Why was I still here?
Groceries away, Kalea sat down across from me with Pua on the end of the table in her booster seat. She popped the top off a glass bottle of Mexican soda. “Want to talk about it?”
“Nope. Want to talk about why you cheated on me?” My sandwich was gone, but I played with the crumbs on my plate like they were a puzzle I could piece together.
“Nope.” She took a sip of her soda.
On the other side of the house, the washing machine’s buzzer went off.
Now wearingmy pair of freshly dried shorts, I ducked under the sink to take a look at the garbage disposal. Pualani sat in a plastic playpen in the living room playing with aset of building blocks while Kalea worked on her laptop. I didn’t know specifically what she was doing, but it involved more typing than playing Solitaire would.
After our very awkward snack and the laundry was switched over to the dryer, I used Kalea’s phone to callShakaloha. I didn’t have any of the club’s numbers memorized, and I had to pull that number from the brewery’s website. Unfortunately, I had the misfortune of having Hops answer the phone, and as soon as he learned it was me, he hung up.
I supposed I could understand why. I didn’t remember much from waking up on the brewery’s floor yesterday morning, but I did recall puking my guts out. Hops took the cleanliness of his brewery very seriously, and even though he wasn’t the owner anymore, the brewery was still his. If it was shut down by the health department, a lot of local businesses, not just the club’s, wouldn’t have a place to launder money through anymore.
And nothing for nothing, Hops knew his lagers. I certainly didn’t want to be forbidden from being allowed to drink his beer anymore. I was probably done with whiskey for a while. I’d need to find a way to get back on his good side.
Rather than calling back and trying to apologize, though, I called Doodles’ tattoo shop instead. Like the brewery, I had to find the shop on the internet first to get the number. Regardless of it being the middle of his work day, I ordered Doodles to stop what he was doing and go find my bike and my phone, pack me some clothes from the barn, and to bring them to Kalea’s house. Since I couldn’t tell him the location of either my phone or my bike or my keys, there was no telling how long it would take him to bring everything here.
Still, I gave him a deadline of two o’clock.
While I was on the phone with Doodles, I heard cursing from the kitchen and went to investigate. That was when I learned thatthe garbage disposal had been acting up, even after Kalea had paid a repairman to come out and fix it already.
Without thinking, I told her not to worry about it and I would take care of it once I was off the phone. I truly didn’t know which one of us was more surprised by my offer, and I couldn’t even blame the words on being alcohol induced.
So here I was under Kalea’s kitchen sink taking apart the garbage disposal like it was still my responsibility.
I had my clean shorts. I could go. I could wait outside for my bike and phone. Even waiting on the front stoop should have been better than staying inside, right?
Yet when Kalea stopped working to make a late lunch, and she set a plate out for me too, I sat down at the table to eat like I’d done so every day for the past two years. Pualani got to eat avocado slices, blueberries, and chicken nuggets while I got stuck with egg salad, cottage cheese with honey, and edamame. My silent grievance about this seemed to amuse Kalea enough that she ateherlunch, which was the same as mine, with glee.
It was nearing five-thirty by the time there was a knock on the door. I’d fixed the garbage disposal, mowed the lawn, cleaned out the gutters, and weeded out most of the garden. Kalea brought me lemonade during the afternoon, but otherwise we kept our distance.
Doodles came riding up on my bike with KD riding in a cage behind him. I was fucking pissed when I saw the state my bike was in.
“What the fuck did you do?” I roared. My paintjob was scratched to hell and the front wheel looked off somehow. Was it thinner?
“Brah, don’t even start with me. Do you have any idea what I have gone through the past six hours?”
I’d known Nalu Leo for years. He’d been the one to add, and then cover up, Kalea’s name over my heart. It was probably theonly reason he spoke so familiarly with me. Still, it was not something I was going to let stand. Not while he wore that Prospect cut. He wasn’t my brother yet.
“Watch it,” I snapped.
Seeming to realize his misstep, Doodles cringed. “Sorry, man. It’s just been a really long day and I had to reschedule four appointments for this.” He waved a hand towards my bike. “You crashed it into a ditch behindShakaloha. If Neo hadn’t pulled the footage while we were trying to find your phone, we wouldn’t have even found it!”
I winced, both at the implication that I’d driven drunk and the damage done to my bike. I’d also forgotten to mention to Doodles that I wanted him to keep this crusade between the two of us. At least KD and Neo now knew of my latest activities.
“We put a donut on the front, but you’re going to need to get that looked at by a professional. I think you bent something with how it shook on the way over here.” Doodles’ voice was sympathetic. He held out my keys and my phone, which didn’t look in much better condition than my bike.
What the fuck had I done to it?
Well, the damn thing was dead, so I wasn’t going to find out anytime soon. Probably for the best. I wouldn’t want to turn it on and find out that I’d been sending unsolicited dick pics or bought several dozen surfboards to add to my already large quiver.
“Mahalo,” I begrudgingly admitted.
Doodles glanced behind me. I turned to see Kalea in the doorway of her house with Pualani on her hip. “Tell me if it’s none of my business, but are you okay, brah?”
My eyes narrowed. “Itisnone of your business,” I growled. Because I was the furthest thing from okay.