“Vanillaandraspberry?” I can’t help but screw up my nose as Tyler pays and we grab our drinks, heading to a nearby picnic table and taking a tentative sniff. “That doesn’t sound like it would be a good combo.”
“You said the same thing about loco moco, but then you ended up eating so much of it that you felt sick.” Tyler is unfazed by my skepticism, already popping his straw into his drink and taking a generous sip, eyes fluttering closed dramatically with a moan, making my own insides twist with surprise. “God, that’s so freaking good.”
I place my own straw into my cup and study the little sodastand’s red-and-white logo.Sodabomb.Deciding I have nothing left to lose (and yes, begrudgingly realizing Tylerdoeshave a point about the loco moco thing), I take a tentative sip. And once I do, an explosion of delicious flavor coats my taste buds.
“Wow,” I rasp, taken aback by how divine this drink tastes. “I have to hand it to you, Ty. You’ve been right about local cuisine twice in one day.”
He snickers as he slurps his drink, winking at me over our cups. My belly does another nervous flip. “Second trip’s the charm, I guess. I’m practically a local.” That earns him a playful punch on the arm, and we enjoy the rest of our drinks in silence, listening to the wind and the birds before we stroll through the market and explore. I even find a hand-painted ceramic mug with gorgeous plumeria blossoms dotted all over it,Hawai?icarved into the center, and decide it’s the perfect gift for Mom to add to her collection.
After shopping around for a little longer, we decide to keep the sweet-tooth run going and Tyler drives us to Leonard’s, a famous bakery on the island. By the time we park the car and walk up to the front door to push through the crowds, he’s already given me a full rundown of the place. It’s a vintage-looking bakery—one of the oldest in Honolulu, apparently—with a line snaking out the door, people eagerly waiting for the sugar-dusted treats inside. There’s a red-and-white-striped awning stretching over the building’s face, a glowing neon sign with flashbulbs pointing a bright yellow arrow toward the door.
“Okay, so what Leonard’s is most known for is their malasadas,” he explains as we step inside, the yeasty-sweet smells of sugar and dough wrapping me in a warm hug that I practicallysink into. “They’re these Portuguese doughnuts that they fill with all sorts of custards and stuff.”
I have to wipe the drool off my chin as I stare at the Nutella-stuffed doughnuts in the glass case by the register and the customers leaving with pink bakery boxes dotted with bright blue script boasting the bakery’s name. “Oh my god, they smellincredible.”
Tyler beams proudly as we walk up to the register. “They taste even better than they smell,” he assures me as he orders for us—one Nutella malasada and one stuffed with a coconut pudding calledhaupia.“Ella told me that she and Lucas like to pick up a dozen for barbeques and stuff with friends. Talk about the ultimate hostess gift.”
“Agreed.” I can already picture an alternate universe whereI’mthe one who lives here, jotting down barbeque plans in a shiny planner and making a note to pick up some malasadas for guests before I go. Probably with a little doughnut sticker next to it, because I doubt they make malasada stickers and it’s the closest thing, unless I ordered them custom…
I’m practically vibrating with excitement when we step back outside, the warm air mingling with the powdery scent of the doughnuts in our bag. We take them to the car, where Tyler rolls the windows down and we idle there, each grabbing our treats and taking a bite.
“Oh mygod,” I moan around a mouthful of sweet, Nutella-soaked dough. “And to think that I used to believe Dunkin’ made the best doughnuts.”
Tyler swallows and looks at me proudly. “I told you, nothing else compares. You can’t come to Hawai?i without having at leastonemalasada, Olive. It would be a literal crime. I heard you have to do at least two years’ jail time for it.”
I salute him with the paltry remains of my doughnut. “Well, it’s a good thing you helped me avoid that sentence, then.”
We eat the remaining few bites in contented silence, sighing with full bellies after the treat. “Thanks for that,” I say to Tyler, lolling my head to the side to look at him. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat again, though.”
He quirks up one eyebrow. “Not even another malasada?”
Which is how I reconsider my statement and we wind up back on line to order two more, the original and cinnamon sugar varieties, which are both equally—if not even more—delicious. This time, we sit on one of the vacated benches outside and watch the palm trees sway in the late-afternoon sun, a few streaks of bright, puffy clouds coasting across the never-ending blue.
Eventually, the sun sinks lower in the sky and Tyler checks his phone as we head to the car. He looks up at me with a strange expression on his face when he speaks. “Think you have time for one more stop?”
I can’t help the laugh that bursts out of me, and I throw my hands up in the air, a little bit sugar-drunk. “Trust me, I have nothing but time. I’m supposed to be hanging out at the University of Hawai?i with a boy who claims to love me, but clearly that’s out of the question. The bigger issue is whether you’ll be able to roll me out of the car now that I’m stuffed full of all these malasadas.”
Still, I force myself to focus on the positives, thinking back to the day we shared together. “Thanks for the adventure today, Ty. I had a really good time.” And it’s the truth. This trip may have started out shitty, but Tyler managed to turn it around sothat for most of the day, Jack was the furthest thing from my mind.
Makes you think.
Tyler’s voice brings me back to the present as he responds to my compliment, lip tilting up in that playful way of his. “No need to thank me, Olive. With us, it’ll always be good.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
After a whole summer of getting to know Tyler Ferris when we first started dating, I thought I’d found all the things that made me fall in love with him. But it turned out every new day was a surprise, a fresh discovery of something that made my heart flutter—and that particularly sweltering afternoon in July during our first year together was no different.
“God,” Tyler groaned dramatically, a deep, guttural sound that felt like it was twining around my insides as we stepped into my house and into the cool air. I dropped my bag to the floor, so overheated that I didn’t even care about my planner slipping out of it and skittering under the table, resigned to its fate and internally promising that I’d pick it up later. “I thought I’d never know what it felt like to be in a cold room ever again.”
Tyler and I had picked up the earlier lunch shift at Suburban Slices that day so we could catch the release of the new superhero movie we were looking forward to later that night, but doing so meant we had to be out and about during the peak of the day, when the unforgiving sun was baking all of the little ant people living beneath it. After an afternoon of sliding pies in and outof the oven in the sweltering kitchen for the lunch rush and then having to trek home in the heat wave with the AC broken in the Jeep, we were practically puddle people by the time we walked through my front door.
“Amen to that,” I echoed, closing my eyes in ecstasy as the cold air rushed against my sweaty skin. Tyler, always with more of a flair for the dramatic than me, sprawled out on the kitchen floor and pressed a cheek against the cool tile, moaning again.
Mom was out running errands (i.e., getting herself primped and pretty for her date later that night with Neil), leaving Tyler and me alone in the cold, empty house. I was still in the process of slipping off my shoes when he darted a flushed palm out and gently wrapped it around my ankle, motioning for me to join him on the floor.
“C’mon, Ol,” he mumbled, eyes closed and nearly falling asleep at the immediate comfort of being cooled. “Lie with me.”
“On the floor?” I questioned his antics but still I obliged, stretching myself out on the tile and feeling the rush of chills up my legs and arms when my skin made contact with the cold floor. As usual, Tyler was right, and now it was my turn to whimper as I snuggled into the crook of his arm, giggling at how ridiculous we probably looked, inhaling his scent—a mix of cologne, laundry detergent, and boy. But as soon as the noise of pleasure left my mouth, Tyler’s spine stiffened.
