Page 23 of Try Easy

Keoni glanced up at Lou, who seemed to have forgotten everyone else as she gazed around with wide eyes. Keoni thought she would love the view from the top of the hill.

“I’ll show you the view,” he said impulsively.

He wanted to see Lou’s face when she saw the cityscape surrounded by blue ocean and sky.

Penny laughed. “Not in these shoes,” she said, pointing to her heels.

Keoni glanced from Penny’s shoes back to Lou, who still didn’t seem to notice that no one was following her.

“I’ll go with her,” Keoni volunteered. “You go on inside. We’ll be right along.”

“Okay,” Bones said, holding his elbow out to Penny as if they were entering a ball.

Penny giggled and took Bones’s arm. Keoni watched them walk away, then he went over to join Lou.

Her face brightened when she saw him. “This place is unreal,” she said.

“Do you want to see the view of the city from the top of the hill?”

“Yes.”

They started off up the hill with Lou stopping every few minutes to take a picture.

“Will you tell me a story about growing up here?” Lou asked, squatting down to take a picture of a leaning tombstone.

She stumbled when she tried to stand up and Keoni offered her his hand. Lou took his hand with a quiet thanks and dropped it as soon as she got her footing.

Keoni noticed the color in Lou’s cheeks and wondered if she’d felt the same jolt of electricity that he had when they touched. He cleared his throat and began a story about a ghost that he and his brothers had been determined to trap.

About halfway through the story, Lou laughed and said, “You’re making this up.”

“Nah. It’s true.”

Lou shook her head. “You’re only trying to scare me.”

“Why would I do that?”

She shrugged and lifted her camera to her face, focusing on the tree-lined path in front of the graves, and then turning in a circle, she aimed her camera at him. He smiled and held up his hand in the shaka sign, fingers tucked against his palm and thumb and pinky spread wide.

Lou froze and then slowly put down her camera.

“What?” Keoni asked. He knew he probably looked pretty bad with his busted lip and blackened eye. He pressed his tongue to the cut on his lip self-consciously and took his sunglasses out of his pocket. Sliding them over his eyes, he asked, “Afraid I’ll break your camera?”

“No. It isn’t that,” she said.

Lou pulled the tourist brochure out of her bag and flipped to the back cover. She jabbed her finger at the picture of a man sitting on a red surfboard in the blue waves of Waikiki.

“That’s you,” she said.

Keoni ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up in disheveled waves. “Yeah,” he said.

“You’re famous,” Lou said.

“Nah,” Keoni said.

“You’re embarrassed,” Lou said, teasing him.

Keoni turned away and started up the hill. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or what?” he asked.

---