Aloha, page 52
Literally and figuratively.
I have so many thoughts racing through my mind, and I push away all the forbidden ones first. “I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I honestly didn’t think I hit you that hard, but it looks—”
“Worse than it feels,” Rhys finishes for me. “I’ve had more serious injuries playing ball.”
I nod, assuming as much. Though, I doubt he would’ve gone to the hospital for those, so why now? “Hey, why did you tell the doctor it was a hit-and-run?”
He seems distracted when he answers, “I wasn’t sure if they had to report it to the cops. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
I never even thought of that.
He adds, “I’m not going to sue you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
A giggle forms in my chest, but never escapes. “Not gonna lie, the thought did cross my mind.”
He stares ahead as he shifts in his seat. “Of course, it did,” he mumbles. But the way he says it—as if it’s all he expects from the world—it’s kind of… sad.
“I mean… if I recall correctly, I offered to take you even before I knew who you were, so…” I’m trying to console him, and I don’t know why. “I would’ve done it, either way.”
“Yeah, but would you have stayed?” he asks, his focus on me again.
Honestly? “Probably not.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Silence stretches between us, and I don’t know what else to do. What else to say. I put the car in gear. “I should probably take you home.”
He releases a long, drawn-out sigh, his head rolling against the headrest. “What if…” he starts, then shakes his head.
“What if… what?”
Another sigh. “I want to ask you something, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”
This can’t be good. My hands grip the steering wheel tighter as I tell him, “Ask me anyway.”
“You guys gotta be somewhere?” He pauses a moment. “I mean, do you have to get your kid home?” I don’t get a chance to respond before he adds, “Because I’m thinking we drive somewhere and… hang out. We can sit in your car and just… talk.”
“Um…”
“Or not talk. Just, you know, stare blankly at the space in front of us…”
“I don’t—”
“I’ll give you all the cash in my wallet.”
“As if you carry cash.” That was not what I meant to say.
What I meant to say was no.
As in… hell no.
“I do.” His smile is almost wicked—as if he can somehow sense my temptation. “A lot of it.”
“How much?” Ugh. I could do with “a lot” of cash, and I’m sure his standards of measurement are far greater than mine.
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
I can’t believe I’m even entertaining this. “For how long?”
He pulls out his phone and, at lightning speed, sends out a text. Almost immediately, there’s a response. “One thirty.”
I check the time: 11:45.
I check my tank: empty.
“I’m low on gas.”
“So go fill up. I’ll cover that, too.”
I take in a sharp breath, then rest my back against the door, eyeing him. He stares right back. But the flicker of light in his eyes is gone, and he’s no longer the cocky boy who brazenly dropped trou in the middle of the waiting room. Now, he seems smaller somehow, less… confident, maybe? “You’re really desperate not to go home, huh?”
His voice is quiet, almost a whisper when he says, “You could say that.”
“Want to tell me why?”
He shakes his head, eyebrows lowering. “It’s not anything that would warrant your concern.”
I stare into his eyes and try to seek the answers there. He watches me back, his gaze moving from my eyes to my nose. My mouth.
“What do you say, Cheeks?”
“Cheeks?”
“I like your cheeks,” he replies. “They’re… pinchable.”
Heat rushes to said cheeks, and I attempt to hide it with a scoff that sounds more like a snort. “You want to pinch my cheeks?”
“Why?” That cocky smirk is back. “You going to let me?”
Circles. That’s what we seem to do every time we talk. Go around and around and around in circles. “No, I will not let you pinch my cheeks.” I sound like an indignant snob.
“Fair call,” he says, so nonchalant—and I don’t know why it’s getting under my skin. “So… what do you say? Feel like getting paid to spend the night with me?” He shakes his head, chuckling. “I didn’t realize that would come out so creepy.”
Surprisingly, I find myself laughing with him. “Until one thirty,” I confirm. “And then I take you home.”
“So that’s a yes?”
I suck in all the air my lungs can handle, release it slowly. “I’ll do it on one condition.”
He blinks.
“You have to tell me why you don’t want to go home.”
“Deal,” he’s quick to say. “I’ll tell you once we get there.”
“Get where?”
“I know a place.”
Chapter 6
Rhys
Besides some small chatter at the gas station and me giving Olivia directions, we don’t speak. Besides, I was too busy on my phone searching up Lilo and Stitch.
Lilo and Stitch is a movie about a lonely little Hawaiian girl who, along with her much older sister, loses her parents, thus making the sister her guardian. In order to bring some form of order into their lives, Nani (the sister) allows Lilo (the little girl) to adopt a dog (Stitch), who ends up being an extraterrestrial being from outer space. Spoiler alert: shit happens. A lot of it. But, through all of the absolute mayhem that occurs (which includes visits from a social worker), Nani never once stops fighting for Lilo. And through their love, faith, and a little Elvis, the trio never falters in their unwavering belief in Ohana, the Hawaiian concept of family. It’s repeated throughout the movie that “Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind”… or something like that.
Anyway…
I can tell Olivia’s wary of where we are and who she’s with, but she doesn’t voice her concerns.
I’d be wary, too, I guess.
It’s not every day a random stranger leads you to an abandoned rooftop parking lot in the dead of night, but here we are.
As soon as Olivia parks, I open the door and hop out. The cool night air hits my lungs, and I head right for the edge of the parking lot. The cement half-wall is low enough for me to lean my forearms on, and so I do and look down over the edge of the building. Where we stand is only four floors high, and at an average of 15.5 feet per floor, that would make us 62 feet from the ground. At 200 pounds myself, it would mean I’d hit the ground at forty-three miles per hour. The fall itself would take less than two seconds.
Give or take.
Thanks, fifth-period physics.
It’s not that I’ve actually considered jumping. I just get curious about these things.
About death.
Not the finality of death or even the act of dying. More like… what would happen if?
At only four floors up, death wouldn’t be instant, if at all. Unless you land directly on your head, you’ll likely have a few minutes of pure agony before you suffocate on your own blood and bleed out through the holes made from all the broken bones you created.
Pretty damn interesting if you ask me.
Footsteps near, and for a moment, I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone. “So… you come here often?” Olivia quips.
I don’t turn to her when I say, “I do, actually.” At least once a week. Twice if I feel like I need it.
Stopping next to me, she mimics my position and looks down at the alley between the two buildings. There’s really nothing to see besides dumpsters and drainpipes. “Well, I can see why…” She pauses a beat. “This is some view….” The girl’s got jokes, and usually, I’d be all about it. Right now, though, I can’t bring myself to feel much of anything.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “I don’t really come here for the view.” I come here for the escape.
Or maybe it’s the opposite.
I haven’t figured it out yet.
Olivia’s quiet a moment, and I can only imagine the thoughts bouncing around that pretty little head of hers. “Are we currently committing what one would call burglary…” she says, and I finally turn to her, my head tilted, watching her profile as she takes in our surroundings. I wonder what it would be like to see this place from her eyes. To see it for the first time.
“Would that be a problem?”
“Well, yeah.” She offers a smile, and I wish I knew what it meant. “I’m not, like, poor, but I don’t have fuck-you money to throw around, and neither do my friends and family, so bail money? Kind of out of the question.”
I’ve already decided that I like the girl. I like that she doesn’t bow down to bullshit or worship whatever version of me she’s admitted to knowing. I like that she pushes back, that she doesn’t take shit she doesn’t deserve.
Most of all, though, I like that she’s present.
That she’s here.
With me.
“I’d bail you out,” I murmur, glancing over at her truck. It’s only a few yards away with the parking lights on. Usually, when I come here, I sit in the darkness, the moon and stars my only source of light. Of life. I try to peer inside her truck to make sure her kid’s okay. “Is he good in there?” I ask, stepping toward it.
Olivia follows me, saying, “The windows are open, and once he’s out, he’s out. Plus, I left the lights on so if he wakes, he can see us.”
“Are you sure, because—”
She tugs on my arm, forcing me to stop, and I do, momentarily dazed by her touch. And not in a creepy Edward loves Bella way, but I don’t know. It’s surprising, is all.
I spin to face her, my lips instantly forming a smile when I see her standing there, hands on her hips, nose in the air, like an adorably annoying little brat. “I haven’t forgotten,” she says, and I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about.
I tilt my head, confused. “Forgotten what?”
“That you owe me a truth.”
My shoulders drop.
“Why don’t you want to go home, Rhys?”
I shrug. “There’s a party at my house tonight.”
“Oh, yeah?” she asks, distracted by her phone. She taps it a few times, and when I peek over at the screen, I see that she’s setting an alarm. Great. She can’t wait to get the hell away from me. And me? I can’t seem to get enough of her. Shoving her phone into her back pocket, she asks, “Who’s hosting it?”
I move toward the basketball hoop I keep in the corner of the parking lot, and with my back turned, answer, “Me, apparently.”
“Rhys!” she gasps. “How does that even happen?”
I shrug, shifting the weights off the base of the hoop before dragging it toward the middle of the lot. The entire time I keep my eyes on the kid in the truck, make sure he doesn’t wake from all the noise I’m making. Olivia was right—he’s out.
She waits in silence as I grab a ball from the same corner and dribble lazily to position. I take a shot. Sink it. Then finally answer, glancing her direction, “I was bored at home. Lonely. Big house, just me, you know? And so, I invited a bunch of people over. They invited a ton of other people, and the next thing you know…” I run a hand over my head as I jog toward the barely bouncing ball to retrieve it. “I was all right for a bit until I remembered that I hate most people there, and I wanted out, so I left.”
“You left?” she almost scoffs, moving beneath the hoop.
She catches the next shot that goes through the net and passes the ball effortlessly back to me.
“Yep,” I tell her after catching her pass. I hold the ball to my hip, adding, “And that’s when you impaled me with that beast of a vehicle.”
Her shoulders sag. “Impaled now?”
I crack a smile. “I’m milking this shit, Cheeks.”
She rolls her eyes, and it’s only slightly cute. “Where are your parents?”
“Colorado,” I’m quick to answer. “My sister goes to college in Boulder. She’s one of those people who are crazy smart but socially awkward, so she needs them more than I do right now.” It’s only half the truth, but it’s all the information I’m willing to give. Anything more might literally send me over the edge.
Of this building.
And in under two seconds, I’d be nothing but mangled flesh and shattered bones, bleeding out onto the concrete.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asks.
I switch positions and score again, then wait for her to catch the rebound and return the ball to me. “Another truth?”
Her smile warms parts of me I keep hidden from the world. “Is college in your future?”
I give her what she wants and hope it leads nowhere. “I’d be the worst kind of jerk if I took a spot on a team when someone else could use it as a stepping-stone to better their lives. Their futures.” Plus, I was never sure if the colleges that threw offers my way wanted me or if it was the money my parents could provide the program. “Besides,” I continue, “I’m not passionate about the game so much as the discipline it provides me.”
“What do you mean?” She’s cute when she’s inquisitive—all scrunchy nose and squinty eyes.
I take a moment to come up with a simplified explanation. “It’s easy to push aside all other thoughts and everything going on around you when you obsess over something. Basketball’s been my obsession for a long time, and with it came discipline. Self-discipline.” And God knows how badly I needed that. Without waiting for her response, I throw the ball toward her, completely unsurprised when she catches it flawlessly. I step to the side, offering her my position. “Take your shot.”
Olivia does as suggested, and I can tell the moment the ball leaves her hands that it’s in.
“Nice form,” I say, jogging to retrieve the ball. I face her, holding the ball at my side. “Now it’s your turn.”
Head tilted slightly, she replies, “I just had my turn.”
I shake my head, stopping a few feet in front of her. “It’s your turn to give me a truth.”
She chews her lip, looking everywhere but at me.
“Did Dominic teach you to shoot like that?”
Her intake of breath is audible, and her eyes drop. Busted.
I hold my ground, stay silent.
Finally, she looks up, eyes right on mine. “I taught him.”
I nod, slowly, watching every single emotion pass through her features. Fear, shame, something else I can’t quite put my finger on.
Dominic Delgado: soon-to-be senior at Philips Academy—my school’s rival. Like me, he, too, is the captain of the basketball team. Unlike me, he’s a complete and utter dickbag. And I can’t fucking believe he’s Olivia’s brother. Though, just like she and the kid in her car—they look nothing alike.
“How did you know?” she asks, her voice quiet, words trembling with each syllable.
I dribble leisurely around her. “You went into the gas station after I did and got a call from him. Your phone was still connected to the Bluetooth in your car, and I saw the name ‘lil bro’ and the number.”
“And you know it was Dom, how?”
I shrug, lazy. “I typed the number into my phone to see if I knew him, and wouldn’t you know it…”
“Of course you have his number.”
Another shrug. “Keep your enemies close…”
Her eye roll is so dramatic, she must be seeing stars.
“I didn’t even know Dom had a sister.”
She steps forward so fast; I don’t have time to get rid of the ball before she swoops it out of my grasp. “Yeah, that’s kind of the point.”
“Why?”
Her lay-up is fucking perfect, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on. Neither of us makes a move to retrieve the ball, and after a few seconds, she turns to me, her smile soft, eyes warm, and something switches in that moment. Something rare. Something… easy. “No more truths tonight, okay, Timothy?”
I laugh.
Because what else can I do?
After a good hour of playing ball and talking shit, none of which has to do with two specific boys in her life, we give up for the night and sit on the bed of her truck, my phone softly playing music she seems to enjoy.
“What a wild night,” she says through a sigh. She’d taken my hoodie off while we were playing, and now she puts it back on, releasing her hair from its knot so she can slip the hood over her head.
For a long moment, we sit in silence, staring ahead, and surprisingly, it’s not awkward or unbearable. I’ve always disliked people who need to speak just to fill the dead air with even deader words. So, this? Sitting quietly with her, it’s almost… comforting.
She’s the first to speak, saying, “So, I was thinking about what you said earlier, about the loneliness thing…” Swear, I hope she doesn’t ruin the fucking moment. “I don’t know if it’s normal. If it’s an unconscious choice not to let people in or whatever… but, I don’t know…” She pauses, inhaling deeply, before adding, “You said you live alone in a big house, and I… I live with people in a small house, and I still get lonely.”
For a full minute, the only sound that forms between us is the single, quiet clearing of her throat. She doesn’t look at me, and I’m too damn afraid of what I’ll feel when I look at her.
Maybe getting hit by a car wasn’t the best thing that could’ve happened to me tonight.
But getting hit by a car driven by Olivia definitely was.
I release my breath, slowly, slowly, and I wish I could say something. Something to show that her words have meaning, that they’re not dead like the air around us. Like the soul that wonders what it would be like to jump off the edge. Instead, I tell her, “Is that an invitation to come over?” I’m an idiot, but I don’t stop there. “Because I could cure your loneliness real quick, Cheeks.”
Olivia scoffs, but it’s clear she wasn’t expecting anything else out of me. Smart girl. “Oh yeah. Dominic would love that.”
