we’re just going out on an activity.
But I don’t think I could activity with somebody who wasn’t okay with that, but you’re okay with that, right? ”
Wow, Steven was really wound up. Was he super into Kai or was he just nervous because we hadn’t been on any kind of date in so long? We'd hooked up with people a few times, but it was strictly casual.
“You’re boyfriends? Amazing! No problem with that at all. Have you been together a long time?” Kai glanced at a text, then sent a text with an eyeroll. “Sorry, brothers.”
“There’s a reason why it’s only one letter away from bother,” I chuckled. I had brothers and sisters, also a lot of cousins.
Kai snorted, face lighting up with delight. “Love it.”
“We’ve known each other a long time and yeah, we’ve been boyfriends for a few years.” Steven shot me a fond look.
I squeezed his hand.
“I know nothing about hockey. I used to live in Los Angeles, and I think they have a team. But I live in Hawai'i now,” Kai replied.
They had the most amazing hazel eyes. There were so many different colors in them–brown, green, amber, and gray.
My guess was that Kai was a blend of a lot of somethings, including Asian. I was a blend of a lot of somethings, too.
“You live in Hawai'i? That's amazing. I only went to Hawai'i once on vacation, when I was a kid. Are you here for one of the conferences? Let me guess you’re a doctor, right?” Steven flashed a silly grin.
Kai looked maybe twenty-two, if that. I was twenty-five, Steven was twenty-four.
“I’m on spring break. I go to college in Hilo. I’m in my last semester of undergrad.” Kai’s laugh was musical.
“That’s far,” Steven said. “I mean, LA is closer to Hawai’i than Nashville, but still far. Do you miss your family? You can't exactly drive home for the weekend.”
He looked wistful. But then when he first started college his parents still seemed like they’d loved him. It wasn’t until he got signed that everything fell apart.
“I do miss them. My parents passed away my freshman year. My brother still lives in LA, but I don’t like going back. Sorry, don’t mean to trauma-dump," Kai added.
“It’s fine, and I’m so sorry to hear that,” I told her.
“Yeah, that must be hard,” Steven agreed.
“It’s okay. We have a lot of family on the islands. Lots of well-meaning aunties and uncles to feed me and take me places.” Kai grinned.
“Isn't it a little late for spring break?” I asked.
“Yes. The whole semester was delayed because of the volcano going off. There was Pele’s Hair and tephra all over campus. They had to shut everything down and clean it up. So, they just pushed everything back,” Kai explained. “The semester ends later, too. But it’s all good. Safety first.”
“What’s Pele’s Hair? Something from volcanoes I’m guessing?” While I liked volcanoes, I hadn’t heard about that. But I was more familiar with the volcanoes in Washington State, where I was from. Though I knew that tephra referred to rock fragments.
“Thin strands of volcanic glass. Pele is the goddess of volcanoes, and it’s called Pele’s Hair because, well, it looks like her hair is everywhere.
They’re really interesting and look cool, but they’re sharp.
You have to be careful picking them up since they break easily and you don’t want to breathe that in.
They sometimes mess up the pool filters, and float around after eruptions, making the ground sparkly, but this was major.
Like inches deep mats of them were everywhere on campus and they were worried about the air systems and water,” Kai explained.
“Okay, I can understand that being a safety hazard,” I replied.
Steven looked around the busy bar. “Did you just randomly decide to come to Nashville for spring break or is there some specific reason? Are you here with your friends?”
“No. This is the aunties’ annual trip to Nashville for line dancing and country music.
After my spring break went terribly wrong, Auntie Kiki literally marched me onto the airplane.
They’re paying, so why not? It beats moping on campus.
They keep wanting me to meet alphas. Now them pushing me to come to the bar after dinner tonight makes sense,” Kai explained.
“You weren’t expecting us?” I wasn’t prepared for that plot twist.
“No. They told me to give it an hour. I figured I’d have a drink or two, then go up to the hotel room, and order ice cream.
But this is fine. Tomorrow, they’re going to a country music museum, so if you want to show me around and save me from that I would be very grateful.
Then we’ve done our duties.” Kai nodded.
Steven looked at me.
I nodded. “Good plan.”
Yes, taking them out tomorrow would certainly fulfill the bet. Maybe, we’d have dinner or coffee as well for safety. Then we could go about our lives without Marilyn breathing down our necks.
“How did your spring break go terribly wrong?” Steven waved the server over, his beer empty.
“I’m going to need another drink if you want to hear that story.” Kai finished off their drink.
“Okay. I’ll buy you a drink,” Steven replied.
A server came back over and took our orders.
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” I assured.
The server brought us more drinks.
Kai took a sip, shoulders slumping. “My friends went on the vacation I planned and paid for without me–and my ex traded in my ticket, without my knowledge, to take his sidepiece, which is why he’s now my ex.”
I listened in horror as Kai told us about their trip to Bali that had been meticulously planned and paid for–and all the promises to get paid back.
And how their now-ex filled their spot with the omega he’d been cheating with.
“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe someone would do something so shitty,” Steven told her. “Your auntie is a legend for that.”
“Right? She takes no shit,” Kai agreed.
“Are you safe? Do you live together?” I rubbed my bearded chin, worried. While yes, Kai had every right to do that, I was afraid he’d retaliate.
Also, how could someone do that? Not just take someone’s vacation that they paid for, but go with a whole other omega?
Oh! That must be why Marilyn said we were activity partners. This was an, I just had a massively messy break up and need a distraction favor. We were a distraction for Kai. The aunties probably thought they’d like to do something with people their own age.
We could absolutely do that.
“I hope you’re taking pictures of everything and posting them on your social media with hashtags like #whoneedstoxicalphas and shit like that,” Steven agreed.
Kai nodded, with a sly look. “Oh, I am.”
“You should absolutely take a picture with us tonight. Tomorrow, when we go out, we’ll do it again. I don’t know how long you’re in town for, but if you're around, maybe you can come to one of our final games and make people really jealous. Not everyone gets to go to hockey finals,” he added.
“Did you get a picture with Jackson?” I asked. “That’s probably fun for your socials.”
“Jackson? He’s something?” Kai blinked and took another sip of drink.
“Yeah, he’s a country music singer.” Oh. Kai didn’t know country music. That was probably why they wanted us to save them from whatever the aunties were doing tomorrow.
“I was wondering why he looked familiar. I was sitting alone and Claire, the blonde, saved me from an alpha. She started talking to me and then Jackson came over. I guess he was taking her out or something,” Kai said.
“That makes sense.” I nodded, putting together why he was in a hotel bar. Not that it was any of my business.
“I’m up for just about anything. Yeah, I’m safe.
One of the first things Auntie did was have my uncles and cousins move all my stuff into her house.
We were in campus housing, so I don’t have to worry about breaking some expensive lease.
Auntie’s is free and I have a car so it should be fine.
There’s not that much of the semester left. ” Kai’s shoulders slumped in defeat.