Find Your Oasis

Chapter 12

June 17th

"Hey Kailani, can you help me over here real quick?" I call down a hallway.

"Yeah, just a second."

Kailani and I found jobs cleaning several office buildings here in Juneau, and this time we scheduled them so we can do them early in the morning, before the offices open. We're on our last one for today, and we're trying to hurry and finish before anyone shows up.  Kailani peeks her head in the door.

"What's up? Do you need me to teach you how to mop?"

I roll my eyes. "No, I know how to mop. I need your help moving this desk back where it was. I moved it when we got here and now I'm too tired to move it back by myself."

A smile tugs at her lips. "Oh, so you're finally willing to admit that I'm stronger than you."

"Just get over here and help me." I say with a chuckle.

Kailani shrugs and helps me move the desk back, teasing me the whole time.

"You're ridiculous, you know that?" I ask her while laughing.

"I know." She says with a flip of her hair. "But I also know you like it."

I roll my eyes because she's partially right. Now, if she'd just changed that last word and said 'me', she'd be absolutely right. Ugh. What am I getting myself into?

"What are you thinking about?"

I quickly push my thoughts aside. "Oh, nothing." I say noncommittally.

She raises an eyebrow, but then apparently decides not to push the issue and shrugs, which I am silently thankful for. One of the things we bonded over when we first met was that neither one of us are looking for a relationship. I can't have her thinking that I like her now, however true it may be.

"What do we have left to do?" I ask as I pick up the mop and bucket.

Kailani shrugs. "I think we've got everything..." She pauses. "Oh, did you wipe the counter in the breakroom?"

"Yeah, got that." I nod. "Cleaned out the microwave too, it was a mess."

Kailani scrunches her nose in disgust. "I hate when food splashes all over something like that. It's disgusting."

We walk to the supply closet and put away our cleaning items, and then make sure to lock the door behind us and slip the key back into the lockbox hidden outside.  Then we start heading back towards the marina.  Today we're planning to go down to Admiralty Island, spend the rest of the day there, and hopefully see some brown bears.

"What do you want to eat for lunch?"  Kailani asks me as we're walking.

"Lunch?"  I laugh.  "It's still six in the morning!"

"We've got some ham, we can make sandwiches..."  She continues, pretending not to have heard me.  "Or we can make something bigger like mashed potatoes and chicken, or we can just do like trail mix and energy bars..."

"Let's do sandwiches."  I say with a smile. 

"Okay, that's what I was thinking anyways.  We can take them and have a sort of picnic!"  Kailani says with a gleam in her eye. 

I nod excitedly.  "Sounds like a plan."

We walk up the ramp to our boat, and busy ourselves in getting ready to leave.  Just a few minutes later, I untie the last rope holding us to the dock, and Kailani steers us out towards open water.