“Dayum, that’s sort of what I was going for with the couch,” Kekoa replied, the little shit.
“It’s a close second,” I said. “Meeting you easily trumps it, though. That was the single best outcome of a barfight I’ve ever been a part of.”
“Single best, huh?” They replied, leaning in to rub noses with me. “Sounds like there are some more wrong-place, misunderstanding stories wrapped up in all that. I can’t wait to hear more about them.”
“You got me,” I admitted.
“I sure do,” they replied. “Snared you both in my tentacles, and I don’t ever plan to let you go.”
“Good, cause if you tried, you’d find out which of us was truly the clingiest.”
“Really?”
“You’re damn right!”
Chapter 15
Nyx
“Another perk of living in paradise,” I said as I slid off the rock and into the water with a contented sigh.
Of course, my mates went for a more enthusiastic approach by taking a flying leap off the rock and sending a wave of water my way.
“Christmas Day on the beach was always my favorite too,” Kekoa said when they popped up. “I feel like you’ve given me back a piece of my childhood. As if all the other gifts you gave me this morning weren’t enough, this is a reminder of chasing my siblings along the beach and spending all day playing with our new water toys. We’d always be in such a hurry to get to the beach that sometimes my mom would just shake her head and ask my dad why they’d even bothered to wrap everything.”
“We used to rush through unwrapping our gifts on Christmas morning, just so we could get to the beach,” Lani replied. “Dad would fire up one of the grill pits the moment wearrived, and then other families would start showing up, and pretty soon, it was like a Christmas fiesta. Blankets would line the sand, and all of us kids would be playing in the water.”
“Oh man, remember the spot at Polaris Point with the pavilions and the slide we had to swim to reach?” I asked. “It was literally just a metal park slide mounted on this floating back that was anchored about thirty or forty feet out. We’d race each other to reach it, forgetting that on hot, sunny days we’d scorch our rear ends going down the first few times until it was soaked from all the water from our bathing suits.”
“Oh yeah, as soon as you mentioned the slide, I got a twinge in my backside,” Lani said.
“Good times,” I said as I shook my hair and sent water droplets everywhere. “It was a tradition worth keeping, so here we are.”
“I’m glad,” Kekoa said as they rolled on their back and floated. “I don’t remember if we ever went there. We probably did, though. It sounds familiar. Did it have a big rocket in front of it?”
“Yup, a Polaris missile,” I explained.
“Oh yeah, we went there lots. I was probably too young for the slide, but I bet my brothers weren’t.”
“The missile is still there,” I said. “We’ll have to take you. The old slide is gone, but there’s a waterpark now that I think you’ll love. One of the slides is fifty feet long and a total rush.”
“We will definitely have to go then. I love waterparks, especially the twisty slides that curve every which way and then send you flying out into a pool.”
“They’ve got four lined up side by side,” Lani said. “We can race each other down.”
Grinning, Kekoa nodded. “Yeah, that’s going on the to-do list.”
“I still can’t believe we never thought to just get a magnetic clip with a chain to keep pens attached, so we could keep one on the fridge and not have to hunt up something to write with,” Lani said. “That’s usually the kind of thing I think about.”
“In all fairness, business has been booming these past few years, for both of us,” I pointed out. “We went from moving in to work, work, work without hardly taking a breath.”
Overhead, the sky was that perfect shade of blue that screamed gorgeous day, no matter what the season. The few clouds that drifted past were thin and wispy, without a hint of fluff or the steel gray of an impending storm in sight. Typhoon season seemed to be well and truly over, and I was grateful that this year's had been a mild one.
Water drenched my face, and I sat up to see a flipper disappearing beneath the water’s surface.
Seriously?
A blob of a jellyfish with outstretched tentacles popped up in front of me, and I reached to scoop Kekoa up only to get tagged on the tip of my nose by a tentacle. Before I could react, they did it again, this time right on my left nipple, and then bloop, they submerged again and vanished.
