Page 41 of Try Easy

Chili Water

Makaha Beach,Oahu

January 28

Lou

Despite sayingthey weren’t going to see each other anymore, Keoni and Lou couldn’t stop. They spent every day together.

Lou was falling for Keoni, and Penny was falling for Bones. But neither one of them wanted to stop.

Bones invited them to spend the day at Makaha, the beach town on the west side of the island where he’d grown up. They borrowed Henry’s car and made the long drive across the island to get to Makaha.

Henry warned them that Makaha wasn’t the friendliest place on the island. The people of Makaha were mostly natives, and they didn’t like tourists.

“Just be careful what you do in Makaha,” Henry said. “There’s only one way in and one way out.”

“What do you mean?” Lou asked.

“There’s only one road that goes to Makaha, and it’s a dead end.”

Lou thought about Henry’s warning as she drove along the Farrington Highway toward Makaha. The road was etched in between the jagged cliffs of the Wai’anae mountain range and the Pacific Ocean. They passed one small gas station, but the rest of the road was deserted.

When they got to Makaha the first car they saw had a bumper sticker that read Welcome to Makaha—Now Go Home!

“Geez,” Penny said, reading the bumper sticker. “They really don’t like tourists here, do they?”

Lou looked up to see Bones coming toward their car. “I don’t think anyone is going to mess with us while we’re here,” she said.

Penny jumped out of the car and flung herself into Bones’s waiting arms. He picked her up, and they kissed as if no one was watching. Lou glanced away and got her camera out of her bag. She started down to the beach, and Bones hollered at her to wait.

“Stay with me,” he said.

“Does everybody hate tourists at this beach?” she asked, feeling a shiver of fear as she glanced around.

The beach looked harmless enough. It was quiet except for a few families and some guys with diving gear.

“Pretty much,” Bones said. “But don’t worry. Keoni will stay with you.”

Lou nodded. She hadn’t been sure if Keoni was coming today or not. She knew he had hardly been sleeping in between showing them around the island during the day and working at night. Lou thought maybe he might not come to Makaha. She couldn’t deny that she was excited to see him again.

They walked down to the beach, and Lou spotted Keoni right away. He was standing near a picnic area next to a tall red surfboard. His hands were planted on his hips, and he was studying the waves.

It was a moment before he noticed her, and Lou took advantage of the time to study him. If not for his modern clothing, Keoni could have been a surfer from a long-ago generation. Lou imagined that Keoni’s ancestors had stood in the very same spot hundreds of years ago, looking at the very same waves.

Keoni turned and looked at Lou. A smile broke out over his face, and she couldn’t help smiling back. Keoni’s lip had begun to heal, and his smile was more devastating every day.

“This is where you won the trophies,” she said, coming to stand next to him.

“You looked at my trophies?” he asked.

“They were kind of hard to miss,” she said.

Keoni shook his head, blushing.

“You’re not embarrassed, are you?” Lou asked. “You should be proud.”

Keoni shrugged. “I am,” he said. “But I couldn’t care less about contests.”

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