Page 54 of Pallas & Kawehi

Twinkie gave Riptide a little shove. "Hey, remember she's here with Pallas."

Riptide looked at Domenico and the two men smiled at each other before Riptide replied to Twinkie. "He knows I'm not the unit horndog."

A car pulled into the parking lot and Kawehi's attention turned to look at it because she saw her cousin Maile in the passenger seat.

"Speak of the devil himself." Twinkie gave a low whistle that Domenico cut off with a look.

"Don't listen to him."

She was already making her way to the other car and didn't quite hear what Dom had said.

All four doors swung open at the same time and Kawehi realized that there were four people in the car. She'd only seen her cousin clearly.

"Oh, thank god you're already here." Her cousin stepped out and then reached in to snatch out her beach bag. "I'll take that, thank you."

Her 'thank you' was more than a little chilly and Kawehi looked at the other men getting out of the car. The driver went straight to Domenico and the two had a few words as the men from the backseat moved around to greet her. "Miss? I'm Clay Jessop. The others call me Hoss."

"That's like a horse," the next man winked at her, "but he's smarter than one. I'm Chicago, on account that I'm from the Windy City."

"I'm Kawehi Phillips, I'm-"

"Pallas' woman." Chicago gave her a wink. "We know."

Kawehi wasn't sure what to make of his words or what to say about them. That's probably what it looked like to the others, and she was okay with that. She just wasn't sure what her cousin would say about it.

"See, Cuz? I told you he was basically your boyfriend."

Well, that answered her question.

"I'm all for him, and even these guys are sweet, but that asshole who drove? I'd like to kick him in the nuts."

Kawehi wanted to drop her face into her hands, but when she looked over at Dom, she saw the equally hard look on the other man's face. She leaned closer to her cousin. "I'm sure that whatever he said or did, it was just a misunderstanding."

"Oh there was no misunderstanding. He said I was just another typical woman." Maile's air quotes around 'typical woman' left little to Kawehi's imagination. "He's an ass!"

Kawehi looked back at Dom, worried that this was just going to ruin the whole day, but she saw the other man move first. He walked over to her, forcefully ignoring Maile at first. "Cameron Cox, Miss. You can call me Axl."

"Cox," Maile almost snorted with laughter, "more like dick."

"Maile!" Kawehi was horrified at her cousin's words, but the men surrounding them were laughing out loud. Even Dom's mouth had turned up in a smile.

"Wow. It's like she saw right through him!" That was from Chicago. "This is going to be fun."

"All right." Dom sighed and gestured for the others to come to the back and pick up something to carry.

Kawehi was about to go and help, but Maile snagged her wrist and held her there.

Axl turned to look at her cousin and Kawehi wondered what had gone on in the car because while the two of them looked at each other as if they wanted to fight, there was another kind of energy under it all. The kind that made Kawehi's cheeks burn with a different kind of heat.

"I didn't say that you were a typical woman," his words sounded like he was growling them out of his chest, "I said you were girlie."

Maile turned toward her, eyes wide and staring. "See?"

Kawehi looked at Axl and prayed for patience. "When you say 'girlie,'" she smiled at him, hoping to diffuse the situation, "is that a bad thing? A criticism?"

Axl recoiled as if she'd smacked him on the arm. "Hardly. I don't know what's crawled up your cousin's butt, but I wasn't complaining. She looked good and her bag... Well, shit. It was heavy enough that I was wondering what she was carrying in it. A frying pan or a bazooka. She said she'd brought stuff to wash up after the beach. I guessed she'd brought half of CVS with her, and I told her she was too girlie for me to understand."

Maile looked at her with a stiff-necked nod. "See?"

---