Leann had the loft cleaned and still there were scuffs on the floor and peeling paint on the baseboards. I didn’t care. Wal-Mart sold poor-choice paint colors customers returned that I could have remixed for very little. The Dollar Store had sponge brushes that would cost me pennies. This place, though small, though a little spartan, I could make all mine.

“Hey,” I heard behind me, figuring that the voice belonged to the cousin Leann said would be stopping by with a used mattress.

I didn’t bother to greet him, and pointed toward the back of the loft. “Over there is fine.” He came inside, dragging the mattress on the floor. It wasn’t until it was down and against the wall that I noticed him.

He couldn’t be sixteen, like she’d mentioned. No way. Those shoulders were far too broad, those arms too big for someone whose body was still figuring out how big or small it wanted to be.

“There,” he said, turning around with a warm, friendly smile on his face. And when I could only manage to stare back at that beautiful face, the smile disappeared. “Um,” Ransom rubbed the back of his neck like he was uncomfortable with my staring, like, ridiculously, he wasn’t used to it, and I shook myself for being a weirdo.

“So…sorry.” I walked to the door, waiting for him to follow, a little anxious that he was in my room, more embarrassed that his smile had rendered me stupid. But he was busy looking around the loft, to the small kitchenette with brand new appliances and the smaller laundry closet to right.

“It’s just gonna be you living here?” he asked, his gaze still moving up the walls and to the window air conditioning unit Leann told me she’d picked up from Sears.

“Just me.” My God, he was beautiful. There really wasn’t any other adjective worthy enough to describe him. Skin darker than mine, perfect, absolutely perfect cheekbones and those eyes? Me zanmi they were black. Black and big and very intense.

“You don’t have any furniture?” He stepped toward me and I managed to lower my eyes away from his face, hoping he didn’t see the blush rising in my cheeks. Didn’t want to, I wanted to keep looking at him, but I figured he wouldn’t appreciate being gawked at by some girl he didn’t know. “Leann said you didn’t bring much with you.” Another head shake and that friendly smile of Ransom’s took on a different expression, like maybe he thought I was a little slow or something. “We have a bedframe at my folks’ place. It’s just a metal frame, but it’ll keep the mattress off the floor.” He moved his head then snapped his fingers as though something had just unlodged from his memory. “In fact there’s an extra bedroom set in the attic. Headboard and all. I can bring it back here for you tonight if you want.”

“Non. Don’t do that,” I said, forgetting how flustered he made me as I gazed at him again. I didn’t need anything. I would manage just fine on my own. “Leann has done enough and I don’t want to be any trouble.” I barely breathed when Ransom frowned, feeling stupid, somehow sorry that I’d turned down his offer. I wouldn’t have minded a few more minutes watching him lifting heavy things. Then I blinked, trying to get myself, and my libido under control. This guy was nice, generous and I ogled him like a teenage boy with his first boner.

Just then, Ransom’s smile widened and he crossed his arms. “I get that, really. You wanna do this without help.” When I only stared back, silent, he laughed. “Listen, you’re talking to a guy who was raised by a bad ass. I recognize one when I see one. You being here, getting out on your own with no help, that’s bad ass behavior.” Ransom lifted his chin. “I respect the hell out of that, but sometimes, it’s okay to take help when it’s offered. That doesn’t make you any less of a bad ass. That makes you a survivor.”

He didn’t wait for me to say no again. Instead, Ransom smiled that gorgeous smile of his, and walked right past me, leaving with a wink before he stepped out onto the landing. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he told me and I knew, just then, with the sound of his steps moving down the stairs, that I’d be counting the minutes until I’d see Ransom again.

I kept counting them.

I’d felt something earth-shattering, something real when I fell hard for Emily. It had been new and exciting and everything that you’re supposed to feel for your first love. Loving her was easy. Forgetting her had been impossible, but I tried. Aly, though, I realized would not be so easily forgotten. But then, I didn’t love her like a sixteen year old kid. What lived in my heart for Aly was a hurricane that tore away everything in its path. It ripped apart what remained of who I was, that boy who only wanted his penance.

She had checked up on my mother, calling Dad for an update on Mom and Makana’s condition, using stupid excuses to keep clear of me. I hadn’t believed that she’d caught some weird cold and didn’t want to expose my mother to anything. I knew damn well that classes were over until January and so Aly saying she needed to get the studio ready was just a bad lie. She didn’t want to risk seeing me. I understood. But that didn’t mean I’d stay away.

My baby sister was only three days old. My mother had been moved out of ICU and was already complaining about wanting to be home and I had taken nearly an hour getting dressed before I went to the studio. Leann made sure no one was around—after I promised that little scene at the hospital would be the last time I acted like an asshole to Aly. (Leann was skeptical, but she was too worn out to protest too strenuously.)

Aly never closed the door when she danced, often fussing about how hot the room got, but the truth was that she got too lost in whatever routine she was practicing to remember to adjust the AC. That night the light filtered out into the lobby, and the music that wafted in the air was a song I’d never heard before, with a voice I couldn’t place. Right there, against the half window in the lobby, the one that looked directly into the studio, I watched her. Sometimes I felt like that’s all I did. Watch. Trying to figure out what thoughts she had spinning behind those green eyes and wondering where the hell she got the patience to put up with me.

I had seen many, many brilliant things in my life, in my travels, things that would take away your breath, things that would make never question if God existed. But none of them could match the magic of Aly when she danced.

“Wow,” I said, my breath frosting the window, when Aly glided across the hardwood, leaping until her feet and legs stretched off the ground in what I believe was called a jete. Every step was practiced, timed perfectly with the music, but it was her expression, that pained, lost emotion moving across her features that left me breathless. Then I listened to the lyrics of the song, frowning when I understood where that emotion had come from, realizing I was the cause of it.

You hold me without touch

You keep me without chains

I never wanted anything so much

Then to drown in your love

And not feel your rain

She’d had chains just like mine. But what bound Aly wasn’t shame and guilt. What held her was something I thought I could never have again. Her chains were made of hope. They were forged from the hope that I’d stop wallowing and look down once to see her smile. They were made from the strongest stuff imaginable.

Aly danced away from me, her back slick with sweat and I moved into the doorway, hoping not to scare her, desperate to take that sadness from her features. A smooth arch of her back, arms over her head, one leg lifted high as she turned and Aly jerked in surprise, her limbs falling to her side as she noticed me.

She was panting, with her hair in a loose ponytail, the sheer, short skirt she wore bustled against her legs as she watched me and the pink leotard was dotted with faint spots of dampness. The quick darkening of her honey skin made her look younger and, I guessed, the feeling she got from being alone, from losing herself to the movements of the dance and the lull of the music, created some unnamable energy around her. It relaxed her features and had her carrying herself with less tension.

She was beautiful.

“Is Keira okay?” she asked. When I nodded, the line between her brows eased. “Is the baby?”

“They’re both fine.” I didn’t smile at her, or try to charm her, but my gaze stayed on hers as I looked for any shift in her expression that told me she didn’t hate me.

She held that gaze a second longer than I expected and then looked down, walking toward the stereo to kill the music.

My footsteps were soft as I walked inside, still Aly didn’t watch me in the mirror or pay much attention to anything other than the buttons on the stereo. She deflected, hid when she needed to, I knew that right then it was her primary need.

“I’m glad they’re okay,” she said, still messing with those buttons.

“Me too.”

She must not have expected me come so close. When I moved behind her, standing in that perfect spot, her fitting naturally under my chin, Aly’s body took on the rigid bearing it got whenever she was angry.

I had to break the silence. “I wake up every morning and think about you.” I didn’t like the way she closed her eyes when I said that. There was something on her face then, a twin to that pain I’d seen as she danced. “Every damn morning.”

Her laugh was sharp, held no humor and the sound of it had me frozen to the floor when she turned around and stared up at me with eyes that were more like daggers than stars. “Every morning?”

“Yes. Every…”

“Just me, Ransom?”

When I didn’t speak, Aly sighed, stepped out of my reach. “It’s okay to think about Emily.” I came forward, wanting to touch her, but Aly shook her head, held me back. “What’s not okay is to think about some version of me that you’ve invented, the Aly who always takes you back even when you’re a bata.” She looked down at her fingers, head shaking like she couldn’t get her thoughts to settle. “I’d rather you see the real me. I’d rather you think of me how I really am. I forgive you over and over, but I won’t let you keep at it. My forgiveness, my patience, isn’t infinite.”

“I know that, baby.” She let me pull her close, hold her face up. “I know who you are. I know you deserve better than what I give you.”

“Do you?” She pulled her face from my palm. “I’m not so sure, Ransom.” Aly stepped back, held herself close but kept her gaze on my face. “I watched when you weren’t looking. I waited, but I didn’t pine for you. And now, I’m not going to let you push me away and think I’ll always be here waiting for you to get your head right.”

“Aly…”

One shake of her head silenced me. “I…I love you, but I’m starting to realize that when you love someone, really love them, sometimes you have to walk away. Especially when they are destroying themselves. Sometimes that means you have to love yourself more.”

Loving me sounded like a sickness. It sounded like something that hinted at a past behavior Aly recovered from, something she wouldn’t ever do again.

Aly took two steps backward, then walked toward the door, her thin skirt slapping against her thighs and that long, dark hair swinging as she hurried away from me.

Away from me, I thought. Away.

“I’m a selfish asshole, Aly.” She slowed, glanced over her shoulder but didn’t stop. “I’m a selfish asshole because I don’t care that I don’t deserve you. I want to be with you anyway.”

“Yeah?” she said, turning around with her lips tight. “And what if I don’t want to be with you?”

“You do.” Her mouth dropped open and I took her surprise as an opportunity to catch up to her. “You do even though you don’t know why. Even though it makes zero fucking sense.” When Aly laughed, a forced sound that made me clench my teeth together, I pulled her toward me with my hand on the back of her neck. She didn’t struggle or tell me not to touch her. “You want me as badly as I want you.”

“No, I don’t. I…”

I silenced her with my mouth over hers, lifting Aly up to lean her against the mirrored wall. She tasted like hot chocolate and mint and felt like Christmas morning when you’re five—exciting, anxious, all the anticipation of an amazing day where nothing you wanted would be denied.

She kissed me back, let me take her bottom lip between my teeth, her tongue against mine and only when I could tell her breathing was short did I pull back, keeping her still with my forehead against hers. “I know I fucked up. I know I hurt you over and over again, but Aly, please don’t think I meant any of it. Please don’t think I ever stopped wanting you.”

“Ransom, please rete…stop.” She sounded a little breathless, fighting something she kept to herself. “Wanting each other has never been the problem.”

I pushed back and stared down at her because I didn’t believe she was serious. “You think all I want is to get inside you?” I hated that one look from her filled me with so much doubt. “Aly, I can get that anywhere with anyone.”

“Why don’t you?”

“They aren’t you.”

Aly’s mouth hung open for a different reason then, but she recovered, sliding away from me and I let her go, not wanting to push her more than I had. But if I wanted her to believe me, I had to explain what these few days and seeing my mother laying in that bed had given me.

She stretched her neck, moved around the studio as though she was looking for something that would distract her from my gaze. Finally, she sat on the floor and pulled her knees against her chest.

Silence echoed through the studio. Aly just sat there with a suspicious squint in her eyes. Finally I scraped my fingers through my hair in frustration before I started to speak.

“I’m Haku.” Aly’s frown was quick and I knew a question would come, but I shook my head, stopping her before she could ask me. “When my folks got married I spent a lot of time with the Hale family in Hawaii, with my great aunt Malia especially.” Aly didn’t loosen her shoulders as I spoke and I hope she’d hang on, just one more time so I could explain myself. “Malia told me stories, folktales from the island, legends I’d never heard before.” I stopped right in front of Aly as she stared up at me and moved down on my haunches wanting so much to touch her again. “The past year and a half I spent a lot of time on my own.” I shrugged, knowing that keeping myself from the people who loved me had been a selfish, stupid decision. “I kept wondering what it would take, how in the hell I could somehow make up for what I’d done.”

“Ransom…” there was tension in her voice, impatience, but I moved closer, sitting next to her on the floor.

“I remembered one of the legends Malia told me about. Haku, a warrior who challenged every man on the Big Island. He was proud. He was vain and any time word came to him of another battle, some brave warrior who’d defeated his enemy, Haku would find him. He’d challenged the warrior and strike him dead.” The tension had eased on Aly’s face and she didn’t try to avoid the brush of my leg against hers. “This went on for decades until finally, Haku thought he had killed every threat, until he was the fiercest, the strongest. He grew lazy, became too confident by all his victories and one day, a strange warrior challenged him, someone no one knew. Someone without any people at all. The challenger sent his servant to call Haku out in front of his family. ‘Meet my master at the top of Mauna a Wākea and he will destroy you.’ And so Haku, still vain, still arrogant, climbed for days to Mauna a Wākea, battling beasts and storms, boasting and patting himself on the back every time he conquered another hurdle that tried stopping him from reaching the top. And when he had bled and battled, when the earth or the weather could not keep him from his final challenger, Haku climbed on his hands and knees, his boasts fainter, his ego dimmed but still firm, and he stood in front of his challenger and looked into his eyes, crying out in fear.”

“Why? Who was it?” Aly asked, eyes wide, curious.

“Haku looked at the man before him and was filled with regret. He looked at his younger self, the fetch of who he was, the only challenger he could never defeat.” Aly’s mouth had no tension just then and I wondered if she understood my point, if that stupid folklore made any sense to her. “That was what my guilt was. All this time, that’s what was holding me back—myself. It weighed me down just like Haku’s arrogance. No one could touch me. No one could challenge me because that heavy guilt had me trapped.” Aly didn’t frown, didn’t flinch from me when I moved my hand closer to hers. “All I had to do was look at myself, see that I was the enemy. I was the one threatening everything I wanted for myself.” She looked down at our hands resting side by side, silent, breath even and I wondered what she thought. I wondered if she understood that I wanted to jump off that mountain, be free from all the guilt weighing me down.

“You were right,” I said, voice soft. “That day here at the studio, you were so damn right. I wanted to stay there in the past with Emily and I think it was because I couldn’t let go of what I’d done. Because even though it was awful, it was familiar, and I was scared of what might happen if I let myself feel again. But, with my mom almost…God, I can’t even say it, but seeing her there on that bed, watching my father fall apart completely from the fear he felt, I understood what all that hiding did to me.”

I came close enough to Aly that I felt the faint hairs on her arm brushing against my hand, but she still made no move towards me, and I didn’t feel as if it would be right to reach out and touch her, not yet. “It weakened me, blinded me, so that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.” When Aly looked down at her fingers like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to listen to me continue, I slipped my hand over them, bringing her attention to me. “I don’t want to be blind anymore. I don’t wanna be weak and God knows I don’t want to keep lying to myself.”

“Lying to yourself?”

“About you.” My fingers went to her face like they moved on their own, brushing the small curls from her eyes. “About what I feel when I’m with you.”

“Ransom, it’s not the same. What you said to Kona, it opened my eyes. You still love her, I understand that. She was your first love. You never really get over your first love.”

“No, it’s not the same. I do love her. I’ll always love her, but with you it’s different.”

“How?”

She didn’t stop me when I leaned in so that her mouth was just there, close enough that her breath warmed my bottom lip. “I don’t ever want to stop loving you.”

Aly’s eyes unfocused and it took her a second to let my words penetrate. I saw how she opened her mouth but didn’t seem able to speak. Finally, through an exhale, she whispered my name. “Ransom, it isn’t that simple.”

“No,” I said, moving my forehead against her. “No, it’s not.” When Aly frowned, I held her face, needing her to hear me, to understand. “I only know you take my breath away. I only know that you make me want to try. You make me want to stop drowning in the shit I did to myself.”

“It’s not…”

“Aly…” One head shake and I tugged my shirt over my head, reached for the bandage on my chest and Aly stopped fighting me. The spot was still sore, still ached from the work I’d had done that morning. It had taken three hours away from my family. Three hours to undo something I thought I’d never wanted to be rid of. Until Aly.

She leaned closer, narrowing her eyes as she looked at the cover-up tattoo. It was simple, something that meant more to me in that moment than the memory of my first love. A large hibiscus covered the angel and the initials of my parents, my siblings edged the leaves. “I only know that I love you,” I told Aly and she snapped her gaze to me, those beautiful features softening as my words penetrated the stubborn hold on her argument. “I never want to stop feeling that. I never want to stop trying to be everything you need.”

She hesitated for a second, keeping her gaze on my face and then, Aly took my lips. Her touch was firm, strong and I loved the strength of her hands on my neck, pulling me closer. I closed my eyes, relaxing against those hands that went to my back, up to my shoulders, just so Aly could scrape her fingernails over my skin.

Aly touched me like she never wanted me to back away from her, like my lips on her neck, working on her shoulder was some kind of bliss she’d never stop wanted.

“Ransom,” she said so quietly I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a sigh.

I leaned back, smiling when Aly touched my face. “What do you need, baby?”

She exhaled and the scent that caught in my senses was delicious. “You, sugar. I need you.”

And right there on the studio floor, I touched Aly King because she asked me to. I kissed her bare stomach, those tempting, beautiful nipples because they belonged to me. And she let me kiss her skin because she said she’d missed how it felt. “This is like coming home,” she said when I pushed my hands under her back.

Nothing could have been clearer to me then, that from here on out, Aly would mean home. I would no longer be adrift. I would no longer have to hide between my shame and my guilt simply to have something to hold on to. Aly was my safety net. She would not only save me, but she also would bring me home. To her. To us. To the potential we could find in each other.

And when I slipped inside of her, I did it slow, watching her face, loving the feel of her sharp features and soft, flawless skin. “Home,” I agreed. She opened to me, took everything I gave her like she knew everything I had was hers.

It always would be.