Chapter 9
NINE
Cora was basically sailing on a breeze. Cameron's curious looks didn't have all that much of an effect on her. She just hoped that the same was true for Vince. They'd barely had time to unpack when the doorbell rang, and a veritable onslaught of guests showed up.
Even though she was Cameron’s family, technically, she was a guest, the people that streamed through the door were people associated with Cameron's life in the Marines.
For the men, she didn't even try to remember their real names, they didn't really call each other by them. The men called each other by their nicknames associated with their service in the corps.
Hoo-raw!
Or whatever it was.
She certainly wasn't going to ask Vince. She'd already stepped in a big pile by saying that he was in the Navy. Apparently, she should have watched a few movies before heading to Hawaii. Bone up on the military slang. Heave Ho!
No, wait.
That was pirates, right?
Yeah, pirate talk would only remind Cam that Vince was Navy.
Ugh.
Instead, she gravitated toward the women that had come to the visit. All two of them.
Grinning, she watched as one woman directed where to put all of the food that was coming inside the condo, and no one seemed to care or mind that she wasn't with one of the four Marines that lived in the condo.
They all happily did her bidding.
The other woman, Maile... Yes, Maile! Was a cousin to the woman taking over the kitchen.
"Can, I help?"
Maile looked up from her current task of dumping ice into an open cooler and gave her a curious look. "You're Axl's sister, right?"
Axl.
Yes, the name that everyone seemed to call her brother.
A name that she didn't know at all.
"Yeah. That's me. I call him Cam or Cameron, though. I had no idea that everyone here called him Axl."
Maile shrugged and pushed another empty ice bag into the large trashcan under the counter. "If it was left to me, I'd just call him Jerk."
Cora drew back a little. Startled at the other woman's words.
Maile didn't even see her reaction since she was reaching for the last bag of ice.
"Here, I'll help."
Cora grabbed the bag and tried to lift it up.
Whoa. It felt like an overfull suitcase.
"I got it." Maile reached out and tugged the bag out of Cora's arms by just the plastic strip at the top. "We handle these all the time at the bowling alley."
As Cora stood by and watched, Maile tore a hole in the back and upended it into the cooler with hardly any effort.
"Oh, the bowling alley! Cam told me about that! I'm so excited! I love bowling."
Maile grinned at her as she reached for a box of Kona Brewery Longboard beers. "Awesome! We're having everyone over there for Thanksgiving. We'll make sure you get to bowl as much as you want."
"That would be awesome! I'm not one for watching sports, so when Cam and I were at home he'd watch sports, and I'd sit on the couch and read."
Maile reached for another box and Cora was happy to pick it up so they could put the drinks in the cooler. "You and my cuz will get along. She loves reading. Me?" Maile's expression was almost comical in nature. "I'm not a reader, unless it's True Crime stories."
"Hey." Cameron came over and looked at Maile with a note of annoyance in his expression. "You're not giving my sister alcohol, right?"
Maile turned to face him, butting her hip up against the counter as she nailed him with a glare. "No, but she's an adult. You said she's over twenty-one. Right?"
"Right." Cameron dropped an arm over her shoulders and Cora shrugged it off before taking a half step away. "Hey, I'm just making sure she's not going to get drunk."
"Cam!" Cora's eyes widened as she glared at him. "Stop!"
"She can have juice or pop. I don't want her getting drunk and her... friend taking advantage of her under my roof tonight."
"Oh my God, Cameron! Stop!"
Cora turned on her heel and walked into the living room to get as far away from Cameron as she could. In the back of her mind she thought she should probably stay and try to argue with him, but a quick turn of her head showed that Maile had no problem getting toe to toe with her brother and there was no evidence that she was about to back down.
Cora got as far as the glass wall that faced the lake and folded her arms across her chest.
She watched as Vince, working with the other men, helped to set up a couple of grills in the back on the cemented patio. He was laughing along with the others and looked like he was enjoying himself. Cora was thrilled that he didn't seem to be upset.
She wasn't used to Cameron acting like this, but while she could deal with it, she was really glad that Vince wasn't hearing what Cameron was saying to her.
"Cora?"
Hearing the softer tone of voice, she turned her head to look and saw Maile's cousin, Kawehi wiping her hands on a kitchen cloth just a few feet away. "Hi."
Kawehi tilted her head toward the kitchen. "Want to come in and sit with us?"
Cora turned away from the window and saw that Cameron was gone. Maile was leaning on the counter with an open Long Board Ale can in her hand.
"Come on over, girlfriend." Maile gave her a wink. "Here, drink this before your stick-up-his-ass brother sees that I'm offering you the 'hard stuff.'"
Cora lifted a brow at her. "Hard stuff?"
Maile shrugged. "Not that we have any of the hard stuff, but you'd think I was planning to offer you wine we made in the toilet or something."
Cora burst into laughter and had to take a moment before walking closer to take the can in her hand. "Who makes wine in the toilet?"
Maile shrugged. "I think I heard it on a crime show once."
Cora gave her a broad grin. "You watch a lot of crime dramas?"
Maile half shrugged and half nodded. "I'm all drama if you ask my cuz over there." Maile waved her hand at her cousin. Kawehi was opening a large plastic bowl. "She's the level-headed one in the family. You'll see her around, probably more than me. She's married to Pallas, Axl's boss."
Kawehi opened another plastic container, and Cora craned her neck to see what was inside. Shredded carrots by the looks of it. "I don't think anyone's the boss of Axl," she smiled and looked up at Cora. "He's kind of an immovable object when he wants to be."
Cora rolled her eyes. "I think he's more of what Maile called him, a jerk." She gave Maile a wink. "It seems like he's changed since he moved here to Hawaii with the Marines. He's got a... an edge that he didn't have before."
Cora moved over to the table in the center of the kitchen and gestured at the containers with their covers still on. "Can I help?"
"Sure!" Kawehi gestured at the closest container. "If you can open those up, we're going to finish off the Mac Salad."
"Mac Salad?" Cora shrugged off her confusion and opened the container. "Peas?"
Kawehi nodded toward the big bowl at the center of the table. "Dump it in."
As Cora did that, Kawehi upended the shredded carrots in the bowl.
Cora saw the two brightly colored ingredients fall in amongst a whole ton of cooked elbow macaroni. "This is salad?"
"It's as local as local gets," Maile called over her shoulder. "Have you had a local plate lunch yet?"
"No." Cora tapped the container on the edge of the bowl to get the last few peas in the bowl. "We just got here this morning from Chicago."
"Well," Maile picked up a big ROSS shopping bag full of corn ears and dumped it out on a foldout table covered in newspaper, "we'll have to take you out for a plate lunch while you're here in the islands."
"Okay, great!" Cora opened the last container and found what looked to be canned tuna meat. "What's this? Tuna?"
"Yep! It's all part of the yum."
Maile piped up. "So ono! Just wait!"
Kawehi reached across the table for a long-handled wooden spoon as she lifted a large jar of mayo and tucked it under her arm. "Can you put the tuna in the bowl?"
Cora was game for anything. She'd heard from Cam how good the food was, and she wanted to get the full experience. She dumped out the tuna into the bowl as Kawehi was spooning in the mayo. It looked like a lot of stuff going in, but as soon as she was done, Kawehi lifted her chin toward a shallow rectangular Tupperware container with a bunch of utensils in it. "Can you grab out a spoon if you have a minute and start mixing things together?"
"Sure." Cora looked for a place to set down the now empty container. "One sec..."
"Put it in the sink on the left," Kawehi suggested and Maile added on.
"We'll make your brother wash up tonight."
Cora wasn't intending to let him do that. She didn't want him any more upset than he already was, so she had no plans to leave the washing for him.
After dropping the dishes in the sink, she picked up the long handled wooden spoon that looked like the one Kawehi was using for the mayo and started to mix the contents of the bowl together. The more it mixed, the better it looked. Little bright bits of shredded carrots and peas turned up with every turn of the spoon. "So, Maile," Cora looked down at the bowl while she spoke, "has Cam really been a jerk to you?"
Kawehi gasped at the question. "Maile! What have you been telling her?"
"The truth." Maile yanked off the outside of the corn cob that she had in her hands, the silky fine hair flying up in the air. "That man... That man makes me so... so..."
Cora looked at Kawehi and bit into her lip. "Should I change the subject?"
Kawehi raised an eyebrow at her cousin.
They watched as Maile made quick work of skinning ears of corn as she grumbled about Cameron. No, Cora couldn't exactly make out what she was saying about her brother.
Kawehi nudged her with her shoulder. "Maybe we should let her stew about it for a while."
Cora looked up at her with a quizzical glance. "You're not worried she's going to go after Cameron like that?"
More cornsilk flew up in the air.
Kawehi shook her head. "I'm not worried that she'll go after your brother."
Cora listened to Kawehi's words but watched as Maile continued to tear into the corn on the table, doing a really good job of cleaning the corn and setting the almost pristine ears of corn into a container. "Really? She looks like she could yank out every single bit of hair off of his head."
Kawehi had to put the back of her hand in front of her mouth to stop from laughing out loud. "True, but there's one thing you're forgetting."
Cora went back to stirring, looking at Kawehi and the happy smile on her face.
"What are you saying?"
Kawehi gave her a good natured smirk "She'd have to climb him like a coconut tree and I'm pretty sure Axl could stop her before that happened."
Cora nodded, agreeing with her. "True enough."
The oven dinged and Kawehi tensed up.
"I can keep stirring that."
Kawehi let out a relieved sigh. "Yes, please."
Cora, relieved that she could help out, took the edge of the bowl in her hand and drew it over to her on the table. "I've got this."
Kawehi moved over to the oven, putting mitts on her hands. As she opened the oven door, a plume of heat rolled out. Before she reached inside, she looked back at Cora. "It's good to have you here. Don't let us sour your time with your brother."
Cora shook her head. "You're not. Really," she looked over at Maile who was still tearing through the corn, "it's been a while since we've spent any real time together. This is a lot to absorb at one time, but I'm guessing that Cam is having a similar reaction to this change in our relationship."
Kawehi nodded as she turned a casserole pan around in the oven and closed it up again. "I can tell you that he could easily get in someone's face physically. He's one of the biggest guys on the team, but he's never been physically intimidating toward anyone in public."
Cora looked over at Maile and saw the way she was mumbling under her breath. "And Maile? It seems like she'd be up for kicking Cameron in the shins if he looked at her wrong."
"Well, I think they've gotten under each other's skin." Kawehi gave her a look that spoke volumes. Leaning in, she lowered her voice and whispered into Cora's ear. "If you ask me, they argue and argue but while they want to tear each other's hair out, I think... it's more a matter of a line, a very thin line, if you ask me, between-"
"Love and hate?" Cora turned and shared a smile with Kawehi. "Oh... this is going to be fun."
Kawehi nodded. "That's what I think, too."
The sliding door slid open and all three of the women looked up. Cameron stood there, half-glaring, half-snarling at the room. "You got that corn ready?"
A half-shucked ear of corn flew through the air and zoomed past Cameron's head.
He didn't move.
He didn't flinch.
"I'll let you know when I'm done, Axl Foley."
Cora leaned back at the dig, her gaze flying back to her brother's face.
For a moment she held her breath, seeing the seething anger in his eyes, but then something happened.
She saw it.
A sparkle! A crazy little sparkle in his eyes that made her suck in another breath.
His lips curled up at one corner into something that might just look like a smile.
And Maile?
She looked like she might be gearing up to grab a knife and throw it at his head, but she just stood there, hands on her hips, glaring at him as if she could flay his skin off with a look alone.
Boy they were really ready to tear into each other one way or another.
Cora looked over at Kawehi and the other woman nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Well?" Maile lifted her chin like she was pointing it out at the lake. "I'll let you know when it's safe to come back in here for the stupid corn!"
Cameron smacked his open palm on the door and spun around. "Just my luck."
Maile looked over at Cora and gave her a wink. "He's too obnoxious. You know that."
Cora touched her fingertips to her chest and smiled at Maile? "Me? That's kind of news to me."
Maile swung an incredulous look at Kawehi. "Come on, Cuz! Tell her!"
Kawehi braced one hand on the table and leaned out her hip to brace her hand on it. "Tell her what?"
"OH!" Maile turned back to the corn and put her frustration into stripping them down to the cob.
Kawehi sighed. "If you've got the salad, I'm going to help her or we're going to end up with just a handful of corn cobs for dinner."
Cora dug her spoon into the salad and watched as Kawehi wrestled some of the corn away from her cousin, warning her with a gentle voice, "How is she going to try Kahuku Sweet Corn, cuz, if you tear the kernels off the cob."
"Ohhh... he just makes me so mad!"
Cora watched as Kawehi started shucking the corn cobs as Maile tore into the corn and her brother at the same time. Things were going to be really interesting while she was in Hawaii. Really interesting.