*Ray

The second body that splashed into the water from the far end of the pier had to be Lokela. She'd recognize that trim, muscular form anywhere.

When he surfaced a second later, confirming her assumptions, he was towing someone after him. Should she be worried? She took a step forward, but realized that Beth was still bent in half.

"Are you all right?" Ray asked.

Beth held out her ice-cream. "I don't want this after all. I think I have gas or something. I'm going to sit down while you figure this out."

"I'll call Russell."

"Please," Beth said, groaning as she first squatted, and next lowered herself to sit, her legs outstretched. She waved vaguely at the sea and swimmers coming their way. "Take care of this. Talk to them and get the answers you need. You can't always run away from confrontations."

"They shouldn't be here. I should stay with you. You don't look so good." Ray sucked at her lower lip, torn between facing the pair of soaking wet surfer dudes stumbling to the shore and sitting with her very pregnant sister who had broken out in a sweat from crossing the beach.

"Take care of you for a change, Ray. You are always looking out for others, me especially. But I don't need you right now. You do." She jabbed her chin at Lokela who had arrived, and Zach weaving unsteadily behind.

Ray swiveled to face them, ice-creams clutched in her hands like dripping guns. Lokela's chest heaved for air, his wet, faded grey tee-shirt practically see-through. Veins in his arms popped and he rolled his shoulders several times, not meeting her glance.

Zach swayed several times, narrowing his eyes at her. "We came here," he said, motioning back and forth between himself and the crowded pier. "We came because you have to choose between us. I love you. Lokela said you guys were together when I was gone. Those other girls, the girls, well hardly any girls, just a couple of girls I hooked up with. were nothing. You are the one for me, and you belong to me. You have to choose."

"Dude, you have got to shut up," Lokela muttered.

Ray wished she could cross her arms in order to look tougher. But, wielding her dripping cones to maintain distance, she hardened her expression. "Funny fact, but no, I don't have to choose between anyone, and I sure as heckfire don't belong to anyone, least of all you."

"Ray, I love you. Can I have one of those, I'm so hungry."

Without waiting, he lurched forward completely off balance. And fell face-forward in the sand at her feet.

Lokela groaned with impatience. "I'm sorry. He's really drunk. I told him not to come, but when it looked like he was going to no matter what, I decided to come with him and try to minimize the damage. Is that your sister?"

Beth held up a hand, giving him a wan smile.

"Yeah, and she wants to kill you, but it's not a good time because she had too much spaghetti for lunch," Ray said.

"What about you? You're the one who is important to me."

His words crushed her. "So important you would lie and hide the truth from me? That you would let me believe lies? Is that how important I am?"

"Ray," Zach slurred, "he doesn't love you, that's right. That's right, baby. I'm the one..." He drifted off and she thought he had fallen asleep, but he jerked awake again. "I'm the one who loves you. I will stay here—" He pointed emphatically at the beach. "Until I die."

"Yeah, you do that," she muttered. "Lokela, you should know I'm moving out. I've already checked with Doug's boyfriend, and he said—"

Her phone buzzed. Thinking it must be Russell telling her he was home, she paused to look. It was Doug.

Weird timing.

Doug: We are at your sister's house. Don't let Zach or Lokela bother you. Where can we meet?

"What the," she mumbled. "How did everyone know where I was?"

Lokela cleared his throat. "Zach found letters in your room from your sister with her last name and address."

"Letters in my room?" Her eyebrows shot up. "You let him go through the things in my room and read my personal letters?"

"Only after you did the same to me."

Anger blazed through her. She cocked her hand back, ready to smack him in the face with three scoops of creamy-cold-self-righteousness. "Really? That's your defense? Because, speaking of letters—"

"Do you not want that ice-cream, baby?" Zach said, who had stood unnoticed and now the cone she wanted to slap Lokela with from her hand.

She shoved the other one at him, too, glad to be rid of the dripping things. Her stomach churned at the thought of food.

Arms crossed, she continued. "Speaking of letters—" Her phone rang. She ignored it. "Speaking of letters, Lokela, I want you to know that anything we might have had is over between us."

Her phone was still ringing. She groaned out loud in frustration and swiped to hang up without looking. It started ringing again.

"You know what?" Beth called. "My back really hurts and I can't take this drama. If someone would just help me up, I would like to go."

Ray blinked in surprise. Within the last thirty seconds, she had forgotten her sister was there. However, Lokela sprang forward instantly to help Beth stand. In the middle of getting up, though, she froze. Her face dissolved in horror. She glanced down.

"I just lost my water."

A dark, wet stain spread over her green shorts.

"Beth..." Ray whispered. Her voice sounded thin and scared to her ears.

The baby shouldn't come yet for an entire month.

***

*Lokela

The day had been a nightmare up to that point.

And from the looks on both Ray and her sister's faces, it was going to continue on its unlucky streak. Lokela solidified his stance, taking Ray's sister's weight as best he could as she stared in shock at the wet bloom on her pants. Ray jumped forward, frantic. He locked eyes with her.

"What do I need to do?" he asked. Despite three older sisters and dozens of cousins, he had zero experience with women about to give birth.

The day had been a nightmare? Actually, this evening fit in perfectly so far with the last two days, starting the moment he realized Ray had read the letters and taken off.

Zach showing up at the house had set off an explosion.

Everyone yelled. Lokela shoved Zach off the porch. Miller shoved Lokela after him. Then Trevor, Miller, Lokela, and Zach got in a four-way fight, rolling and kicking and hitting each other across the front lawn. Felipe intervened, running out to pull them apart. The neighbor's dogs started barking until the neighbors threatened to call the police and Doug offered to make everyone a drink if they would shut the hell up and sit down to talk.

Zach started crying.

Lokela wanted to puke, but instead did a shot of tequila (it was his, after all). And Doug asked them to explain. Zach wasn't man enough to say anything except that he was sorry about screwing up and that he was going to make it up to Ray.

Lokela told them everything—helping Zach get the first date by writing the short poem, accidently dropping the letter at the hospital, letting her believe it was from Zach because he couldn't admit the truth, Zach cheating on her in California—right up to the moment after the break-up party, when she asked him to be her first. He glossed over that part. And he definitely omitting having sex with her several times.

Miller narrowed his eyes, suspiciously.

"What are you not saying?" he asked, kicking Lokela's chair.

"Fuck you, I told you what happened. She found the letters I wrote, and she must be mad."

"Why would she be so mad at you for writing those letters that she would fly somewhere?"

"Because she thinks I was messing with her head."

Miller kicked the chair hard enough to knock it over on the floor. Lokela sprang to his feet. "That's not enough. What did you do to her to make her so mad? You are hiding something. You think I don't know you, little brother?"

"Screw you, I—"

"She fell in love with you," Doug said softly.

"No, she didn't," Lokela snapped.

"You didn't see her face when she asked me to drive her to the airport. You weren't there after she found the letters in your room. I was there. She fell in love with you, and you broke her heart."

Lokela dropped into a crouch again, his head ready to burst with the pressure inside. He hadn't just broken her heart. He had betrayed her trust. It was true. Every word. The whole basis of their friendship and the reason she came to his room, and not someone else's, was a lie. He had said she could trust him, but he couldn't even be honest about the role he had played to get her to fall for that dickweed Zach...

...who wasn't in the kitchen anymore.

"Where the fuck?" Lokela muttered.

Trevor hiked his thumb over his shoulder. "Bathroom."

Zach sauntered down the stairs, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He was much too smug. "I'm going. I'll see you later."

"What did you do up there?"

"Nothing, man. I'm out. See you."

Lokela lunged to catch before he could run and they tumbled to the floor. As Zach grappled to get out from under him, an envelope flew from his pocket onto the floor.

Miller snatched it up. "It's from her sister in Kauai. It's the address."

"Did you steal that from her room?" Lokela asked. He slapped Zach up the side of the head. "You are such a turd."

"I'm going to find her and explain. I'll ask forgiveness—beg—whatever. You can't stop me."

Miller scoffed. "Are you five?"

Lokela pinned him to the floor. "Watch me stop you. Trevor, get the rope from the garage."

"Wait a minute," Felipe said, coughing nervously. "Tying people up is against house regulations, and is probably illegal. Let him go or I'll have to notify the police."

"Whose side are you on?" Lokela asked.

Felipe pressed his palms together. "The side that doesn't go to jail."

"That's right." Zach crawled to his feet. "You can't stop me. I need to talk to her."

"Then send her a message," Doug suggested.

Both Lokela and Zach scrambled to find their phones.

Lokela sent two messages. He had no idea how many Zach sent, but it looked like five hundred, approximately. With any luck, she'd call the cops on him for harassment, and Lokela wouldn't have to tie him up in the garage until she got back. He swiped at the sweat beading on his forehead.

She would come back, wouldn't she?

That night and the next morning, he slowly realized that no, she wouldn't be coming back. He would have to go and find her—if only to apologize deeply for the idiot mistakes he'd made.

He blinked. Beth's nail were digging into his forearms. He gritted his teeth.

Ray yelled something, and waved her phone in her sister's face. Beth shook her head, cheeks puffed out from exhaling hard.

"Beth, I don't have your obstetrician on speed dial. Hard to believe, but true. What's her number?"

"It's two-three-three-something-something," Beth whined. She squeezed him tighter, and the flush on her cheeks deepened as she puffed for air.

It occurred to him that he could run. Yell for help, pass the pregnant lady off to someone else, and get out of there. Ray put her hands over her sister's and the two of them leaned on him.

The helpless confusion in Ray's expression cut him to the quick.

*** All I'm going to say is that Lokela had better not try to pass the pregnant lady off to someone else... He wouldn't deserve Ray, or anyone, if he did! ***