Heat Wave

Eventually Johnny comes back with more punch and we have a few more cups until it’s time to serve dessert. Despite all of us feeling tipsy, and now Charlie and Kate having totally disappeared, we manage to get out the buffet of mango and rice pudding, lilikoi cheesecake, and coconut pie.

As the night wears on, everyone is drunk and happy, guests included. Dan was right about making that punch extra potent. Johnny, Dan, Jin, and Logan put everything away after the guests leave, so the girls can relax. I have a few more drinks with Nikki and our Saturday waitress, Lucia, sprawled out on the coarse, spongey grass, tiki torches wavering in the breeze. Above us the sky is dark and open, the stars a dusting of sparkling sugar.

“Where is Kate?” I ask, rattling the ice in my cup.

Nikki laughs, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “Do you even have to ask?”

“Do you see Charlie?” Lucia asks wryly. “No. Put two and two together.”

“In other words, don’t head back to your apartment so soon,” Nikki says with a smirk.

“Figures,” I mutter. Fighting leads to fucking. Well, for everyone but me.

“Hey, can I ask you guys a question,” I ask after a few minutes, my voice low as Daniel takes in some of the chairs back to the restaurant.

“Sure, what?” Nikki asks.

“After my sister died…was there ever anyone else? I mean, with Logan?”

Nikki and Lucia exchange a furtive glance.

“What?” I ask because that glance sure as hell meant something. “One of you?”

“No, no,” Nikki quickly exclaims. “Not us. Nothing like that anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

There! Another sneaky glance.

“You guys! Come on. I need to know. I won’t say anything.”

Lucia sighs. “Well I don’t live here, so I don’t have much to lose. And anyway it isn’t a big deal. A girl Charlotte used to work here. She and Logan went out a few times.”

“Oh my god,” I exclaim, feeling somehow both jealous and angry. “When?”

“Maybe six months ago?” Nikki muses.

“Did he cheat on Juliet with her?”

“What?” Nikki asks, scrunching up her nose. “Cheat on her? Logan would never do that.”

How badly I want to tell her otherwise.

“No, it was short, maybe a few dates. Charlotte had a mad crush on him hey, and finally he gave in,” Lucia says with a laugh. She gives me a quick shrug. “I don’t know. I think he kind of needed it. It was really hard seeing him after she died.”

“Like he was actually upset?”

Nikki frowns. “What kind of person do you think Logan is?”

What kind of person? Once again, I think I have no idea.

We stay there on the lawn for a while longer, talking about Lucia’s newest boyfriend in Hanalei, a lifeguard, and some live music show playing at a lounge in Kapaa’a tomorrow. But all I can think about is Logan. Now this Charlotte woman. It’s completely possible that this was the person he cheated on Juliet with, especially if she worked here. Nikki and Lucia might think they know Logan, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t privy to anything important. Not like that. Juliet had a hard-enough time confiding in me, I’m sure she would go out of her way to make sure no one else here knew what was really going on.

The night is balmy and the clear sky is doing something to my head. Or maybe it’s the copious amounts of punch. When Nikki and Lucia decide to leave, I wander past the restaurant and down to the beach, passing a plumeria tree. I shove my nose into the center of the white flowers and breathe in deep, then start plucking them off the tree. I know it’s wrong and I should only pick up the ones that have fallen to the ground, but I’m drunk and the idea of making my own lei or decorating my body with them is extremely appealing.

Plus the smell is so intoxicating. It’s just as sweet and heady as the air here, a smell that makes me really feel I’m in paradise and has an immediate relaxing effect.

“Duplicitous,” Logan says from beside me, his voice low and rough.

I jump, the flowers flying up and out of my hands and twirling to the sand below. “Jesus, way to sneak up on me!” I cry out, hand at my chest.

He stares at me, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. He looks different, his eyes less hard, his face more open. The half-moon illuminates his face just enough for him to look both mysterious and devastatingly handsome.

Damn him.

“Sorry,” he says, quickly bending over to pick up a flower. He holds it out in front of me, then his hand goes over my right shoulder and he slides the flower behind my ear, his fingers rough as they graze the tip of my lobe. I can’t help but close my eyes, my breath stilling inside me. Even the waves seem to slow down, the surf echoing in my ears. “The right side means you’re not taken.”

“Well I’m not,” I say, but my words come out in a whisper. I slowly open my eyes again and he is still there, this beautiful, troubled, strange man that no one seems to know and everyone thinks they’ve figured out.

“No, you aren’t.” His voice drops a register, sounding almost melancholy.