Page 91 of Bulletproof

“Eh, sorry.” He tipped his head at me. “I was wondering—Ipo like you an’ what?”

The girl in question was beautiful with her thick hair that fell in waves to the middle of her back, her gorgeous, dark-tanned skin, and huge brown eyes. She was flawless and walked with unmistakable grace, the sway of her hips decadent. Her beauty was obvious, but girls didn’t do it for me. What was fun was sitting with four buff, shirtless men, all with smooth, sleek skin and hard, muscular physiques. I had friends back home who would be wildly jealous.

I looked at him.

“Eh, you one māhū?”

My eyes flicked to Kawika for the translation.

“He like know if you like guys.”

“Oh.” I looked back at Brian. “Yes.”

He shrugged. “Good, I goin’ tell Ipo. Maybe I get chance ’den.”

“You got no chance,” Makana said, snickering. “Ipo only like the kine guys with jobs.”

He flipped Makana off, and everyone went back to eating. So, I was gay and out—again—and no one gave a damn. I was having a really nice day.

I wasn’t far from the B&B, it turned out. It was a quick drive around a long curve, over a cool old bridge, and down the side of the road. There were no turnoffs or drives, the entrance was just there, a right off the road, and if you missed it, you had to drive back to where the Foodland and the McDonald’s were, turn around, and try it again. The highway was only two lanes, and apparently, on the weekend, traffic slowed to a crawl with people trying to get to Waimea Bay.

“Get plenty rain this time of year,” Tommy was telling me as he navigated the pickup truck down the road later that night.

He had a reason for bringing the subject up. I just didn’t know what it was yet.

“The waves from now get huge, yeah, Jory,” Kawika chimed in, cautioning me. “You no can be out there like you was today. Lucky Uncle when see you.”

Yes, I was.

“Pretty soon they come, like, thirty feet.” Kawika looked at me in the rearview mirror. “I no like see you on the news, yeah?”

They were surfers, both of them, as well as all the guys we had left back on the beach, and so if they said the waves would be big, the chances were good that I would actually see swells that could easily drown me.

“I’ll be more careful,” I assured both of the men trying to caution me.

When they let me out in front of the main house, I thanked them both again, as I had everyone I spent a lovely evening with.

“You get Uncle Randy’s numba for take the stuffs to Moses?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

“ ’Kay, ’den.” Kawika smiled and leaned in and grabbed me.

He squeezed me really tight and then gave me the hard guy thump on the back. Tommy did the same and smiled big. I got a shaka sign from both men as they left and a horn blast before they pulled out onto the highway.

I trudged to my cottage and flipped on the lights. I was lucky the porch was open because otherwise I would have been locked out and⁠—

God, I’d had no idea a cockroach could even get that big.

Holy crap!

And just when I was calming down from the surprise factor, it flew.

Flew. Like a bat.

There was a moment of panic because it could land on me, and then I’d have to take lye to my own skin, but I calmed and grabbed a shoe. After much chasing, lots of jumping on the bed, and turning on every light in the room, I finally smacked it and stunned it and then killed it. Jesus. And I remembered from some show I had seen on the Discovery Channel that they could live for, like, a week without their heads, so I flushed the damn thing down the toilet. I washed my hands, like, five times and then took a shower myself.

Seriously, the thing had easily been four inches long.