One Drop of Golden Sun

Ch. 32 Arm's Reach

*Lokela

First stop was the smoothie shop with Naia bringing out their orders to the van so the ladies could take pictures of Diamond Head in the distance. Next stop—the bathroom. Actually, they stopped several times at the restroom.

Lokela rarely had driver duty, but on the odd occasion when his cousins were on vacation, he was roped into the job. Never, had he ever, had to stop so many times for the restroom. Ray was perfectly happy to oblige each time, though, when he was getting impatient. She had stories about the natural history of the island, about the Hawaiian people's history and the white explorers who first came, she knew legends of the gods, and the name of every single flower the women asked about.

He'd never seen passengers so worked up over the flora. Despite the stops, they made it to Turtle Beach, which luckily wasn't too jammed packed yet. The waves were picking up.

"Are we snorkeling here? Those waves look pretty wild!" One lady asked, hooking her wrinkled arm in his.

Another lady cackled, "Get your surf board, Betty, time to show off what your new hip can do."

The group laughed. Ray waved them out of the van and showed them where to head for the best pictures. As usual, the turtles were lounging on the beach, hence the name of the place.

Within a minute, he was standing next to her, alone for the first time since their night together. He coughed.

She cleared her throat. "You go first."

"I wasn't going to say anything," he said.

"Right." She swayed in place as if hesitating whether or not to head for the sand. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For standing up for me. For offering to drive. This was the only way I could make up for my mistake, and I didn't want to ruin their holiday in paradise."

It killed him that the most he could do was drive the van when she needed him. He would have been willing to jump in a volcano to save her. The memory of Zach flashed through his head, how he cheated on her in California. "He was such an ass."

He didn't realize he spoke out loud until Ray answered.

"No. I'm the one who messed up, twice. I kept meaning to talk to him about the discounts, but he's always so busy."

Miller. She meant Miller, while he'd been thinking about Zach. "I don't agree, my brother's an ass. And he was wrong to fire you over this. Our sales are up. We could have figured out what to say to our dad. Hell, I could have taken the blame, too."

She put her hand on his arm. What he would have given to take her hand and lace his fingers through hers. "You stood up for me, though. I won't forget."

The breeze blew a wavy lock of blond hair in her eyes and he was on the verge of brushing back when a voice interrupted.

"Are there restrooms here?"

***

*Ray

They took pictures of dozens of relaxing turtles, or honu as they were known in Hawaii, explored the beach for a while. When the ladies started sitting more than standing, though, she knew it was time for food. There was a lovely diner not far from the beach with authentic Hawaiian food. She wasn't one for poi, but they had a grilled mahi mahi that made her mouth water just thinking about it.

And speaking of her mouth watering...was Lokela particularly hot in his fitted tee, or was she biased because he came to her rescue that morning? Not every guy could pull off that shade in a tee-shirt.