Jordan reels his head back and laughs, right at the moment the water spray points his way.
Splat.
A stream of water enters his mouth. He chokes, coughing, and tries to ward off the water, backing away until he tips into a wheelbarrow filled with dirt.
The last thing I see is Jordan tumbling over with the wheelbarrow and disappearing underneath a plume of red-brown dust.
Laughter spews out of my lips as I crawl from my dirt pile. Jordan rises out of the dirt like a winged wraith in a cloud of red, shaking off clods of mud.
We square off like gladiators before a bloodthirsty, or in this case, mudthirsty crowd.
“I’m going to get you.” Jordan rushes me. “You started it.”
“No, you started it in third grade.” I can’t stop laughing. “This is payback.”
He grabs me around the waist, and we’re hit with another spray of water as the worker insists he wants to wash us off.
“Stop, stop,” I cry, all cold and wet with goosebumps invading my skin. I’m sure my nipples are standing out underneath the muddy handprints and my face is streaked with the red dirt.
The wrinkled shopkeeper pokes her head through the doorway. “You two want to buy anything now?”
“Looks like we have to,” Jordan says, still smearing my back with his grimy hands while I stuff my muddy hands into his pockets.
The shopkeeper stands in front of us and ties on a mud-stained apron. She glances at my shirt and says, “Hey, I love your handprint shirt. New design. Let’s get you in the dressing room and I’ll print one up with our logo for you.”
Half an hour later, Jordan and I walk out of the store with completely new dirt wardrobes. I’m in a handprint shirt and he’s wearing one that says “Eat me,” with a picture of a cylindrical shaped mud pie, better described as a mud sausage.
From head to toe, we’re covered with Hawaiian dirt, from dirt caps to dirt cut-off jeans, dirt bandanas and dirt socks.
“They always buy,” the shopkeeper says over her shoulder to the worker, then turns to us and asks, “Like an order of spicy taro chips and shaved ice to go with that?”
* * *
The next day is as full of surprises as the last. Jordan and I went jet skiing in the bay, snorkeling from a glass-bottom boat, and we even volunteered to dance at a luau, complete with fire torches and grass skirts.
We also spent a lot of time window shopping, pointing out all the things we would buy if we were rich. I’m beginning to appreciate unsatisfied desires or shopping interruptus, because it’s more fun to hunt for something than to actually shell out the money and fulfill my temporary wants.
It all goes with not needing to get revenge on Stephen by looking like I’m having the time of my life, or buying up the store or dating a ton of guys, but actually enjoying myself for real without regard to how it would play out for an imaginary social media audience.
I’m having a great time playing with Jordan Reed. He’s the most fun guy I’ve ever been with, and the fact that we are now entirely platonic, just like back in third grade, takes the pressure off worrying about the future, or obsessing over whether he has feelings for me or not.
Being a healthy, hormonal woman means I still have the hots for him, but I’m determined to do nothing but tease, because he also is a tease.
Whatever his end game is, he’s not putting on the full court press to get me in bed, and I tell myself I don’t care.
Except, without trying, he’s weaving his way slowly but surely into the very fabric of my heart.
It’s not the big things he does, or the treats he buys me, or even the things he says. But tiny things, like leaving the toilet seat down, slipping a lei around my neck when I wake in the morning, and sleeping next door in Sven’s room after Sven disembarked in Kauai and never returned.
Rumor has it he’s decided to become a surfing god on the North Shore and pose for a sportswear company. I wish him well. He was a good-looking Thor, and I’m sure the sun shines on him with special favor over his golden Nordic looks.
It’s not Sven I care about, but Jordan, who I caught at a pay phone booth in Kona. When I tapped on the glass, he jumped so high, he dropped the receiver and claimed he was speaking to his family—the same people he said didn’t want to hear from him.
What is he up to? I have no clue.
Which is why I’m knocking on Sheri and Joy’s door the day of our last port of call. I tell myself I have everything under control, that this platonic fun with Jordan is all I want and all I’m going to get. But the fight between my head and heart has me confused. I want Jordan to get as much out of this trip as I am. I want to be the person to make him happy, and I wish he’d share more of his feelings and thoughts with me, rather than give me advice and act like he’s fixing my problems and issues.
“Hey, it’s Dani!” Joy exclaims, opening the door wide. “What are you and Jordan planning to do in Maui?”
