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I didn’t realize how tired I was until I was in my Jeep fighting rush hour traffic toward home. I kept yawning, and gripping the steering wheel for support, and because I hoped the cramping in my fingers would keep me awake.
My cell phone rang as I was passing the Aloha Stadium, which loomed dark and empty to my left. “Oh, God, what is it now?” I said out loud. But I grabbed the phone and saw it was Gunter calling.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself.”
“I was thinking...” he said, then paused. “Um, maybe you, you and Mike...”
I yawned. “Sorry, it’s not you, Gunter. It’s been a long day.”
“I want you to meet Cinco,” he said in a rush. “Like go out together. Sunday brunch?”
“I have to ask Mike. But probably. So you’re coming out of the closet with him?”
“It’s not like I was hiding him or anything.”
The sun came out from behind a bank of clouds and I had to raise my hand to shade my eyes. “Sure it is, Gunter. You’ve been bitching at me for years about settling down with Mike and you were afraid I’d give you the same shit back.”
“We don’t have to do it,” he said.
“Beachside Broiler, Sunday at eleven,” I said. The BB was a sprawling buffet in a Waikiki hotel, with tables right on the beach. Gunter and I had often eaten there when I lived in Waikiki. “I’m hanging up. See you Sunday.”
I kept on yawning as I climbed Aiea Heights Drive, and I was so relieved to pull into our driveway I closed my eyes for a minute. I woke to hear Roby barking from inside the house, irritated that I was home but not with him. I dragged myself out of the Jeep and up to the front door. The dog was so delighted to see me you’d think I’d been away for weeks, not just a long day. Mike wasn’t home yet, so I hooked Roby’s leash and walked him down to the corner and back. Then I stripped down, took a quick shower, and fell into bed.
I woke to see Mike looming above me, and smelled the distinctive charcoal, sugar and onions that meant bulgogi, Korean barbecue. “You didn’t answer your phone,” he said. “So I went ahead and got us dinner.”
Roby was dancing around him, eager for his taste of beef. I sat up and yawned. “Sorry. Took a power nap.”
Over dinner I told him about the day, including Gardiner’s death and Taki’s arrest. “So who shot at Dakota?” he asked.
“Not clear. Most likely Gardiner. But we’ll see if we can get a ballistics match.”
Mike pushed aside his plate. “About last night,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, what we talked about on the way home from the hospital.”
“We have a great life,” I said. “I love you and Roby and I’m looking forward to having Dakota here. That’s enough for me. But I want you to be happy.”
“It’s such a big commitment,” Mike said. “And seeing what happened to Dakota last night scared me. What if we have a kid, and something happens?”
“Your parents managed with you, and mine with me,” I said. “And their parents with them, and so on all the way back in time. Just because we don’t have the right plumbing to have a kid without some outside assistance doesn’t mean we won’t be able to manage.” I paused. “But if you’re not ready now, then we have to tell Sandra and Cathy.”
“What if they find someone else and we lose this chance?”
“It’s not like buying an airline ticket,” I said. “If the universe means for us to become dads, the opportunity will be there. When we’re ready for it.”
“I like it when you hang around with Terri,” he said. “You get all philosophical.”
I stood up and began clearing the table. Roby realized there was no more food coming, and he rose and lumbered over to his bed, where he turned around twice and then settled down, his head on his paws, looking at us.
When the kitchen was clean, we moved to the living room, lounging on the sofa facing each other with our legs entwined. “I’m a big wimp, aren’t I?” Mike asked.
“In many ways,” I said, and he kicked me.
I laughed. “It’s a big step, having kids. I think I’m ready for it, and I think you are, too.” I looked over at him. “This afternoon I told Sampson I want to move over to the Bureau.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was sorry to lose us, but he already had some baby sergeants on tap to replace us. Very heart-warming.”
“Pragmatic.” Mike sat up and pushed my legs to the floor so he could come sit next to me. “So we’re in this thing?”
“Baby-making? Guess so.”
He leaned over and kissed me. “Cool.”
I kissed him back, and quickly he was on top of me on the sofa and we were losing clothes and making Roby nervous.
Eventually we moved to the bed and then fell asleep cuddled together. The next morning, Saturday, we met up with Terri, Levi, Dakota and Danny at the farmer’s market at Kapiolani Community College. We nibbled on barbecued abalone, shrimp fried rice and wedges of mushroom and spinach omelets made with farm-fresh eggs. Dakota had never had kalua pork, and he became an instant convert. It was funny to see Danny walk him around, showing off his knowledge of local foods.
Dakota’s leg had been bandaged, and kids from school had signed it as if it was a cast. It sounded like he was settling in there, and he was already talking about different clubs he might join. “They have a gay straight alliance,” he said. “This kid already invited me to come to the next meeting.”
I looked at Mike and couldn’t help wondering how different our lives would have been if we had been able to be so open about who we were back in adolescence. Would we even have met? What if we’d both been able to fall in love in high school, or college? How differently our lives might have turned out.
Terri made us sit through a lecture by a master gardener, and then we heard some local students playing slack key guitar. There were so many different flavors of coffee, chocolate, shave ice and breads and cakes that we were all in a constant state of taste bud arousal.
When we were done, Dakota came home with Mike and me, and we downloaded an old surfing movie and the four of us sprawled around the living room watching. At least I think Roby was watching; he might have been looking at us rather than the TV.
Sunday morning we all slept in, scrambling to get Roby fed and walked, then the three humans showered and dressed for our brunch with Gunter and Cinco. “I wish we didn’t have to do this,” I grumbled, as I drove along the H1 toward Waikiki.
“You’re jealous,” Mike said.
“That’s dumb. How can I be jealous when I have you?” I said. “I want Gunter to be happy. I just don’t know that this Cinco guy is the right one for him.”
“You don’t want him to settle down. He’s your id, remember? You want him to be that swinging single you used to be.”
“What’s an id?” Dakota asked.
“This psychiatrist named Sigmund Freud came up with the idea that the brain is composed of three parts,” Mike said. “The id is the primitive and instinctual part, that contains our sexual and aggressive drives. The super-ego is our moral conscience, and the ego is the part that mediates between the two.”
“So this guy, Andy Gardiner. “He had no super-ego? Or his ego didn’t do a good job of managing his id?”
Mike and I looked at each other. “You really have been hiding how smart you are, haven’t you?” I asked Dakota.
“Maybe my ego is doing a good job of managing,” Dakota said, and Mike and I laughed.
I was cruising slowly along Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki past a long row of high-rise hotels, on my way to the parking garage, when my cell rang. From the custom tone, the theme from L.A. Law, I knew it was Sandra, and I put it on speaker. “Howzit,” I said.
“I’m already feeling nauseous, but Cathy says I’m exaggerating,” she said.
I looked over at Mike but spoke to the phone. “What do you mean?”
“I got the eggs on Friday,” she said. “I can feel it. There’s something growing inside me.”
“You can’t know that so soon, can you?” Mike asked.
“My mom told me she knew exactly when she was pregnant with me. Like within hours.”
“We’re going to be parents,” I said, speaking to the phone but looking at Mike. “Holy shit.”
“My feelings exactly,” Sandra said. “Oh, crap, I’ve gotta pee. Talk to you later.”
“A whole new world,” Dakota sang from the back seat. “A new fantastic point of view.”
“He must have been hanging out with Ray,” Mike said, and we both laughed. “But he’s right. It’s a whole new world.”
I reached over and took his hand. “And it starts today, with the three of us.”
“And Roby, too,” Dakota chimed in.
“And Roby, too,” I said. “Now let’s go meet Gunter and welcome the newest member of our ohana.”
Which is exactly what we did.