Page 12 of Try Easy

Lou lowered her chin, and Keoni placed the lei around her neck. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture for something so common. Keoni’s fingers brushed her skin, and Lou felt her heart quicken.

She looked up at him and met her own reflection in the lenses of his dark sunglasses. Lou quickly dropped her eyes, and they settled on Keoni’s mouth. His bottom lip was swollen and split in the middle. The ghost of a smile played around his lips. His injured mouth should be ugly, but it lent him an air of vulnerability.

“What’s your name?” Keoni asked.

“Mary Lou,” she said. “My friends call me Lou.”

“Mary Lou,” he said. “Pretty.”

Lou raised an eyebrow at him. No one had ever told her that her name was pretty. She’d always thought it was old-fashioned. She’d never liked it. But coming from Keoni’s lips, her name sounded lovely.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Let’s get your bags,” he said, leading her into the airport.

Lou watched Penny and Bones walking ahead of them. Penny was very tall, nearly six feet. It was why her dance career had ultimately failed. She was too tall for all of her partners. But she wasn’t too tall for Bones. Even in her high heel shoes, Penny barely came to his shoulder.

“Is his name really Bones?” Lou asked Keoni in a low voice.

“Nah,” Keoni said, taking off his sunglasses and hooking them in the neck of his shirt.

Lou waited for Keoni to elaborate, but he never did. Without the sunglasses covering his face, she could see the full extent of the bruise covering his eye. It looked horrible. She’d never been hit in the eye, but she imagined a mark like that must be painful. The bruise covered his eye from brow to cheek in varying shades of purple and yellow.

“First trip to Hawaii?” Keoni asked.

“How can you tell?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Just a guess,” he said, looking pointedly at the camera around her neck.

“Oh. It’s the camera?” she asked. “I’m always taking pictures. I do this at home, too.”

“K’den,” Keoni said, looking at her curiously.

“It’s kind of a hobby of mine,” Lou said.

“K’den.”

Keoni placed a hand on Lou’s elbow, steering her around a large pot of flowers that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

“Thanks,” she said.

“No worries.”

Dropping her elbow, he continued on through the crowd. Lou followed him for a few steps, then stopped as she caught sight of a band playing on a small stage. She’d heard the music but had assumed it was prerecorded and being piped through speakers. Lou turned toward the music, listening to the high-pitch twang of the ukulele and the enchanting tone of the female singer.

“You want to listen?” Keoni asked.

“Yeah, that would be great,” Lou said. Lou raised her camera from the strap around her neck. “I’m going to get a little closer,” she said, starting toward the stage.

Keoni went with her, and they stopped to join a group of tourists watching the show. Lou raised her camera and focused on the band. There were four of them, including the drummer. With their dark hair and eyes, they looked similar enough to be family. Lou zoomed in on the singer. She was petite and curvy, with waist-length curling dark hair. She was holding the microphone with two hands and smiling as she sang. To Lou’s surprise, under the heavy makeup the woman was very young, early twenties at the most.

Lou snapped her picture and was about to move on to the drummer when the singer raised her hand to wave. Lou zoomed back in and saw that the singer was looking right at her. Lou lowered her camera and stared. The singer waved again, nodding at her. Lou glanced around to see if maybe she was talking to someone else, and saw Keoni standing right behind her, looking up at the stage and smiling. He shook his head and waved at the singer.

“Do you know her?” Lou asked, glancing between them.

“Sure,” Keoni said. “That’s Ryla.”

“Is she calling you up there?”

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