Page 102 of Try Easy

Keoni stood up and took her face in his hands, planting a kiss on her mouth.

“K’den.”

Lou smiled at him. “Don’t worry,” she said.

Keoni watched her walk away with clenched fists. He tried sitting on the bed waiting patiently, but he couldn’t handle it. It was tearing him apart to know Lou was in the other room with the man she had almost married. After a few minutes, he got up and put on his shirt. He was buttoning it when he heard raised voices and decided he didn’t want to wait passively anymore.

“You’re not making any sense,” said a man’s voice. “We’ve been planning this for two years.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Lou said.

Keoni went into the living room and saw Paul for the first time. He was wearing a dark suit and a hat. He looked like someone who spent his days in an office bossing people around.

He looks like an asshole.

“We’re getting married,” Paul insisted, putting his hands on Lou.

Keoni quickly moved into the room, inserting himself between Paul and Lou.

“Lou isn’t marrying you,” he said.

Paul turned to glance at Keoni, then looked back at Lou with narrowed eyes. “Is this him?” he asked. “The guy you told me about?”

Keoni pinned Lou with his gaze. She’d told Paul about him? That pleased him more than it should have.

“Let her go,” he told Paul.

The tension in the room increased another notch as Paul dropped his hands and turned to face Keoni.

“Lou told me about how she’d fallen under the spell of Hawaii and made a mistake,” Paul said. “I guess you’re that mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Lou said.

“Your little vacation fling,” Paul clarified.

“Vacation fling?” Keoni asked, raising his eyebrows at Lou.

“Lou told me everything,” Paul said.

“She did, eh?”

“That’s right,” Paul said. His mouth moved in a stiff smile. “I should be thanking you, really.”

Paul extended his hand toward Keoni.

Keoni glanced down at Paul’s hand, but didn’t take it. “Thanking me for what?”

“First of all, because you saved Lou’s life. Second, because ever since Lou’s been back from her vacation, our future has been even clearer,” Paul said. “Lou deserves security and a solid future. Can you give her that?”

“I can give her what she wants,” Keoni said, raising his chin.

Paul laughed. “Lou doesn’t want a surfer.”

“I can speak for myself,” Lou said.

“K’den,” said Keoni, anxious to hear what she had to say.

“Tell him, Lou,” Paul said, straightening his suit jacket. “Tell him you don’t want a high school drop-out as your husband and the father of your children.”

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