Chapter 3
THREE
KALEO
Walking Lexie to her apartment was an easy path that took just a few minutes.
The weather was good with not a cloud in the sky, but there was one thing wrong with the sky over his head.
He sighed before he could stop himself.
He apologized just as quickly. "Sorry. I didn't mean to... I mean, I'm not tired or... or bored."
Lexie laughed softly. "I didn't think you did." She looked at him, and he met her gaze with a slight turn of his head. "I think that you're overthinking it."
"Ah... okay." They continued to walk and passed a sweet Victorian house at the corner of the street. "Maybe it's the jet lag. Or a little bit of culture shock?"
Lexie slowed her steps and came to a stop at the corner. "I guess it would be exhausting traveling that far by plane. Maybe," she looked over the intersection at the next block, "it was probably too much to ask you back tonight to talk about apartments."
Maybe, he wondered to himself, this was asking too much.
Familiarity, the quote said, breeds contempt.
Kaleo didn't want to push things with Lexie.
He didn't want to come across as a pushy guy. He had a younger sister, and he'd heard an earful from her and other women he knew about pushy guys.
The guys that women wanted to get the hell away from as soon as they could.
But those were the guys that always took rejection in the worst possible way.
They were also the guys that didn't seem to catch a clue when women were telling them, 'No thanks.'
"Uh, yeah. Are you..." He looked around and saw some decent lights along the street, but not a lot of people. Okay, no people besides them. "Are you okay with me walking you home?"
Her smile dimmed and her eyes narrowed at him. "Uh... yeah?"
Kaleo opened his mouth to say something and then closed again. "I think... I have a younger sister."
She frowned a little at that, the smooth skin of her forehead furrowed a little. "Okay?"
"So... I hear a lot about creepy guys."
Lexie's smile was mixed with something that looked... Confused?
"And I... I don't want to be one of those creepy guys."
Her lips pursed a little. "I don't think you're creepy."
"Or... pushy."
She tilted her head to the side and crossed her arms across her chest. "I didn't think you were... pushy."
He nodded, slowly, trying to wrap his thoughts around the situation.
"And I don't usually spend time with women beyond family or at work, so this is all... new."
Lexie's shoulders shook and she lifted a hand to cover her mouth.
"And..." He grimaced. "I'm overthinking."
She nodded and let out a breath. "I don't spend much time with guys outside of work and school."
Lexie took a step off of the curb and started to walk across the street, waving her hand for him to follow.
"And if I thought you were being creepy or pushy, I wouldn't have invited you back to my apartment to check the listings."
He had to take an extra step to catch up to her and walk beside her.
"And I might look like I'm a girl from the Midwest who would probably be a little wide-eyed and maybe naive. But both my mom and my dad taught me what to do if a guy made me feel uncomfortable."
"Yeah?" He was smiling then. "What did they teach you?"
She gave him a little sly side-look. "I dunno if I should tell you. Wouldn't that take away the element of surprise?"
He frowned a little. "I guess-"
She clipped him on his arm with a friendly little slug. "My mom told me to go for the throat with keys poking out between my fingers."
Kaleo's eyes widened a little and barely resisted the urge to put his hand up to protect the front of his throat. "That sounds... useful."
They reached the other side of the street, and she went up on the sidewalk a half-step before him.
"And," she slowed her steps, turning so she was walking a little sideways and a little backwards, "my dad told me to go for the nuts."
The grimace on his face was instinctual.
It didn't matter that he didn't have any 'ill intentions' for her.
When a woman threatened a guy's... junk, it was a visceral reaction.
"Well," he swallowed and she turned around to walk beside him, "I'm going to do everything I can 'not' to make you show me either of those skills."
She laughed and he warmed up again. "Good. I'd rather not have to involve EMTs, and my cousin, who's a nurse, said that if she gives someone an injury, she's not going to treat it. I think I'm going to follow her lead. Especially when it comes to a man's... thing."
The warmth he was feeling changed to a rush of heat up his neck and up to the tips of his ears, coming close to activating a fight or flight reaction.
When she looked at him, arching an eyebrow in his direction, he lifted a hand and rubbed it across the back of his neck.
"Thing?" He couldn't help but smile when she started to shake with laughter. "You're going to be a Licensed Nurse and you're calling it a 'thing.'"
She shrugged. "It sounds less clinical than phallus."
He nodded.
"And a little less cringe than 'wang' or 'sausage' or 'weenie.'"
He shook his head. "Yeah, sausage always reminds me of those cans of Vienna Sausages."
She lifted up her hand and made a space between her thumb and the tip of her pointer finger. "Teeny Weenies?"
"Yeah... Glad you didn't use those."
"What about the Romance Book versions of 'prick,' 'cock.'" She almost snorted a laugh as she covered her mouth lightly with both hands. "Member!"
They both laughed out loud at that and when she pulled out her keys, he gave her a little sidelong glance.
She only seemed to notice right before she put the key in the lock. Lexie turned her head to follow his sightline and then back up to his eyes. "What? Worried that I'll use these on you?"
He held up his hands in a defensive gesture. "I'm trying to hope that I won't do anything that makes you want to use those on me."
She rolled her eyes as she swung the door inward. "Not yet. Come on in."
When he hesitated, she raised an eyebrow in defiance.
"Or do you want me to leave you out here?"
He stepped in and held the door open for himself as she moved inside, watching her as she moved.
There was an innate confidence in the way she walked. The way she carried herself made him smile. His mother and aunts had always told him that people who carry themselves with their shoulders back and had an easy smile were the best people.
It didn't hurt that they all carried themselves that way. His sister, too. He'd been raised by and around a number of strong, capable women. It was probably those traits that made him feel connected to Lexie so quickly.
He followed her down the flight of steps, keeping an eye on the area around them.
She got the door open and turned to look at him. "On the lookout for danger?"
He shrugged. It paid to be aware.
Lexie stepped inside and held the door open for him to follow.
Another quick look around the floor and he stepped inside.
"Four apartments on the floor?"
"Yep." She flicked on the light in the kitchen and then the living area. "And three floors."
The rooms were clean and colorful. At least from what he could see.
Potted plants said that she either liked caring for them, or if she was like his friend Boy back home, she liked to buy them and start over again when they died.
Kaleo bet that she was the first kind of person rather than the second.
She stopped by the arm of the couch and then turned back to look at him, a little lop-sided smile on her face. "Uh... I need to go to the restroom. Are you okay here?"
He nodded. "I'll behave."
She had started out of the room through an open doorway and turned back around to laugh at him. "There's a few bottles of water somewhere. Nothing really in the fridge, sorry."
"I can get a glass of water from the sink if you just point me to the..."
He saw the way she was looking at him, and he shook his head. "No cups?"
She looked at him strangely before she nodded. "I forgot. You just moved here from Hawaii." She gestured at the sink. "We don't drink from the sink. The water is okay for most stuff, but I used to have one of those Brita water things to filter the water from the sink, but..."
Kaleo held up his hands. "Sorry, I'll wait until you get back."
Her smile showed her relief in more than one way, and she disappeared into the shadows.
He took the time to look around a little.
There was a window over the sink in the kitchen, and he walked over there to look out.
He remembered seeing an awning over the windows near the lawn in front of the apartment building, so the first floor... or whatever they called it, was sunken. Like a basement floor.
Huh. Cool.
He looked out and saw the light from the lamp near the corner and nodded.
This apartment was probably pretty cool even in the summer.
From there, he moved across the main room to the back of the apartment and saw there was a patio area in the back.
It looked like a table and benches and even though it was pretty dark in the back, he thought he could see some kind of grill area in the corner.
It looked like a nice place to hang out, but the depth of the patio area compared to the ground at the front of the building made him a little curious about the average rainfall in the area.
It likely couldn't compare to the average rainfall on the Windward side of Oahu. The wall of the Ko?olau mountains made for a perfect storm of rain pretty much all year around.
He didn't remember seeing mountains anywhere near Center City.
Hills, sure.
But mountains?
A door opened and he heard a little creak of a hinge.
"I probably should tell you that there's a bathroom you can use in the hall. It's next to my bedroom rather than being an en suite bathroom. Feel free to use it. You don't have to ask.
She walked up beside him and looked out the back patio door.