“Mummie has been blowing up my phone for updates,” Diya had been telling me later that day while I stole glances at the closed bedroom door. It sounded like the shower might still be on, but who could tell through two solid doors and a wall?
“Please, do not get your hopes up.”
“You tell them to calm down.”
“I have and I will again. But can you, for your part, tell them as well?”
Diya winked. “You mean like how you kept it low-key when they wanted to know all about Kimo?”
“I fed them enough to keep them calm. You’re spoon-feeding every detail that isn’t even there. I’m telling you…” I lowered my voice, adding, “I really don’t see things working out with him.”
Diya frowned. Behind her, Kimo was minding his own business in the kitchen.
“I’m being realistic. Just because he’s here, by coincidence due to this wedding, doesn’t mean much. Okay? None of this was planned. It’s all very circumstantial.”
Diya pouted.
Sunny opened the door and we all turned toward him. He was shoving his fingers through damp hair as he paused, skimming the room. He was probably seeing an apologetic woman who was more trouble than this was worth, a grinning fool of a sister wanting to bring up two unnecessarily excitable parents over video call, and a curious bro watching this all go down from the safety of the kitchen.
My sister immediately fawned over Sunny, throwing out ridiculous variations of handsome and questions of family, work, his island experience, and what…a wedding? How romantic! Was he getting ideas? Et cetera into oblivion.
Sunny, for his part, had promptly hurdled out of a stupor and entertained Diya as if he were the one boyfriend above all others. Complete with a smile flashing sharp canines (I mean, damn…), a shallow dimple in the ridge of laugh lines, crinkles at the eyes showing off the genuineness of his responses, and volleyed questions. He casually stood there with arms folded over his chest, his T-shirt tugging at those biceps and pecs that had me cradled against him several hours earlier, chatting away as Diya gave me a not-at-all-subtle impressed nod of approval.
Sunny was welcoming and friendly and unbearably handsome like he was a whole other person.
I could still feel his strong arms carrying me to the car, his instant love for ube shining on his face, the hint of protection of not wanting to leave me alone, the jolt of pleasure ricocheting through my core when he touched the arch of my foot, and the tingles of lost thoughts when he’d mentioned putting tongues to use.
It was going to be difficult looking at the virtual box of his head during work without thinking about any of this, much less during in-person meetings.
“Okay, that’s enough. Let him breathe,” I interrupted.
“What?” Diya asked innocently, but she was far from it.
“I don’t mind,” Sunny insisted, a hand at the low of my back, his Denzel voice scraping my cheek and sending shivers down my spine.
Either I was getting way too caught up in the fantasy of us or his acting skills had skyrocketed.
Sunny, to my surprise, helped me set the table, accidently brushing my arm as he leaned past me with plates and glasses.
“Are you sure that you want to skip dinner with your friends?” I inquired.
“Yeah,” he said. “Would be suspicious if I left you alone to party after today.”
I frowned.
“It’s fine. Really. I need a break from them anyway. I can’t handle their level of partying.”
Diya brought over the sides and Kimo walked over the main dish. We oohed and ahhed over the decadent fried fish on a bed of choy sum with a heaping sprinkle of his homemade furikake seasoning.
As Sunny and I took our seats next to each other, eagerly awaiting mouthwatering food, Kimo explained, “I hit the farmer’s market this morning down in Keauhou and they had the greens you like.”
“Ah, thank you!” I said. “You’re so sweet.”
“No worries, yeah? No white pineapple, but…” He cocked his chin at Diya, who brought over a pitcher of beautiful fuchsia liquid. “They had a few pitaya.”
I squealed, wiggling in my seat as my sister handed me an ice-cold glass of water turned purplish pink by the juice of fresh, pink-fleshed pitaya. Slices of the dragon fruit floated at the top of the pitcher.
“Enough to make dragon fruit piña colada?”
“Bitch,” Diya drawled, “it’s the after-dinner drink by the pool.”
“Ugh. Yes.” I turned to Sunny, adding, “Please excuse my sister’s vulgarity. She doesn’t know how to act in front of decent company.”
“Bitch, don’t be ashamed of me,” Diya said, plating veggies and fish for us.
Kimo sighed. “It’s my sister’s doing. I take full responsibility.”
“It’s endearing,” Sunny said.
When he looked at me, I retorted, “If you ever call me that, I’ll end you.”
“I would never,” he said in all seriousness, and now I felt bad for even joking about it.
“No. Of course, you would never.”
He leaned toward me and whispered, “Smart-ass, yes.”
I pinched his side before he could elbow-block my attack.
Kimo plated the fish for Sunny first. “You’d said you liked fish, yeah?”
Sunny did his best to show the utmost appreciation. “Most people in Seattle do. Fresh salmon and all.”
“Ah, nah, brah. You don’t like fish? Here, give me that. I’ll make you something else. Everyone stop eating.”
“No, wait,” Sunny said, tugging the plate back from Kimo. “I like halibut. I like the fish that doesn’t taste fishy…if that makes sense.”
Kimo relinquished and grinned. “Ah, we good then. My cousin caught this yesterday. It’s ono…which is ono.”
We had a chuckle and I explained to Sunny, “Ono is the name of the fish but also means delicious. And it’s very mild. Doesn’t taste like fish.”
Sunny nodded, thanking Kimo, who added, “Bhanu doesn’t like fishy fish, either. She’s good with ono and mahi-mahi. But my cousin didn’t catch any mahi.”
“That’s good to know because I’ve seen mahi-mahi on menus,” Sunny said, driving a fork into his perfectly flaky fish after we’d all been plated.
He leaned down to take a bite. We watched with bated breath. He glanced at each of us, his mouth hanging open in front of his fork.
“Sorry!” Diya said, elbowing Kimo.
I went for the soy sauce when Kimo shot me a glare and said, “Don’t be salty like your sister.”
I scowled. “I’m your elder.”
“It’s perfectly seasoned. The greens have shoyu on them; don’t add more. Here, have some chili crisp.” He pushed a container of a semi-spicy condiment consisting of crushed, fried red chili and crunchy soybeans in chili oil.
I took it, the taste adding a depth of flavor that tasted a lot like the dried chilis my mom made at home, the ones she fried with each meal. Although those chilis were brown and spicy.
“What do you think?” Kimo asked Sunny, the cook eager to hear his thoughts.
Sunny’s brows hiked up with appreciation and he said, before taking one big bite after another, “My man, this is really good!”
Kimo beamed, nodding at Diya and at myself, as if anyone had been arguing against his culinary skills.
Sunny enjoyed everything and took heaping seconds. Kimo urged me to take more.
“I have to save room for these drinks,” I contested. The drinks would be filling in themselves, seeing that they were made from coconut cream with farm-fresh pineapple and dragon fruit.
“Tonight, my cousins are swimming for bugs, so maybe we’ll get a good lunch tomorrow?” Kimo mentioned around a bite.
“Bugs?” Sunny asked.
“Lobsters,” I explained.
“Yeah, we free-dive and usually catch a few, makes for good eats,” Kimo said.
Knowing how averse Sunny was to being in the ocean, I added, “At night.”
Sunny stilled. “Don’t start with me.”
I silenced a laugh, although, to be honest, being in the ocean at night, much less free-diving, was especially terrifying. Even Diya stressed out whenever Kimo went for night dives, because anything could happen in the water, especially in the dark. As she’d often vented, how would they find his body, much less save him? She, much like everyone else at this table, had absolutely no intention of dipping one toe into a dark ocean.
Dinner was a hit, per usual whenever Kimo cooked. “You pau?” he asked my sister.
Diya nodded, confirming she was done eating. All of our plates were empty and Kimo deftly took them out of our way.
My little sister entertained us with stories of tourists and work, of her experiences in wildlife preservation and supporting Kimo and his family in local protests to protect the land and its people.
As she spoke about all the great things she was doing, I leaned my elbows on the table and steepled my fingers, watching her with awe and admiration and such a deep sense of love. We were wholly two different people from the same womb, the same household, and yet so far apart. I was happy for her, and I was happy with my own life. Sure, there were ambitions and goals on the horizon, but I wasn’t miserable or envious of Diya. In a world where jealousy and hate ruled, this baseline was a huge win. I couldn’t see us being otherwise, ever.
Kimo leaned back in his chair, draping an arm over the back of Diya’s chair as she related another story of the feral cats on the property. He looked at her the way a king looked at his queen, powerfully loving, and I wished I could somehow covertly get a picture of this moment.
Kimo cringed when Diya ended with, “So a tourist found a dead feral cat and yelled at the first staff he saw, calling them a murderer and how he was summoning PETA. And I happened to be walking by, and you know me, I don’t play with that mess. Yelling at my staff like some entitled asshole. Like, sir, did you see my staff kill this cat, who happens to be feral and destroying this part of the island with out-of-control numbers? I mean, if you want to get into it, let’s talk about the amount of fuel it took for you to fly here, the trash you’ve accumulated by being here, and all the touristy stuff you’re doing destroying the reefs, polluting the air, and damaging the land.”
Sunny shook his head. “I had no idea tourists were that bad.”
We gawked at him. I muttered, “Seriously?”
“I mean, I know American tourists are an international joke and entitled everywhere they go. But I didn’t think they were this bad going to another US state.”
“A brown state,” Kimo reminded. “Recently colonized, recently stripped, recently scattered people. It might as well be a foreign country.”
“Feels like it,” Diya added. “We’re in a drought but this area uses up a lot of water to keep it green; the state encourages hotels to keep using water for tourists while locals have to ration. Had a woman complain about not having hot water during the entirety of her twenty-minute shower, and I was like, ma’am, do you understand locals can’t even use up that amount of water in one day?”
Sunny nodded, frowning, as if he might be reevaluating his entire presence here.
Kimo sighed. “We could talk all day about the inequality here and then to have tourists shove it in our faces, but! This is a happy evening with family.” He raised his empty glass, and we followed suit on instinct, only for him to laugh and nudge Diya. “Woman, where’s these delicious drinks you said you were making?”
Diya feigned insult and dramatically pushed out of her chair, muttering, “I work all day only for you to cook a great meal and then expect me to deliver on the drinks I already said I was going to make with all the ingredients prepared by you.”
Sunny chuckled as Kimo grinned, even as he was checking out Diya’s backside. Sigh. Okay, to have a man look at me like that every time I walked away would be nice. Wasn’t going to lie. My sister really was out here in the middle of the ocean living her best life and I loved it. I loved this for her.
I leaned toward Kimo and said, “A woman who can make you drinks. You better put a ring on that.”
He simply smiled. And I wondered…wait, was he considering proposing to my sister?
I gave him a curious look before helping Diya with the fancy drink glasses. She was deftly dropping chunks of pineapple and dragon fruit into the blender, dousing it with coconut cream, and plopping in a handful of ice.
“With or without alcohol?” Diya called out across the bar counter.
“With!” everyone concurred.
She added a splash of rum, closed the lid, started the blender again, and leaned against the counter with a hand on her hip.
“Are you and Kimo thinking about getting married?” I whispered, even though the blender was doing a fine job at keeping our conversation private.
We glanced at the guys chatting when she shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. We’ve talked about it, tried to work out the logistics of different cultures, languages, and religions…but I don’t think anything too serious. Like I wouldn’t call Mummie and tell her.”
She stopped the blender while I arranged the glasses for her to pour a beautiful, thick mix of pinkish-purple drink. The color was the most amazing shade I’d ever seen, and I loved it. It was the type of color one could get lost in, of rich Hawaiian sunrises, orchid leis, dramatic lipsticks, and lush silks that complemented my skin tone in the best ways. It was the type of color that one could see, taste, smell, and feel.
“But would you say yes?” I asked quietly, watching her add whipped cream and then going to the fridge to pull out a small bag.
A smile swept across her face, the kind a person couldn’t hold back even if they tried, the kind that said the answer as clear as day. My little sister would marry Kimo in a second.
She plucked out purple and white orchids from the bag, already washed and wrapped in a paper towel, and arranged one flower to each glass.
“I want to live inside this color,” I told her as she handed me a drink. I held it up to the light before taking a second one to Sunny.
Diya took hers and one for Kimo. We retired to the lanai, where large string lights added ambience so we could enjoy the sunset.
Even though there were four lounge chairs, Diya curled up alongside Kimo, who wrapped an arm around her and thanked her for the drink. They clinked glasses, and ugh, if they could stop being adorable for a second, that would be great because Sunny and I were as far from snuggling as a “new couple” could be. In fact, our chairs weren’t even touching.
I took a sip of the slightly sweet, slightly tart, slightly alcoholic, fully creamy drink. I threw my head back. “This is so good! I missed this so much!”
“Better than ube?” Diya teased.
I shot her a look. “I saw ube paste at KTA. Do you know what we could make with that?”
She rolled her eyes. “I know damn well you didn’t go to the grocery store.”
“But I did go to their website.”
“To see what UX you’d improve on?”
“Yes. Always. But also to see if they have ube anything. Which they have lots of.”
“Enjoy this.”
“This is perfect. I don’t think ube could elevate this any more than what it already is.”
“Shocking statement!”
“This is very good,” Sunny agreed, raising his glass to his hosts. “Thank you for this. I…wasn’t expecting so much.”
“Hospitality?” Kimo asked. “You’re dating Bhanu, so you’re pretty much like family, and we have lots of aloha for our fam.”
Sunny and I gave each other a quick look, and I was beginning to feel bad again. Kimo and Diya were being so hospitable for a lie. I was sure they’d understand once I explained, but why ruin the moment? Not that I had to try, because the world’s biggest moment blocker was blowing up Diya’s phone.
“That better not be work,” I told her, nodding at the glorious shades of orange and pink brushed across the sky as the sun descended and set the water on sparkling, golden fire.
“It’s Mummie!” she said with cheer.
“Don’t answer.”
But it was too late, to which Diya shrugged and mouthed, “Sorry.”
“Eh, why haven’t you answered your phone?” Mummie said through the speaker.
Diya pointed at her phone and mouthed, “See?” then cheerfully said, “Hello, Mummie!”
She, knowing why Mummie was really calling, turned the screen toward us.
Sunny and I froze, staring at my parents through the miraculously annoying trap known as FaceTime. I shifted to hide Sunny behind me, but Mummie immediately swiped her hand across the air and said, “Let me see this man who has captured my beta’s heart, huh?”