*Lokela

Lokela walked out of the backroom and straight into an awkward silence between Zach and Ray. Zach, especially, seemed trapped between Ray at the counter and himself, like between a rocky shore and ugly swells in the ocean.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked his friend. "Everything all right?"

"Sure. Yeah. I was talking to..."

"Ray," she said, supplying him with her name.

"Yeah, I was talking to Ray, but now you are here and I think we should go. We should go somewhere." Zach bobbed his head.

"I'm supposed to stay here," Lokela said. The plan was to go over things in the back room in case Ray had questions. He wasn't on the clock, but in a family business, not every hour of work was paid.

"I can hold the fort. I'm good. If I get stuck on something I can call you." She seemed eager to get rid of him. "What is this, like the fifth day I've been here?"

"Second day," Lokela said.

She laughed it off. "Maybe, but yesterday was a ten hour shift. We covered everything."

"I really need a pizza," Zach said. He shouldered his bag and headed for the door.

"At ten in the morning?" Lokela asked. Zach didn't answer, instead walked out the front and propped the door with his foot. "All right, it's an early lunch. Call me if the slightest thing goes wrong."

Ray was unusually flushed, but she nodded with confidence. "No problem. I got this."

Lokela grabbed his wallet and bag and followed Zach to the parking lot at the zoo so they could go in his car.

"You gonna tell me what's up?" Lokela hiked his thumb over his shoulder at the rental store. "What did she do?"

Zach strapped his seat belt on, face crinkled in confusion.

"She...uh..." He paused. Then started the car. "She gave me her phone number."

"What for?"

Zach squinted into the sunlight and thumped the steering wheel a couple of times, distracted. He pulled out of the space. "To call her, of course. I could call her."

"Are you interested? Interested in Ray?" Lokela couldn't believe it. Well, he could believe it, but had hoped his friend had more discernment. Cute was one thing, but annoying another. Then again, he had only spent a minute or two with her. How could that be enough time to get a girl's number? "I can see the appeal, but trust me, she's a flake. Grates on the nerves."

"Appeal? You see the appeal? You mean, you didn't see her..." Zach cupped his chest one-handed as he drove down the boulevard. "You saw those perky puppies, right? And that hair?"

"The peroxide look? Yeah, I saw it and it's not my thing," Lokela muttered. He wanted to punch his friend for the dumb-ass pantomime of her breasts. Annoying or not, she was a human being.

"Peroxide not your thing? It is mine, on her at least. I could fall for that girl and hard. Shit. I already saw her once, on campus. We were at the bookstore at the same time, but didn't get a chance to talk. Today must be like some fucking fate. We were meant to get together, and shit. Know what I mean?"

"You wanna watch the road?"

"Yeah, sorry. It's just that after I saw her on campus and then she was gone, I was all...what the fuck just happened to me? That chick rocks. And then she was there at your shop, and she had some problem with a file and then she handed me her phone number. I think she's into me—"

"Problem with a file?" Lokela asked. "What file?"

"No, it's cool, dude. She figured it out right away. So should I call her?"

They reached the pizzeria at the bottom of one of the many hotels in Waikiki, and parked around the back, underneath.

Lokela used the time to get his head on straight. There had been some problem, but she had taken care of it. His friend was an ass when it came to girls, but that was nothing new. He usually had a different girl every couple of weeks, so why was he stressing this time?

"So should I call her or not?" Zach asked.

"If for some reason you want to date her, yeah." The thought made his gut clench for some reason. "Why are you asking me? Since when do you need my opinion?"

"Because she could be the one. I can't screw this up. I'll call her."

They found an empty booth and ordered a huge meat pizza to split and some drinks. It was early, but Lokela had skipped breakfast. Coming here to plan their expedition was a sucky idea though, since there was a TV screen for every couple of feet of wall space and they were all on sports channels. Both he and Zach had trouble concentrating the maps and notes.

Zach polished off the last piece of pizza and fell silent. Then he shook his head. "I can't call her."

"Then don't call her." The more they talked about Ray the more Lokela wanted to storm out of there and find some waves at the beach.

"I can't. She's out of my league. I'd say some dumb shit and she'd laugh and that would be the end."

"She's a total pain in the ass, trust me. She's not out of your league. Text her if you can't call." Could he stop bugging him about Ray already?

"What would I write? With most girls I can just say, hey, come over and hang out and shit, and they're like, cool. But Ray? She's special. It's like when she talked to me at the bookstore, she has this fire inside of her and she's so hot."

Lokela scoffed. "Stop. I'm gonna get sick. Ask her to meet you at the beach. She scuba dives. She might surf. Then you don't have to talk to each other."

Zach nodded, pensive and took out his phone. He typed something. "Like this?"

Zach: hi do u want to meet at Waikiki 2 surf?

"It's to the point. At least she won't be confused."

"It's crap, isn't it?" He deleted the text, fingers flying. "What would you say?"

"To Ray? Nothing, man." Lokela shook his head, hoping his friend would drop the whole thing.

"If you liked her, what would you say? Fake it for three seconds and help a brother out," Zach said. "I'm dying."

He sounded like he was dying. "Just use more...punctuation and words."

Zach groaned, smacking his phone to the table. "You were an English major for two years. You studied poetry and shit and literature. Come on. How can I write something good? So she gets how I feel?"

"How the hell do I know how you feel?"

"Like she could be the one. Give me a couple of pointers, at least."

"Not here. Not at the sports pizza place. Let's get back to the shop and look at the budget if we want to take a group of at least ten."

Zach nodded and gathered his things. Before getting up he tore out a piece of paper and slid it across the table. "Just a line or two. To get her attention."

Lokela took it even though he had plenty of paper. "All right. A couple of lines. But that's it."

Zach grinned. "Just a few lines. Not even a white lie. You are saving my life, brother."

***Ray

Somehow Ray managed to get all of the reservations reconfirmed based on the sent emails in as much time as it took Lokela to have a pizza with his friend. She didn't see the mystery friend when Lokela returned, but since he didn't say anything, she assumed her secret screw-up was safe.

Just thinking about the surfer-boy made her bubbly with excitement. He would call. He had to.

Two days crept by with tons of work hours but not a single sign of life from him. He wasn't going to call her. So much for the beautiful boy with the eyes like the Blue Lagoon.

She was fixing a quick bowl of cereal early in the morning before heading to work, when her phone jingled on the table. She pounced.

Beth.

Biting back her disappointment, she swiped to answer. Beth and Russell were scheduled to leave for their island this morning. They had come by to help with furniture a couple of times, but she had spent barely an hour or two with them. Now her big sister was leaving her on her own.

"Hey, hot stuff! You call to say goodbye?"

"Hey, Ray, I'm at the airport," Beth said. Her voice sounded rough. She paused. "I called because I wanted to tell you..."

A toilet flushed in the background. A woman grunted and water ran.

"Neat. I'm in the bathroom with you," Ray said. "Were all the seats next to Russell taken?"

"Stop, I..." Her voice faded again. Then she sniffled.

Ray sat up straight, alarmed. "You're crying! Why are you crying? Do I need to come and get you? What happened? Are you all right? Is it Russell? Oh, my god, did he do something?"

"Stop!" Beth said. "Can you be chill for two minutes?"

"I'm chill. I'm totally chill. I'm listening, go on."

"Really? I can talk now? You're listening?"

Ray stood up and paced, breathing deeply. "I am listening. I am your servant. I belong to you. I'm your Renfield. Your Igor, your Jeeves—"

"You're my Seinfeld, what does that even mean?" Beth asked. She huffed in exasperation.

"Renfield. Dracula's freaky fly eating servant. That's me."

"Ray, stop! Okay? Don't say anything." Another toilet flushed and Beth paused.

"Mmm, mmm, mmm," Ray mumbled to show she wouldn't speak.

"I took the test. I'm pregnant."

Ray screamed. The kitchen blurred as she jumped up and down in a crazed jig.

"Stop!"

"But I'm not saying anything," Ray protested. Sweat broke out from her impromptu dance and her hair was sticky on her neck. She lifted it one handed and twisted it. Her sister was silent. Ray whispered, "I'm not saying anything."

"I told you. I asked you not to get excited for me about this. I made Russell promise not to tell anyone until we make it pas the first trimester, which probably won't happen. But here I am, hiding in the toilet because I couldn't bear not to tell you and get it off my chest." She stopped. When she spoke again she sounded lost like a scared child. "I don't want to go through another miscarriage. I can't—"

"Shh, shh. Let's stay calm and examine the situation. It's not as though you are telling someone about this, I'm practically an extension of you. We are connected. Now, you can't look ahead. One day at a time has to be your motto. I believe it will work this time, but if it doesn't, my offer stands now and always. I would be honored to be your baby mama. When I'm older, that is. And of course, I'm going to be excited for you, for this life changing adventure. I will jump up and down and scream for joy if you can't. If, for some reason, something goes wrong, I will cry with you, or for you if you can't cry. I will always be there, next to you, thick or thin, good or bad. It's me and you. Always. I love you. Do you hear me? You and me."

Beth sniffed and mumbled an affirmative.

"That's my honey cakes. How much do you love me back?" Ray asked.

"A ton." Beth didn't sound convincing, but she had stopped crying.

"Enough to buy me jewelry? There's this gold bracelet and earrings set—"

"Don't push it," Beth said. "Please don't tell anyone I'm pregnant, all right? Especially not mom."

"Ha. As if I'd tell her. It's our secret."

"I should go. Russell will start to think there's a problem."

"Call me if you need me, night or day. I'll come running. And don't worry about the jewelry, it can wait for Christmas."

"Keep dreaming, little sis. Love ya."

Ray made a loud, smacking kiss at the phone. "Just so you know, I have a massive case of sweat between the boobs because of you. You got me all worked up and hot."

"Bye."

Ray bounced back to the table where her soggy bowl of cereal was sitting. Her phone dinged with a message a second later.

Beth: Sweat Between the Boobs – the scourge of the Hawaiian Islands

Ray laughed, and wrote back: SBTB Warning – high tides today

Beth: 4 near drownings due to SBTB, proceed with caution

Ray: SBTB – stay safe. Keep dry towels handy

Beth: SBTB, a suffocation hazard for horny males

Ray: Oh! My virgin eyes!

Beth: You and your virginity, too adorable. Thanks for the laughs. I needed it.

Ray sipped her coffee, now tepid, grinning to herself for cheering up Beth. Lokela stomped into the kitchen.

"Morning." Ray was determined to be polite no matter what. A sudden cramp hit her abdomen at the sight of his frown and she wondering if being nice might actually kill her.

"Thank you for shouting your entire conversation for the rest of us. On behalf of the men here, I promise you, we don't want to know about your personal life."

"It's my pleasure to share my happiness. Speaking of sharing, I measured the cabinet space and you have taken more than your fair share of cubic inches for your cans of spam. Aside from the fact that spam is gross, I'm not sure how much spam a single person can eat in a year. Are you by chance a hoarder? There are therapies, you know. In any case, I respect the difficulties you must face in life, but we all get the same amount of cabinet space, whether or not we are preparing for an apocalypse."

"There was a sale." He grabbed a milk from the fridge, glared at her and drank straight from the bottle.

"Sale or not, the space is the same. I took the liberty of using a black marker so there is no confusion. By the way, that's Casey's milk. He drinks from the bottle, too."

She scooped up her cereal, phone and coffee so she wouldn't have to spend any more time with him, and headed for her room. When she reached it, she shut the door behind her and collapsed on the floor. Her phone dinged with a message and her heart flipped.

An unknown number.

*** Lokela promised to help out his friend, despite his personal feelings towards Ray. Which are what, exactly? Will he follow through on his promise? Will he get cooties from Casey's milk jug? And more importantly who sent Ray a message and what does it say? Dip your chips, sit back and relax, hopefully the next chapter will be up in a week!!! ***