chapter NINE
The luau at the Kauai Princess is my favorite experience at the hotel. It must be the tourist in me that gravitates toward the scent of a tiki torches burning, and the sight of beautiful dancers, adorned in grass skirts, swaying to the music and singing with their hands.
“Aloha, Trish,” Cara, one of our employees greets me at the entrance. She has a lei of hot-pink tuberose in her hands.
“Aloha.” I raise my hands, palms up, declining the lei she is offering.
“It’s a sign of friendship. You must never refuse a lei from a friend.” Her long, slender arms almost dance in the air as she places it over my head.
“Mahalo. Enjoy your evening.” I walk down the path to where the weekly luau is taking place.
A large stage is set on the grass lawn to the side of the hotel. The early evening sky is draped behind it with the rippling tides from Kalapaki Bay in the foreground.
Guests feast on a buffet lined with Kalua pork, panko-crusted tropical fish, purple, sweet potato salad and lomilomi salmon. I walk past the dessert table and sneak a slice of chocolate haupia cake. The coconut pudding between the layers is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.
As I suck on my spoon, I look up at the stage where tourists are wearing leis and learning how to hula from staff members in grass skirts. People who would normally be shy or afraid to get up in a crowd, find it easy to be silly when they’re here on vacation. There is something magical about the island as if your fears are removed and your soul is set free.
Twenty large, white tables are in the audience with dark-purple, orchid centerpieces in the center of each. The Waimers, the young newlyweds, are feeding each other at their seats. Mrs. Waimer is holding a fork full of cod up to Mr. Waimer’s mouth as he sticks his tongue out and down. He looks like he’s having a dental cleaning. His tongue wraps around the metal as she slowly slides it out. While he chews, she leans forward and kisses him. The two start to make out all while he has a mouth full of fish. It may look sexy on television or in a book, but in real life, watching two people feed each other is probably the most disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed, second to Jax’s mutilated leg in a hospital bed.
“Didn’t take you for a voyeur.”
I jump at the deep, male voice that drawls from behind me.
I turn around to see Jax standing there in a blue, linen button down and khaki, linen pants. His hair is gelled back, and his eyes are bright and piercing.
The warm night air is making my skin clammy. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”
He sticks his hands deep in his pockets and looks up through long lashes. “You did plan for us to go to the luau tonight, did you not?”
“I just thought that maybe you were…”
“Indisposed.” A wicked grin licks at his lips. “Once the initial sting wore off, I have to say I rather like it.”
“For the record, I wasn’t planning on you getting a wax. It was a byproduct of our deal.” I roll my shoulders back. “You fell into that one.”
“I realized that when I was on the second bucket of ice you sent up. Thank you for that, by the way.”
I nod my head slightly. “No problem.”
He removes a hand from his pocket and runs his thumb across his bottom lip. “On the bright side, my cock looks huge.”
I hit him in the arm in admonishment. “Jackson! Decorum, please.”
He leans in closer but speaks in unhushed tones. “I assume you got a Brazilian, too. If not, you broke the arrangement, and in that case —”
I try to hush him. “Yes, I did. There’s no need for the whole party to hear.”
He twists his mouth and sways from side to side. “I don’t know. I have my doubts. There’s only one way to know for certain if you got you pussy waxed and that’s for me to get down on my knees and—”
I leap forward and place my hand over his mouth. “Will you shut up? First of all, if I say I got my lady bits done, you’re just going to have to believe me. Inquire with the spa if you must, but you are in no way inspecting them. And second, when the hell did you become so crude? It’s like an alien came and inhabited your body. You look like Jackson Davis, but when you speak you sound like some moron who doesn’t know how to talk properly to another person.”
“What am I supposed to say?” His words are muffled by the palm of my hand.
“Maybe start with, Hi, Trish.” I release his mouth and turn my shoulder to face the stage.
He walks up behind me, his chest flush against my back. He smells like mango and warm honey. “Hi, Trish. You look pretty tonight.”
I close my eyes and give my head a little shake. “I didn’t say you had to say that.”
His lips are close to my ear as he whispers, “No. But I should. Because you do.”
With eyes wide open, I take a deep breath. “Thanks.”
He backs away, and I feel the loss of his presence.
“You want to walk around?”
“Yes,” he answers rather quickly.
I turn to see his face lit up.
He quickly shuts down his emotions and points to the buffet area. “Do you want to get something to eat?”
“I already ate.”
His lips pull in. “Chocolate cake doesn’t count as dinner. Come, I’ll even let you pick the most vile thing on the menu for me to eat.”
His offer is tempting, so I follow him toward the pit where the crowd was cooking. Men are using white towels to pick up a net over the animal submerged in a giant hole in the ground. When it’s raised, there’s a large, charred, whole pig. People cheer and take pictures.
My stomach turns at the sunken-in eyeballs and bared teeth coming from beneath the blackened snout.
Jax places a hand over my eyes and turns me away from my favorite animal in the whole world.
“I’m gonna guess you just killed your appetite. Sorry, wrong word.” He takes his hand off my face and slowly pulls me away from the pit. “There are some vendors by the water, and I have some cash to burn. Spend? Work with me because you look like you’re going to pass out.”
I inhale through my nose and nod my head. “The water sounds good.”
There is a knocking sound as men make Hawaiian carvings. In front of them, on a blanket, are intricate bowls, and souvenirs. We watch as a young man with a hand knife digs into the wood to create a long poll of makes a long pole of carved symbols and figures.
Jax is staring at it with slightly parted lips and a raised eyebrow. He takes a step closer, pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens the camera app to record the men at work. A loud noise erupts from deep within my throat, and he leans his ear toward me, but I put my hand out instead, silently requesting his phone.
His head turns toward me for a second, looks back through his phone and then shoots back in my direction.
“You want my phone?” he asks in disbelief.
With my eyes trained on the device, I just stare at it until he reluctantly places it in my hand.
“You’ll get this back at the end of the night. Unless, of course, I get to leave early?” I bat my lashes despite the grimace on my face.
“Not a chance. Now, which one should I get?”
I cross my arms. “What in the world could you possibly need a totem pole for?”
“For one, the craftsmanship is amazing.” He lifts a figure off the ground and runs his fingers across the smooth surface, his nail digging into the crevices of the menacing figure carved into the wood. “Do you see how meticulous that is?”
With a tilt of my head, I look at the intricate sculpture and admire the details.
Jax palms the totem, feeling the weight of it in his hand. “It’s meant to frighten away evil spirits.” He places the totem back on the ground and picks up another.
“Funny, I always thought they were like welcome signs.”
“The word totem means kinship group. It’s supposed to symbolize a clan or a spiritual belief. It can even mark an occasion. We could buy this one as a commemorative totem.”
“What are we commemorating?”
“Us,” he says nonchalantly. He picks up another and scowls. “They were also used to publicly ridicule someone.”
I try to ignore his comment and brush it off by saying, “How do you know so much about this stuff?”
He puts the figure down and walks away. “Anthropology paper.”
Sometimes I forget just how smart he is. He’s a Princeton dropout, but that shouldn’t overshadow the fact that he got into Princeton in the first place. The guy was a history buff and avid reader. How he went from being on top of the world to lying face down in a nightclub in Manhattan is beyond me.
The pieces of his life puzzle are so mixed up, I couldn’t begin to describe what his damn picture was supposed to look like in the first place.
“Drink?” I ask, wringing my hands on my belly.
“Sure, I’ll come with you.”
“No,” I shoo him away. “Walk around. I’ll meet you at the table. What can I get you?”
“Sapporo.”
“Coming right up,” I spin toward the bar.
The Waimer’s are still elbows-deep into each other’s mouths, and there’s a small crowd gathered around another hula lesson happening on the pathway.
The bar is lined with servers ready to fill the drink orders from their tables. I walk behind it and stand next to Isaiah, still wearing his palm tree shirt, but tonight, he has a green lei on his head as he holds a bottle of champagne.
“See you’re here with Shark Bait.” The cork pops with the T, startling me.
“Occupational hazard.”
He pours a tray full of champagne glasses. “He’s traveling solo?”
“Yup.” I grab a flute and down it.
“Seems odd. That big room for just one guy.”
I grab another glass and start drinking it as well. A small burp escapes my mouth. “You have no idea.”
Isaiah hands the champagne bottle to the guy next to him. “Finish pouring.” He then turns to me, grabs the flute out of my hand. “You’re off your game.”
“Because I’m drinking champagne?”
He places the glass on the table. With his hands resting on his large belly, he appraises me. “I know when a lady looks distressed, and that man has caused you quite a bit of pain. You two have history.”
“He’s just a guest.”
“And I’m George Clooney. Listen, I don’t need specifics. I just need to know if he’s Maika`i or Maika’i’ole.”
I raise a brow. My Hawaiian is as good as my Spanish. In other words, no bueno.
Isaiah groans theatrically. “Is he good or bad.”
“Oh.” I stop and think about this. “Bad.” I accentuate the word with a curt head nod.
He places two hands on my shoulders and spins me around. “Okay. Now go. We’ve got it covered.”
I follow the push of his body, and he shoves me away from the table. “Wait. I need beer.” I dig my hand into the large, white cooler filled with crushed ice and grab two beers from a cooler. They’re not Sapporos, but they’re cold.
When I’m about ten feet away from the bar table, Isaiah releases me and walks back to his position.
I push a rogue hair that popped out of my braid back behind my ear.
The sun has set so I have to stop and look for Jax. He’s seated at his table, fidgeting with his napkin. He almost looks nervous—like I would imagine a guy being before a first date—and I think back to his Princeton interview. He was crazy nervous and practiced his talking points fifty times before I shut down his anxiety with kisses and an Xbox challenge.
My stroll down memory lane is interrupted by the vibrating in my pocket. I reach into my pocket and pull out his cell phone having forgotten I had it. The screen shows a text message.
Lauren: Hey baby. Looking to play tonight?
I throw his phone on the table in front of him. “You forgot to tell your booty call you left town.”
He lifts the phone and reads the message on the screen. “What makes you think it’s a hookup?”
“It’s two in the morning in New York.”
He grins, mostly to himself as he taps his phone on the table. “Lau’s in L.A., so it’s only eleven. She could honest to goodness just want to hit the clubs.”
“I doubt it.”
He leans on an elbow. “Why are you always so skeptical of me?”
“Do you really want to have this conversation?”
He doesn’t get a chance to retort because the stage ignites with a fiery bang. I hand Jax his beer and take a seat.
The heavy, quick beat of Polynesian drums rattle in the night air as performers take the stage. The women’s grass skirts sway vigorously from their hips as they dance while the men do a series of chanting as they move to the percussion.
I’m so entranced, I momentarily forget where I am until Jax’s elbow brushes against mine.
Next, a man appears on stage in only a grass skirt displaying his massive upper body and thick, corded muscles. The audience gasps at the site of the machete in his hand—the blade wide and dangerous, topped with a metal hook—and lights it on fire.
The ipu drums maintain the rhythm, and he lights the machete with a torch before twirling it like a baton, twisting it in intricate circles. Behind his back, under his legs and around his head, the fiery torch defies gravity as it swings through the air.
A hula dancer appears at our table beside Jax and asks if he’d like to participate in the show. He looks to me for approval, and I motion for him to go. With a nod, he rises and follows her the stage.
He makes eye contact with me and offers me a subtle grin, which I realize I find adorable and force the thought from my brain.
Three more men wielding machetes take the stage and circle Jax. Their hands manipulate the torches with speed so rapid, it looks like circles of fire surround them. You can barely see the dancers, but the orange glow is prominent—and dangerously close to Jax.
Round and round, whipping through the air, the machetes move between the dancers at a rapid pace—the crowd gasps, and I hold my breath when the fiery metal moves over his head. I may not be able to see Jax well, but it’s hard not to feel the fear in his heart. I know it by the way his eyes stay trained on me—desperate for something familiar to keep him grounded amongst the lighted knives flying around him.
The dancers chant as they complete their dance. Jax’s chest rises and falls with the exhilaration—the crowd’s explosion of applause and hollers just as animated as the performance itself.
Just when I think his participation is through, two people appear on stage with a tall, white, wooden board that they escort Jax to. I’ve never seen this part of the show before.
The drums rattle again, and Benji appears shirtless and in a grass skirt before taking a showman’s bow and displaying five knives for the audience.
My hands fly to my mouth. “Oh shit.” I look over for Isaiah, but he’s not at the bar. My attention goes back to Benji walking across the stage. “What the hell is he doing?”
Benji lifts a knife and throws it. It spins through the air and lands to the left of Jax’s shoulder. His chest heaves with adrenaline, but he doesn’t close his eyes. Instead, he keeps them wide as if daring Benji to release another.
Benji raises the next, and it hits the board to the right of Jax’s other shoulder—he doesn’t even flinch.
The third knife comes up as does Benji’s gaze—he’s aiming for the head.
Seconds later, it just grazes Jax’s left ear, and I let out a breath trapped tightly in my apprehensive lungs.
My heart strums a steady cadence in my rib cage, and my body is frozen as I watch the next blade is hurled toward Jax’s forehead with incredible speed. Thankfully, it lodges itself into the wood just above his scalp.
The fifth and final dagger gleams in the air, and I pray Benji’s aim is as accurate as he claims. With one last thrust, he launches the knife at Jax’s at it lands by his right ear.
A bubbling laughter radiates from my chest—releasing the nervous energy coupled with relief. I wipe a tear from my eye, and when I look up, Jax is staring at me—his face stern, jowls tight.
People shake Jax’s hand as he meanders through the crowd, between the tables, and past where I sit. Expecting him to take a seat, I’m surprised when he continues by me, away from my table and the luau.
“Told you we’d take care of him.” Isaiah seems pleased as he passes me with a tray of drinks.
“Yeah. Thanks.” I can’t help but think that wasn’t the best thing to have happen.
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