Heat Wave

I’m not nervous, per se. I think it’s more excitement, a restlessness. It’s not my first wedding, I know what to expect and I just want it over with. I want to get started on our marriage right now, sweep her off her feet far away (although our honeymoon is just to Oahu for some fun and games in Waikiki) and be the husband I can’t wait to be.

“How are we feeling?” the minister asks me as I take my place up at the front, grinning nervously at the guests. Her name is Betty, Hawaiian to the core, and also a talented musician who plays guitar and sings at Trees Lounge in Kapa’a.

“Great,” I tell her.

She nods with a gentle smile. She has such a joyous, calm way about her that when I proposed to Ron, I already knew Betty was going to be the one presiding over the wedding. “Good. Hang on to each moment today, so they will live on and they will last.”

It’s like she can read my bloody mind.

So I commit myself to more moments. Kit by my side, in a Hawaiian shirt and knee-length shorts, just like the rest of the groomsman. He’s the spitting image of me, if you take away half my beard, all my greys, and maybe a few wrinkles. Okay, a lot of them.

I look at Johnny who is laughing at something that Charlie has said, the two of them nearly busting over, their faces growing red. I have no doubt in my mind that whatever they’re saying is taking a shot at me. But that’s to be expected.

Daniel is looking more nervous than anyone. I think it’s because he’s proposing to Nikki tonight. He asked me a few days ago if it would take away from the event, and I said go for it. He’s worried about stealing my thunder, so he said he’s going to do it late and outside of the reception, but he’s doing it all the same. Seems Moonwater is making more than a few love matches.

Even for Jin. He’s looking proud, standing with his hands behind his back, looking over the crowd and nodding at everyone he knows. Which is, pretty much everyone. He looks like a bobble-head figure.

But the apple of his eye is Carla, an elderly lady who lives in Hanalei. Ever since New Year’s Eve, they’ve been an item, and what I hear from Johnny, Ron, and Charlie, he won’t shut up about her. They’ve started bringing earplugs to their shifts.

When I brought Ron back to Kauai, I wasn’t sure how she was going to adapt. Being with me, a part of this, would she want to keep her role in the Ohana Lounge? Would she want to concentrate on hotel management, was she burned out?

But she loves it more than ever. She’s head cook alongside Johnny, a title they share, and while she’s helping out with Moonwater as a whole—after all, this is her hotel now—I don’t think her passion for cooking will ever change. When I brought up the idea of her taking the position of chef and running the restaurant and having Johnny and Charlie officially under her, she balked at it. I think once upon a time she just wanted to have the title and respect. Now she has the respect and doesn’t need the title.

But we’ll see. The woman is ambitious. If she runs with it one day, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few Ohana Lounges open up across the islands.

Speaking of, where the bloody hell is she?

“Now you must be nervous,” Kit says, nudging me in the side.

“Nah, mate,” I tell him. “Just want to get this over with. You know I don’t like being the center of attention.”

“Never too late to run for the hills.”

I cock my brow at him. “One day, Kit. One day you’ll know.”

“You knew it twice,” he says with a smirk. “I think I balance you out.”

I ignore that. When I told Veronica once that Kit was a bit of a Croc Dundee character, I wasn’t stretching the truth. He does have this overt machoism about him, the kind who will hike into the jungle to wrestle snakes and crocodiles. I know the tour he leads is borderline illegal because of the shit he puts his customers through but he’s charming and all that bullshit, so he gets away with it. He may be scared of the ladies but I’m telling you, no lady wants to cuddle up to a bloke who spends his days looking for reptiles.

“Here they are,” Johnny says, the bridesmaids turn the corner and head toward us, flowers in their hands. Because we had an uneven number of girls and guys, and no parents on either side, we decided that the girls should just all arrive together, like a “squad,” as Kate described it.

Kate and Nikki, dressed in strapless Hawaiian dresses that match the guy’s shirts, take their place on the other side of me. I give them a wink.

And then a hush comes over the crowd, a nervous tittering.

The ukuleles and guitars from the band start to play, strumming the Hawaiian version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

I can’t bloody believe it. What a funny, lovely, bitch life can be, that this is happening at all.

And then Veronica appears, rounding the corner of the restaurant, coming across the grass with her friend Claire on her arm.