Page 58 of Hula Girl

I smile at that detail and give her a nod, encouraging her to continue.

“He had big plans for me,” she says. “He’d wave his arms out toward the city and say, ‘All this is yours.’”

When she laughs, I catch the glimmer of tears in her eyes. She looks away quickly and blinks. I step closer to her, but she doesn’t meet my eyes.

“I bet he’d be so proud of you, Ava,” I tell her, cupping her cheek in my hand.

She catches her breath, her hand flying to her mouth. “I think so. I hope so.”

I wrap her into my arms, and she presses her face to my chest. I’m not sure how long we stay there like that, but it seems like a while has passed before we’re interrupted by a group of men in suits cutting through. They’re talking loudly, likely coming from some after work happy hour.

“Ready to go?” I ask, pulling away from her.

She nods but stops me when I start toward the stairs to go down. “Would you mind if we caught a cab? My feet are killing me.”

“Let’s do it.”

Turns out my amazing Hula Girl is human after all. I offer her my arm and she takes it, leaning on me once again as we move slowly toward Olive Street.

22

Ava

Imust be losing my mind. I’m going along with a pretend engagement with my vacation fling and acting like it’s real. Acting like he’s someone I can confide in.

What other explanation can there be for my now compulsive need to share things with him about my father? I’ve never felt like I could talk about him the way I have with Ford.

And not only that, but I also thought it was a great idea for him to come up with me to my loft. I’d suggested it as the cab stopped in front of my place and he lingered, obviously assuming he should take it to wherever he was planning to crash for the night.

“Walk me up?” I’d said. Because I didn’t want to say goodbye to him. Because I didn’t want to go cold after he’d found a way to warm me from the inside out.

It hadn’t taken him more than a second to register my request and to slide out of the cab, once again handling the payment with cash.

After surveying the brick walls, large iron-framed windows facing an interior courtyard, and blond wood flooring, he asked if he could draw me a bath.

“A bath?” I asked with a laugh.

“For your feet,” he’d replied simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

So, that’s what he’s doing now as I straighten out the less than well-made bed positioned on the far end of the completely open concept floor plan.

“It’s ready.”

Startled, I turn to see Ford a few feet away, his shirt sleeves rolled up and looking entirely comfortable in his self-appointed role of caretaker for me. I try to imagine Bryce having the instinct to do this but quickly dismiss the thought. That wasn’t the kind of relationship we had. Laughing, I realize how deluded I was to have ever thought we had the potential for something more than Netflix and chill.

“What?” Ford asks.

“Oh, um, nothing.” I step closer to him. I don’t know if his drawing me a bath is purely platonic or if he had hoped I’d invite him to join me. I don’t even know if it’s a good idea to keep up a sexual relationship with him—though, god knows I’d love to—since we’ve got this whole fiancé hoax to perpetuate before separating once more. He is, after all, headed back to Maui before too long. “Thank you for this,” I tell him.

“Of course.”

I step past him and into the bathroom, closing the door only halfway. There’s no use in being prudish. I raise my eyebrows when I see that he’s thoughtfully attempted to create a bubble bath with my jasmine-scented bath gel.

Stripping, I step into the tub and let out a moan as I sink into the water. It’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed. I realize too late that I didn’t put up my hair and make a bun out of it, holding it with my hand. My choices are to get out and disrupt this delicious relaxation to grab a hair tie or call for Ford to help.

“Ford?” I call out.

My place is not big, I’ll admit, but he still pokes his head around the door in record time, making me think he wasverynearby.

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