Page 93 of Pallas & Kawehi

Kawehi felt Maile's hand on her arm.

"They have samples!"

Laughing inside at her cousin's obvious glee, Kawehi shook her head. "Go ahead and taste. I really need to go to the bathroom now."

Maile waved over her shoulder. "Go. I'll be here."

Kawehi's laugh was more of a snort. "I'll be right back."

She turned away from her cousin but turned right back. "Oh... if they have some cuttlefish can you get me one?"

Maile turned to look at her. "Are you going to eat that here? In front of a hot guy? That stuff is kinda smelly."

Kawehi shrugged. "I'll save it for later, but if he's going to be around for a while, I'm not giving up snacks. I'll be right back."

Maile was back to perusing the samples before Kawehi turned back around.

There were so many great snacks in Hawaii, but yes, some of them would be unconventional to people from the continental US. There was just such a mix of cultures in the islands and that mix had created some awesome foods and given the residents of the state access to an incredible amount of deliciousness.

Dom was already a fan of a bunch of dishes popular in Hawaii, who knows what he'd think of cuttlefish.

Smiling, she reached out to push open the bathroom door, but before she could reach it, another hand grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shadows.

Kawehi found her back against the wall and the air rushed out of her lungs. "Nick!"

His smile, which she'd once thought was handsome, looked hard and cold now. "Hey, honey. Imagine my surprise when I heard you were going to be coming here to see your boyfriend!"

It took her a few seconds to process the words he'd just said.

"You're upset that I'm here to see a man when you're married again? Ow!"

His grip on her hand was crushing.

"Let go of-"

He slapped his hand over her mouth. "Shut up!" He hissed out the words. "Shut the fuck up. If you weren't here to see your boyfriend, we could have settled this already. I went to the bowling alley and found out that you'd taken the night off. Can you believe how it felt to hear that when you couldn't be bothered to take a night off to be with me?"

She wanted to bite the inside of his hand, but she held back. With the ambient noise in the room, she doubted anyone would hear her scream. And if she made him angrier, he could do some damage before she got anyone's attention.

"Well, we're going to have a little talk, okay? You and me, all by our lonesome. Got it?"

She glared at him, seething.

"Got it?"

Realizing that he wasn't going to take his hand away from her mouth without some sort of response, she nodded as much as she could move her head.

"I want to be clear. You make a sound. You do anything to draw attention to us. I'm not going to be happy and while I never put a hand on you before, you can damn well be sure that I don't care about that anymore."

She believed him. The radiating pain she felt in her hand was enough to convince her, but there was a hardness in his eyes that she'd never seen before.

Boredom? Sure. Frustration. Absolutely. Nick was always upset at how much she worked, but she'd never seen him bright-eyed with anger as he was now.

So she nodded.

What else could she do?

"Good." He smiled, but she didn't feel it or any relief. "Let's walk."

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