He didn’t like my laugh, or the way I flopped on to the sofa, dismissing him. “Well, I’m not the one that keeps knocking her up.”
“I am right here, you know.” Mom looked a little funny standing near the kitchen entrance, hands on her slim hips and that huge belly giggling as she fussed.
“I know, baby.” Dad was shooting for smooth. “How could I miss you?” He failed completely and hurried to explain himself as that insulted gasp left my mom’s throat. Still, Kona and Keira—
Fairytale Love. That’s what the media said about them and I guess that was for a good reason. Those two were a little disgusting, the way they carried on, kissing, holding hands, whispering bullshit I didn’t want to know in each other’s ears.
Dad might be pushing forty, but he still had game. Mom’s insulted frown disappeared when he moved in front of her, holding her close to him with his big hand over her stomach. “I just mean…you’re so beautiful, ko`u aloha.”
Jesus. Here he goes. Hawaiian sweet talk. I would have said something, maybe ribbed my father and the whipped way he nuzzled and kissed Mom, but I didn’t have to. Koa watched them from the end of sofa, his small nose wrinkling as Dad moved his mouth to Mom’s neck.
I feel you, little man, I thought, watching my brother.
“Seriously? There’s a toddler watching you.” Koa came to me when I waved him over and settled him onto my lap. “Show me your truck.” A little less ridiculous, my parents went to the love seat, falling into the cushions as though they’d just finished a marathon. “You said you called me?” I let Koa off my lap as a small burst of energy had him disappearing back to his toys.
“Yeah,” Mom said, closing her eyes when Dad moved her bare feet onto his lap and started rubbing them. “I needed you to run to the store for me this morning before you came to lunch. Koa’s prescription is out, I was sick and your dad had a conference call.”
“I’m sorry. I was…” I sucked at spontaneous lies, but my mom had spent the better part of the last year and a half worried about me. I didn’t rest enough, I didn’t have enough friends, I wasn’t the same kid I’d been when we’d moved to New Orleans permanently. Still, that look on her face told me no matter what I said, she’d worry. That doesn’t ever stop, it seems, even after your kid is legally an adult and not living under your roof. “I didn’t sleep well.”
Where my mother worries and frets over everything, my father typically jumps to the simplest, usually wrong, conclusion. At least, that’s what I assumed with how big he smiled at me and the stupid way he waggled his eyebrows. Mom didn’t miss the hint of perversion in his dumb expression and elbowed him in the ribs.
“Why not?” she asked, tapping my father’s hand when he stopped rubbing her feet. “Are you sick? And what did you do to your hand?”
Figures she’d notice that. I looked down at my left hand, shrugging like the bandage knuckles were nothing when both my parents stared me. “I went too hard on the bag this morning at the gym and last night, just a little insomnia, Mom, I’m okay.” She always did that long stare thing when I said something she didn’t quite believe. “I can go for you now.”
“No, it’s okay.” She waved her hand, brushing off my offer and, when she smiled, I guessed her annoyance at me. “Leann’s picking it up. She was on her way out here anyway. In fact,” she said looking at the clock on the wall, “she should be here by now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.
“Help me up,” Mom said, letting Dad take her elbow as she wiggled off the loveseat. “I have to pee again.” She disappeared down the hallway with Koa trailing behind her.
There was more of a wobble in my mother’s walk with this baby than she had with Koa and my father still stared after her like she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He must have sensed me staring at him, catching that expression that transformed from worry to, God, was that lust? as he watched Mom leave the room. He glanced at me, grinned once and didn’t bother with excusing away his reaction to her before he fell back on the cushions at my side.
I thought my father might take a nap, maybe catch a few minute’s sleep before lunch. Instead, he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned closer to me, giving me that stupid loaded smile again.
“What?” I asked him when he didn’t say anything.
Then Dad leaned in, sniffed at my collar and frowned. “Did…did you have sex?”
“What? No.” The shirt was wrinkled, maybe a little dirty, and I had worn it under my button-up last night at Summerland’s but it wasn’t like I’d slept in it. It, at least, didn’t reek.
“I can tell. You look looser, more…. relaxed.” When I only stared at him, my father shrugged like his question hadn’t been senseless and meddling. “I’m just saying. What’s going on with you?”
“It’s nothing.” That frown deepened and he didn’t look away.
Since coming into our lives, Kona Hale had warmed up quick with his role as my father. He guided, suggested, maybe he teased a little too much, but he was a good friend as well as a father. Surprising considering he hadn’t ever known he had a kid until he and Mom ran into each other in the French Market just before I turned sixteen. We were tight and I respected the hell out of him. Funny thing was, he respected me. That’s something that isn’t easily won, especially not by a kid.
But I wasn’t all that comfortable talking about my shit with him. Even though I knew he’d probably understand. I knew, despite the goofy smiles, my father worried about me as much as Mom.
Slumping, I moved my head, checking to see if Mom was coming back into the room before I glanced at the smile on my dad’s face. “Don’t get excited.”
“Huh. No chance of that.” He sounded like a kid. A grumpy, disappointed, I-Got-Socks-For-Christmas kid. When I didn’t back down, Dad changed tactics, rubbing the back of his neck and exhaling like he wanted to release all that pent up tension stiffening his shoulders. “Keiki kane, your mother is still two months away from her due date and already miserable.”
“And?”
“And,” he said, looking down the hallway, “I haven’t had sex in forever.”
Man. No.
“I’m sorry I asked.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” But my father didn’t go into detail about how sexually frustrated he was, thank God. Instead, he leaned back, looked right at me as though he’d wait for me to talk. As though I had the ball and he wanted me to run with it. “Tell me. What’s going on with you?” He brushed my arm, pulling my attention back to his face. “Something happened?”
“It’s not that big of a deal. I was with this girl last night.”
“With?”
“No…” Kona Hale looking excited, a little eager, was a funny sight. His eyebrows went up and that cleft in his chin, one just like mine, dented in with his smile. I hated to disappoint him. “She…” A small sigh and I leaned back against the cushions. “It’s not like that. But I got…” I glanced down at my lap, then moved my chin at my father, hoping he got what I was saying. “Well. It’s the first time since, well, since I got…um…hard.”
“Oh.” Then that smile went megawatt. “Oh, well that’s good.” Dad slapped my back like I’d done sacked five quarterbacks. “That’s excellent.”
“It doesn’t feel excellent.”
“Why the hell not?”
When I didn’t answer, just sullenly studied the toy truck that Koa had given me, he said in a low voice, “Ransom, you can’t keep punishing yourself. You were a kid. It was an accident.”
“Please. Don’t start with me.” I didn’t want to hear it.
I was getting ready to tell him to forget everything, pretend that I had even mentioned a girl, but then the front door opened and Leann called a quick “I’m here,” and I jumped to greet her before my father could say anything else.