Page 100 of Try Easy

He was staring at a framed black-and-white photograph of an indigenous Chinook woman dressed in traditional garb. The woman was facing the camera, but her eyes were focused on something in the distance. Her shoulders were straight, her chin was raised, and her gaze was proud. She wore an intricately beaded shawl, a headdress made of shells, and a bone through her nose.

Lou had taken the photograph at a festival celebrating the Pacific Coastal Northwest Indian tribes a few years ago, but the look on the woman’s face and her traditional outfit made it seem timeless. It could have been taken at the turn of the century.

Lou looked from the photograph back to Keoni. His eyes were on her, hot and curious.

She nodded.

Keoni unfolded his arms and reached out for her. Lou exhaled the breath she’d been holding and went to him. He hooked his arm around her shoulders and tucked her against his side. He slid over, and she leaned against the counter beside him. They studied the photograph in silence, not moving. The only sound in the room was their quiet breathing.

After a long moment, Keoni rubbed his hand up and down Lou’s arm. “You are amazing,” he said. “You shoulda told me you were so good.”

Lou wrapped her arm around Keoni’s waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. He was still warm and smelled faintly of sweat and coconuts.

“Heh,” he said, pulling her into his arms to face him. “I brought you a gift. I was hoping to make you fall in love with me, eh?”

Lou reached up and kissed the hollow of his throat where the shark’s tooth necklace rested against his skin. “You already gave it to me,” she said, her voice husky.

Keoni took Lou by the shoulders and looked down at her, his eyes soft. “That was my body,” he said. “This is my soul.”

He kissed her on the lips and then slid by her out of the bathroom. A shiver of longing ran down Lou’s spine as she watched Keoni walk down the hall to the living room. His back was just as beautiful as his front, and the way he moved was so confident and full of grace, it made Lou’s heart tremble just to watch him walk.

He came back down the hall a moment later with his guitar strapped over his bare chest, and the trembling in Lou’s heart became a minor explosion.

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