Kaleo managed a little smile. "That obvious, huh?"
The man's expression changed a little and then he lifted his chin toward the bag at Kaleo's side. Raising his eyebrows a little, he smiled. "Army?"
Kaleo smiled a little, too.
The duffel he was using as a suitcase was his grandfather's army duffel from the Korean War.
Kaleo nodded. "Yeah."
The man who came up behind the first nodded. "You look a little young to be from the service."
Kaleo hadn't told a lie per se. The bag was Army.
It just wasn't his.
And yeah, he probably looked a little young to be out of the service.
He hadn't been in the service.
He'd chosen to go into the Honolulu Fire Department as soon as he could. He'd put in his application as soon as he'd turned eighteen.
Still, he was hoping his grandfather was going to do him a solid.
The last man who'd come up, shrugged. "Leave him alone. Let's go to the next car."
Kaleo managed not to breathe out a sigh of relief until he heard the doors behind him close.
"Thanks, Yeye." His grandfather had been Chinese-Hawaiian, but instead of calling him Tutu Kane, grandpa in Hawaiian, he liked to be called grandpa in Chinese instead.
Sure, he might not have been in the Army himself, but the men had given him a pass thanks to his grandfather's duffel.
He owed him one for that. And so many other things.
Kaleo managed to pull himself out of his memories of his grandfather in time to get up and get off at the right station.
He was halfway down the stairs to the ground when he lost his phone from his hand and stood there watching as his phone hit every three steps until it hit the sidewalk.
"Shit."
Shaking his head at his butterfingers, he sighed as he jogged down the steps and reached for his phone.
When he stood up, he turned it over to look at the screen.
It was cracked.
He'd already seen the cracks on the back of the phone, right through the case.
Yeah, he was going to need-
"You're going to need a new phone."
He looked up toward the voice he'd just heard and forgot how to breathe.
She had, without a doubt, the most beautiful smile he'd seen.
Ever.
And the look in her eyes was mix of empathy and something he couldn't name.
