Page 16 of Hula Girl

“Nah. You’re right, I’m just a surfer boy,” he says with a laugh.

“No other ambition?”

“I’ve had my fill of ambition. But that’s a whole other story. One that belongs in that real world we’re ignoring.”

That bit of information intrigues me. He’s hinted that he is more than he appears to be but, like me, he doesn’t want to talk about what all that entails.

“Look at us. Just a couple of mysterious strangers,” I tease.

He squints just slightly at me. “I suppose you’re right. But, at the same time, you don’t feel like a stranger to me at all.”

“I, uh.” I stop, stumbling over my tongue as I realize he’s right. He doesn’t feel like a stranger to me either, no matter how I’ve danced around the truth. There’s something about him that feels comforting, welcoming. So much so, that I told him about my father. I never talk about my father. “Well, tequila does seem to make people extra friendly.”

With a knowing nod, he says, “Uh-huh,” as if dismissing my weak effort to explain away our connection.

“So, you’ve lived here all your life?” I ask, trying to steer us into different, more banal territory. I’m not ready to accept, let alone admit, that he and I have anything more than a random hookup in the making.

“Pretty much. I’m considered alocal haole.”

“What does that mean.”

“White boy,” he says. “But one who has been accepted for the most part.”

“Only for the most part?”

“Now, it’s all good. When I was a kid, it wasn’t always so easy. Can’t blame locals for having some resentments after the way their culture and sovereignty were subjugated.”

I raise my eyebrows. Not at the characterization of how Hawaiians were mistreated, but at his vocabulary. My Surfer Boy doesn’t seem so uncultured himself.

“But you’re saying you took the brunt of some of those resentments?” I ask.

He shrugs. “There was a time where I really felt like an outcast, to be honest. I got run off from the beach, run off the road while riding my bike, threatened at school. Then I got in with some friends who were real locals. Good guys. That helped a lot.”

“And how long have you been surfing?”

“All my life, basically. I grew up sort of wild, always on the hunt for adventure. Riding waves is the biggest, best adventure I could find.”

“Those waves this morning looked really big. You must be good.”

He hesitates, leveling his eyes on me in a way that is so sensual it makes me shift in my seat.

“I’d say I am.”

I feel my cheeks burning again and I wish I could wave it away. He does something to me whether I like it or not.

Thing is, I suspect I do like the effect he has on me.A lot.

“You should come out with me to see for yourself,” he adds.

“Withyou?” I ask, confused by the offer.

“Yeah, I can use a longboard and help get us up on a wave. We could ride it … together.”

I’m lost for a moment in his gold-flecked eyes, my mind caught on the way he saidride. And then I laugh, realizing I’ve been played. “God, that must work so well with the pretty tourists.”

He looks offended and I wonder whether I’ve gotten things all wrong. But then he smiles in that gorgeous crooked way of his, making me want to bite his bottom lip.

“What I really prefer,” he says, leaning toward me over the table again, “are hula girls.”

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