Chapter 26

Hurricane Kana turned out to be, in the minds of those who consider the dangerous to be exciting, one ginormous flop. When the swirling mass of indecisive clouds finally decided to press on north, it took just enough of a westward swerve to slide up the alley between Oahu and Kauai. Not only was Honolulu spared a direct hit, but Kana’s wind speeds fizzled so much that it was downgraded to a tropical storm before the worst of it ever made landfall.

Like most Honolulu residents I stayed up late, too anxious to sleep and unable to turn off the constant stream of updates. (My parents, in contrast, were snoring away in different octaves by ten thirty.) When, sometime after midnight, it became clear that the worst was not going to happen, I again joined most of Honolulu’s residents by drifting off in happy anticipation of sleeping late on a random Thursday morning.

Now it was Thursday afternoon, and I was still happy. Neither Oahu nor Kauai had suffered any significant damage aside from some fallen tree limbs, tossed rubbish, and the collapse of a few structures (like the press box) that were waiting to collapse anyway. But school was still out, most businesses and offices were still closed, and Matt had called and asked me if I wanted to hang out.

Why, yes. Yes, I did.

We wound up chilling at one of our favorite spots, the Kea'iwa Heiau State Recreation Area. The sky was still cloudy with intermittent rain, all sizes of branches and bundles of leaves had fallen everywhere, and the trails were nothing but mud slicks. But neither Matt nor I cared, because we had the place practically to ourselves. We walked around on the road for a while, then came to settle on top of a picnic table under a covered pavilion.

We talked of nothing important. The hug we’d shared when he picked me up had been no more than our standard greeting, and if you were watching us on video you’d see nothing different than any other time we’d gone to the state rec area — even with Ty along. But something was different. I could feel a new tension between Matt and me, particularly a tension in him. I wasn’t sure if it was a good tension or a bad tension, but I was sure there was something he wanted to say to me. He seemed to be waiting for the right moment to spit it out, and unless I was losing my touch, he had decided that moment was now.

He cleared his throat. “Lacey, I want to ask you something.”

“Sure,” I replied, sounding way more at ease than I felt.

“I’m curious,” he began. “When did you first have a nightmare about me? I mean, when was the first hint you had that I was in trouble? The very first?”

That was not the sort of question I was expecting. “Um… Saturday. The night we went out.”

He looked at me oddly. One eyebrow was lifted a little. “Saturday night?”

I really wished I knew what he was getting at. “Yee-ess. Why?”

“So when I picked you up and we went to the grill and I beat you at mini-golf and we watched the movie and ate popcorn and all that — you had no idea, then?”

“I beat you at mini-golf,” I corrected, wise to his tricks. “But no, not then. I repeat, why?”

There was a change in him. He was trying to mask the feeling, but I could still see it. Disappointment. I had given him the wrong answer. “I was just wondering,” he said.

“Oh no,” I exclaimed, hopping down off the table to face him. “I answered your question, now you answer mine. Why does it matter when I first started worrying?”

Our gazes met. “It matters,” he answered, “because when we went out that night, and I called it a date, you were all freaked out and anxious. The whole night. It seemed pretty obvious you weren’t cool with the concept, so I backed off.” He blew out a breath. “After all this mess happened I started thinking about it, and I wondered if maybe you were freaked out because of the nightmare instead. But hey — I guess I was wrong.”

Crap. He had noticed. What’s worse, he was right. I had no supernatural excuse for my angst that night. It had been real. I felt terrible. “Listen, Matt, I—”

“Stop,” he said forcefully, though not unkindly. “Lace, if you’re not into me, that’s cool. You don’t have to list the reasons. I just want to get things straight between us, okay? Last night I thought—” he broke off. His cheeks were flushed. “It doesn’t matter. The last couple days have been really frustrating because it seemed like you were sending all these mixed signals… but now I understand that you were dealing with the other thing at the same time, so I get it. It’s fine. No big deal.”

He attempted to smile at me. Watching the effort that cost him made my eyes water and my veins flash with heat. “Will you stop interrupting and let me explain myself?” I demanded.

Matt sighed and scooted back on the picnic table. He did not look particularly chastened, or particularly eager to hear me out, but he did let me talk.

“You’re right that I was nervous about the whole date thing,” I admitted. “But you’re wrong about why. One big thing holding me back was that I was still really mad at you.”

His gaze slid sideways toward me. He was obviously tired of hearing that.

I rolled on. “I told you I had it in my head that you were guilty of aiding and abetting Ty’s cheating, and that besides that, you’d spent the whole summer hanging out with my replacement instead of with me.”

He dropped his head into his hands.

“Which I know was wrong!” I said quickly. “And I’ve already apologized for that. But I’m trying to explain what was holding me back, and that was the biggest part of it!”

He lifted his head. He didn’t ask me what the other part was. If I changed the subject now, he probably never would. But then we’d never get anywhere either, would we?

“The other part of it,” I said steadily, “was my own fear of rejection.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Rejection?” he repeated skeptically.

“Yes!” I proclaimed, feeling suddenly defensive. “Have you forgotten that within the last three months, I’ve gotten cheated on twice?”

Now he got defensive. He got so defensive he jumped up off the picnic table and stood to face me. “Cheated on? Are you saying you don’t trust me? Me?”

I groaned. “Don’t be ridiculous!” I shot back at him. “I’d trust you with my life!”

That shut him up.

“What I’m afraid of,” I continued more quietly, “has nothing to do with trust.”

“Then what?” he asked, looking bewildered.

This wasn’t easy at all. “It’s your history, okay?” I admitted, my voice crumbling a little. “We both know how it goes with you, Matt. You’re a fun date. Everybody loves you. But you don’t do girlfriends.”

I tried to read his expression, but his face had gone blank. I softened my voice further. “You’re not into long-term relationships. I get that. That’s fine. You’re entitled. But I’m not into being anybody’s ‘fling.’ Not even yours. Particularly yours, because what we have now means too much to me.”

Damnable tears! I gave up. There was no stopping the waterworks now. “You’ve been my best guy friend for so long, Matt,” I continued, not sure how many more words I was going to get out. “You’re probably my best friend, period. I know you’ve got a ton of other friends, but right or wrong, I’ve always liked to think that I was special. I mean… we both know I’m the only girl at Frederick you haven’t been out with at this point.” I took a break just long enough to swipe at my eyes. I managed a soggy laugh. “Long story short, my friend: Dating would be nice, but your risk profile sucks.”

I couldn’t talk any more. I stood there for a while with my head down, half laughing, half gulping, wiping at my tears with the hem of my shirt, and the whole time Matt didn’t say a word. He said nothing, in fact, until I’d collected myself enough to look at him again.

He looked okay. Better than I did. When our eyes met, he shook his head at me with disbelief. “You’re such a head case,” he said with something like amusement. “Seriously. After all the grief you’re always giving me about how I can’t read people. How guys can’t read people!” He whirled around and threw up his hands. “Lacey, what do you think? Do you think if I ask you out on a date it’s because I’m not attracted to you? Do you think if I hang out with you more than I hang out with anybody else, including all the girls I’ve dated, it means I don’t enjoy your company?” His voice grew gradually louder, but he still sounded more amused than upset. “How do you think I feel about you?” he repeated.

I considered the question. “Well, to be honest,” I answered, my tears staunched for the moment, “I’ve always kind of thought you looked at me like a little sister.”

The baby blues grew wide. “A little sister?” he repeated with amazement. He took a step away from me again, gave his head and shoulders a brisk shake, paced a few steps, and then returned. “Where do girls get this stuff?” he cried. “I’ve always thought you were hot!”

“No, you haven’t,” I argued.

He looked like he wanted to strangle me. “Lacey Chambliss,” he declared, “I have wanted to haul that cute, curvy little body of yours off to my cave by the hair ever since the first time I laid eyes on you. Do you remember that? It was at the Manoa Falls trail. I thought you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. I couldn’t believe you were Ty’s girlfriend. I couldn’t believe the dude could get that lucky.”

My jaw dropped open. Matt kept talking.

“When he acted like such a jerk about your ankle I decided he didn’t deserve you anyway, so I went for it. It wasn’t the nicest thing to do, flirting with a friend’s girlfriend, but hey — I was fourteen and you were hot.”

“You weren’t flirting,” I protested, still disbelieving. “You were just being nice! You never flirted with me. Not like you did with every other girl!”

He rolled his eyes. “I did not ditch Ty and carry you down that hill myself, alone, just to be nice. As far as I was concerned, the game was on. But after you left that day, Ty had a major hissy fit. He laid into me about betraying his trust and what it meant to be friends and all that. And he was right. I felt bad about it afterwards, and I promised him I’d never try to ‘steal his girlfriend’ again — that I wouldn’t even come close to flirting with you. And I didn’t, did I? Because unlike some people, I am a man of my word.”

“But…” I wasn’t sure what I was saying. He looked so incredibly earnest. Still, I was having a really hard time believing him. He’d been attracted to me? All this time? How could I not have known that? “But I broke up with Ty!” I insisted.

“Finally!” he barked back. “I couldn’t believe how long the two of you stayed together. I was beginning to think you’d never see the light! But I wasn’t going to be the one who broke you up, either. I didn’t want that on my head if there was any chance of you and me getting together after. You think I like the way things turned out with him? I hated that whole business. It just got so I didn’t have any choice!”

“But… I mean… even after I broke up with him, you didn’t—”

“What chance did I have?” he protested. “You were barely talking to me! Besides, I thought you’d need some time to get over him. But the next thing I heard, you were drooling all over some other guy!”

I stepped back, deflated. I deserved that. My summer rebound had served its purpose, but I realized now that the feelings I thought I had for Austin were only a delusion. He hadn’t broken my heart so much as pulverized what was left of my pride. “Sorry about that,” I muttered.

Matt’s tone softened. “Lace, you don’t have to apologize to me. You can date whoever you want. Just please… don’t try to tell me I’m not interested. I waited out your relationship with Ty for three freakin’ years, and I managed not to kill Austin all summer. If I came on too strong by asking you out on Saturday, it’s only because I didn’t want some other guy to get the jump on me again!”

I stared at him a moment. He was telling the absolute truth. Unbelievable as it was, he had always wanted me. Me. Lacey Chambliss. Overgenerous curves and all.

Matt stepped closer. He laid his hands lightly on my arms, and his touch felt like a warm blanket. “I need to tell you something else. If you want to stay just friends, I’ll give it a shot. But I honestly don’t think it’s going to work. I don’t think I can go back.”

I studied him, not understanding. As far as I knew, we hadn’t gone anywhere yet. “Go back?”

He nodded, and his voice dropped. “Lacey, when everything went down with Makani last week, there was a long time when I didn’t know where you were. The whole beach was in chaos, I heard somebody say that a girl had drowned trying to save him, and I got it in my head that she was you. I thought I would lose my mind before I saw you again, standing there by the ambulance. And when I realized you were okay and I got to where you were, the only thought in my head was that you were mine, dammit, and that I was tired of wasting time.”

I opened my mouth, but he plowed on before I could say anything.

“And I know you think that’s sexist and cave man and yada-yada,” he retorted. “But that’s how I felt. And that’s how I still feel. I want you to be mine, Lacey. Not Ty’s and not Austin’s and not anybody else’s. And since you hate that kind of ‘possessive’ talk I won’t ever say it again. But for the sake of explaining myself now, I have to. The point is, I can’t go on watching you date other guys and acting like it doesn’t bother me. I’m not that good an actor.” He let go of my arms. “So if we stay friends, things will be different. We’ll have to be… you know, a little more distant. Okay?”

I said nothing. I looked up into his handsome, wonderfully familiar face, and my soul blazed with joy. He couldn’t promise me that if I took a chance, that if we started dating and our relationship changed, we would necessarily stay a couple forever. I couldn’t make him that promise, either. But that was life, wasn’t it? You did your best. You weighed your options, you took some risks, and you rolled with it.

“Well?” he asked after a moment. “Are you okay with that?”

“No,” I murmured. He was inconveniently far away. I looked around, then took his hand and dragged him out from under the pavilion and over to a nearby cluster of rocks.

“Lace,” he said with frustration, “what are you—”

“Just come over here,” I ordered. Then I studied the rocks, picked one, and stepped up on it. “Much better,” I announced as I pulled him close and slid my hands around his neck. It was difficult to ambush a guy with a drop-dead amazing kiss when you were so much shorter than him that you couldn’t reach his lips. “Distance doesn’t work for me, Macho Man,” I whispered. “Now, that cave you mentioned… that sounds interesting. As long as you don’t pull my hair.”

The baby blues practically caught fire. “I would never do that,” he whispered back.

“I know.” I smiled.

This was supposed to be the part where I acted all feminist and kissed him first. Where I took charge of the moment and surprised and astounded him by pouring all my mushy thoughts and feelings into the most fantastic, unequivocally romantic, wildly passionate, heart-poundingest, toe-curlingest kiss ever.

But, hey.

He beat me to it.