“Not in the slightest,” they grumbled back.
“Okay, let me try this again,” I said. “Are you ready to find a quiet spot where we can have some alone time?”
“Like where?” they asked, looking at all the people still talking and laughing around us.
“Like our house,” I offered, their hair fluttering across my cheek as I spoke in their ear.
“Lead the way,” they growled, yanking me flush against them by my belt loop.
“You kinda have to let go first.”
“You’re going to give me a complex, telling me to let go of you,” they said.
“We’ll just have to hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said. “Unless you want to stay out here for the rest of the night.”
I was shocked by the moment of pause to follow, then Kekoa blew out a long breath and eased up the hold they had on me.
“Well, they kind of threw this whole thing for us,” they said in a voice so deadpanned I couldn’t tell if they were teasing or being serious. “We probably should stay until the bitter end.”
“Which is likely to be one in the morning when the last uncle passes out in a puddle of green punch and regret,” I pointed out.
“Sounds like a good time.”
“Does it?” I asked, hoping they were kidding with me but beginning to think that they weren’t. “Does it really?”
“I mean, a party’s not a party until someone passes out in the green goo, right?” They replied. “That would be a hell of a thing to miss.”
Their straight face had probably won them a slew of poker games if they played it the way they played pool, ice cold with a hint of arrogance. Proud, bold, and utterly determined not to show if he was bluffing or not.
“So, um, you wanna stay and shut the party down?” I asked.
“Could be the experience of a lifetime,” they remarked.
“If we don’t slip away now, we’re never going to get out of here,” Lani hissed, leaning against my shoulder. “The moms are both occupied, and folks are starting to take the little ones home to put them to bed.”
“Someone wants to stick around long enough to shut the party down,” I said as Kekoa turned towards Lani and nodded.
“Ohh,” Lani said, grinning and slinging his arm over Kekoa’s shoulder. “In that case, would you like to go play a tipsy game of lawn darts with me?”
He wasn’t serious; no way was he serious. And yet, he guided our mate not towards our home but towards the furthest stretch of field, where several of the uncles were gathered with jugs of ecto punch by their feet.
O-kay, it looked like we were playing tipsy lawn darts.
Uncle Tony, who technically wasn’t related to me by blood, was presiding over the game, accepting the darts three people handed him as they left the game, and holding them out to us when we approached. I’d known him since I was a child, just like Mr. Pepsi, who stood several feet away waiting for the next game to start. He was named that because Pepsi was all he drank. There was a two-liter several feet away from him that I knew would be empty before the end of the night.
“This round is for the last of the lumpia,” Mr. Pepsi declared, gesturing to a large, plastic container sitting on top of a cooler surrounded by other potential prizes, including a shell necklace that looked to be made from braided hemp and adorned with glass beads. Light flooded the field, thanks to the tall light poststhat bordered it and highlighted the pink lines that represented bonus points when it came to keeping score.
“Every round is for something,” I explained to Kekoa, “and each round is comprised of three throws. Trust me when I say that there are times when you’re better off losing. Like this one time, Doc Burns, over there, who isn’t actually a medical doctor but has a doctorate in philosophy, offered up the complete collection of Freud’s work. No one tried to beat him that round.”
“Sound strategy,” Kekoa replied. “I think I’d have thrown that game too. Fortunately, there is lumpia on the line right now, so out of my way.”
“Dude, how can you even be thinking about food after everything you packed away?”
“I’m not going to eat it tonight,” Kekoa admitted. “But lumpia for breakfast, now that is a treat I’ll never pass up.
And that’s how we wound up playing lawn darts until we were all just sprawled on the lawn listening to Mr. Pepsi tell stories while Doc Burns munched on a piece of the pie he’d won. My mate not only won their lumpia but also the seashell necklace currently fastened around their neck and a hammock they claimed they were going to nap in once they found the perfect place to string it.
Personally, I hoped it would be in our backyard. After they finished the hangover tour and scarfed the breakfast of spam and cheese omelets, I hoped to convince Lani to make for us. We had a can of Jalapeno cheese Spam left over from our last trip to the market that would go perfect in it, and if we were lucky, he’d toss in some slightly sauteed onion bits too, finely diced, so it was more the flavor of onions we were getting instead of actual chunks. I lost track of the story, thinking about Lani’s fluffy, cheesy-ass omelets and mimosas to go with them. While it wasn’t quite the hair of the dog, it was bound to kick the afternoon off with a mellow vibe. And if Kekoa was willing toshare his treasure trove of lumpia, then the meal would truly be complete. And the perfect kickoff to our lives together.
