BLAINE THOUGHT THAT ukulele lessons were probably the lamest thing he’s ever heard of, and this was after he almost broke his nose falling face-first into the sand after meditation last night. He wasn’t looking forward to two hours of playing a miniature guitar, but a deal was a deal. Selena gave him the internet time. He’d give her the relaxation time. He wouldn’t have minded making a fool of himself if she was sitting next to him. He’d gladly strum her a corny love song.
Selena wasn’t going to be around much today because she wanted everything to be perfect for that jackass she used to work for. She had set him up with breakfast and lunch and said that she’d see him for dinner. Then with a quick kiss goodbye, she was out the door. He knew the resentment he was feeling was ridiculous. If they were going to try a long-distance relationship, he’d have to get used to the idea of never seeing her.
Of course, if he hadn’t spent so much time working out the coding errors in the new camera program, they could have enjoyed some more time together. He did feel guilty about that. But they needed that camera to be perfect for the expo in France in February. His company was counting on the preorders from that show to stay in business. Blaine really thought that they had nailed it this time. Merry Christmas to Stephens-Miller!
So he sat down on a beach blanket cross-legged with a bunch of the other guests. Their ages ran from eight to eighty. Although there were a couple of cute women in bikinis, the only woman he was interested in was Selena. She looked sexier in her chef’s jacket than these girls did in their colorful flowered bikinis. The group was under a shaded pavilion. This one, however, was open on all four sides. Blaine could hear the ocean and smell the coconut suntan lotion that reminded him of Selena. He considered flagging down a waiter for a piña colada, but it just wasn’t the same without the rum.
“Aloha!” a petite Hawaiian woman said.
“Aloha,” they parroted back.
“I’m Auntie Freda. And I’m going to teach you how to play the ukulele.” She and a helper who could have been her grandson passed out the instrument to everyone. “I bet you don’t know that all of you already know how to play the ukulele. Go on,” she encouraged. “Give it a try. Those are your instruments. You get to keep these.”
For the next couple of minutes, the class plucked and strummed at the strings. His family must’ve paid a fortune for this trip. Well, if that was the case, he was going to learn how to play a happy Hawaiian Christmas song. And when he got home, he would treat all of them to a solo concert with his positive attitude and new energy.
Sure enough Auntie Freda said, “Today, we’re going to learn ‘Mele Kalikimaka,’ the Hawaiian Christmas song made famous by my boyfriend Bing Crosby.”
Blaine dug into learning the chords, and a strange thing happened. As he concentrated on getting the notes right, strumming the ukulele felt relaxing. He had a moment to grin at a picture of himself sitting at his desk in Detroit with his feet up on the desk playing the ukulele. As far as stress-relieving exercises go, this beat the hell out of yoga.
It wasn’t as exciting as jumping off Black Rock or having dynamite sex on a rock while the ocean raged around you. But it was nice, and he had to remember to thank Selena, Mikelina and his family for the opportunity to broaden his horizons. After his first lesson, Blaine was feeling pretty good about himself. He stood up and stretched, and the thought about going for a quick dip in the ocean sounded like a good idea. He’d have to bring the ukulele back to his room and get changed into his bathing suit, but it wasn’t a far walk. Still strumming the ukulele, he headed back in that direction when one of the older gentlemen in the class stopped him.
“Excuse me. You’re Blaine Stephens, aren’t you?”
Blaine stopped playing. “Yeah? Do I know you?”
“No, but I’m a reporter.”
“No comment.” Blaine grimaced.
The reporter chuckled. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“I suppose you saw me on that disastrous YouTube video.” Blaine took a deep breath to issue the apology that their public relations firm made him memorize.
“How could I?” the reporter said. “You’ve been here all morning.” The man pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped. He showed him a video starting up.
“How do you get cell service?” Blaine asked.
“I’m staying at the Hyatt.” He pointed. “High speed is thirty bucks a day. Can you believe that shit?”
“Totally worth it. I’m staying at the Maui Wellness Center. They put a cell blocker on my phone. I can’t get any service.”
“So you don’t know,” the reporter said.
“Know what?” Blaine asked, frowning as the video came up and he recognized his brother and Paul standing next to their prototype on the track they built in back of the factory. The actual fucking car. This was not a computer simulation and from what he could tell, this was the car they were bringing to Paris.
Paul smiled for the camera and held up the controls.
“No. You idiot. No.”
In the video, Paul activated the drive command and the car took off around the track. It took the first turn well. Blaine felt a cold sweat form in the base of his back.
“Slow the thing down,” Blaine bit out.
It whipped around the second turn, fishtailing a bit.
“What the hell is he doing?”
The third turn was the car’s undoing. It had not backed off on the acceleration. It spun out of control and flipped over a half a dozen times while technicians ran for cover.
“I’m going to kill him,” Blaine muttered.
“Can I quote you on that?”
Blaine gripped the neck of the ukulele in his hand and turned menacingly to the man when he got tackled to the ground from something behind him. He tried to wrestle up, but the goon who held him was hella strong and outweighed him by a good hundred pounds.
“What the hell? Get off me,” Blaine said, struggling.
“All right, that’s enough,” Titus said to the reporter, who was fumbling with his phone to take a picture. “Unless you’d like to surrender your phone, I suggest you leave now without any pictures.”
“You can’t stop me. I can take as many pictures as I want.”
“Let me up,” Blaine gritted and he was hauled to his feet, but he was still in some kind of martial arts hold that didn’t allow him to wiggle or power his way out.
“You are now on private property and I have my guest’s privacy to consider.”
“Fine.” The reporter stormed away.
“Let’s get him under cover of the trees and bushes so they can’t get him with a zoom lens,” Titus said. “Right this way, Mr. Stephens.”
“Let me go,” he gritted out.
“As soon as you’re back safe and sound in the center.”
Blaine wasn’t sure how safe or sound any of them was going to be when the big guy holding him let go. The three of them squeezed into the elevator and then Titus keyed it so it whisked up to the penthouse. He suddenly stopped struggling. What if Selena was still there? What if she had left her things in plain sight? He forced himself to calm down.
“I’m all right now,” he said, as the elevator doors opened.
The security guard let him go. “No hard feelings, brah,” he said.
“None taken.” The guy was a good head and shoulders taller than he was and almost twice as wide. No wonder they barely fit into the elevator.
“I think I’m going to take a nap and...meditate,” Blaine said, blocking Titus from coming in any farther.
“That seems like a good idea, Mr. Stephens.” Titus handed him back his ukulele and then he and the security guard were gone.
Whirling around the room, Blaine grabbed his laptop. He was going to find Uncle Rollo and they were going to drive to a cell phone store, and he was going to buy a new one with a long-minute plan so he could scream at his brother. Then he was going to go to the Hyatt and book a room where he’d gladly pay a million dollars a day for internet so he could straighten this mess out. He should have done that at the beginning of the week. Instead, he let himself get bogged down with bullshit. He was so angry he could scream. Paul was lucky he was over four thousand miles away.
As he was searching for his power cord, he noticed that Selena left her purse here. Her notebook and her phone were next to it. She must have been distracted about her meeting with Chef Dickhead.
He grabbed her phone and swiped it open, mimicking the pattern he’d seen her use to unlock it. Jackpot! He dialed his brother’s phone and got his secretary. “Get my brother on the phone, please.”