Akemi met Lorenzo right there in her parents’ house. She had given herself more time at home following her dad’s first heart attack, and Lorenzo was there as a boarder.
It had been a strange and quiet season at home; for the first time in her life, there were no foster kids in the house. And to have some money coming in while Kimo recuperated, her parents had rented out one of the bedrooms.
Lorenzo had lived there for three months in order to be near his daughter. Rory lived in Pualena, and Lorenzo hadn’t learned of her existence until she was already five years old. He had immediately rushed to the island to meet her… and in the days and hours that Rory spent with her mother, Lorenzo and Akemi had struck up an easy friendship.
When that friendship turned into something more, Akemi had tried to dismiss it as yet another travel romance. In her two decades of travel, no one had ever stuck with her for long.
And yet despite her assumptions, despite that constant waiting for the axe to drop, there had been something different between her and Lorenzo from the beginning.
At first, she had dismissed it as Italian charm. They were nothing but a bunch of Romeos, the lot of them; she had spent enough time in Italy to know how easily they doled out praise and promises… and how quickly they lost interest.
But Lorenzo was steady. His interest and invitations, his words of support never faltered – even when they were away from each other for months at a time.
She was cautiously optimistic about this relationship – if nothing else, she had seen that he was capable of being a supportive and peaceful coparent – but deep down, she was terrified.
How was this going to work?
It didn’t help that she was the size of a blimp.
The bigger her belly grew, the more her fear and exhaustion eclipsed her hope. So by the time Lorenzo finally arrived in Pualena, her anticipation had morphed into something anxious and unpleasant.
When Lorenzo showed up on their lanai and she went out to greet him, he stopped and stared slack-jawed at her belly. She couldn’t blame him; she had literally doubled in size since they’d met.
But still… it made her feel more like a tourist attraction than a romantic prospect.
“Aloha,” she greeted him in a sour tone.
“Ma che bella,” he said reverently. “Amore,you are so beautiful.”
“I look like an elephant.”
“But what a beautiful elephant.”
She snorted and held open the screen door. “Come on in.”
“Here’s your room,” she said, walking to the downstairs bedroom that Anne had set aside for their Italian guest.
“Yes, this was my room before.” He looked at her. “Do you have a different room?”
“Yeah. I’m upstairs.”
He nodded, his expression thoughtful.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“No, thank you. I was very hungry, so I stopped in Hilo on the way here. At the place where we used to go, the one with the breadfruit burgers, do you remember?”
“Of course.”
He reached into his backpack and then handed her a slightly squashed paper bag along with a bottle of sugarcane juice.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Thank you.”
“Prego.” He carried his bags into the room and then came back out.
“You are well?” he asked, glancing again at her belly.
“Well enough.” She lowered herself onto the sofa. “Ready to not be pregnant anymore.”
