Page 9 of Big Island Sunrise
How could she have forgotten that face? He was gorgeous, with high cheekbones and clear brown eyes. His black hair was pulled into a short ponytail.
“You don’t remember me.” If he was disappointed, it didn’t show. His smile held. If anything, he seemed to be laughing at her.
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I was a couple grades behind you.”
“Oh.” School, then. She searched her memories and… still nothing.
“We were in the same math class.”
It hit her then in a sudden burst of clarity. She knewexactlywho he was, and as soon as she realized, she wondered how she could have been so blind before. He had grown at least a foot since the last time she had seen him, but his smile was exactly the same.
“Alfie?! I can’t believe it. Of course I remember you! You carried me through precalc.”
His grin grew wider as he nodded. “That’s me.”
“You’re all grown up. Wow. Alfie Nakamura.”
“No one’s called me Alfie in a long time.”
“What do you go by now? Alfred?”
“Tenn.”
“Ten?” Her right eyebrow quirked up. “Like hang ten?”
“Like Tennyson,” he told her.
Lani looked at him blankly.
“My full name is Alfred Lord Tennyson Nakamura.”
“You’re joking.” She put a hand up to cover her smile. “You’re not joking.”
“My mom wrote her dissertation on Tennyson when she was pregnant with me.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“The Lord is a bit much.”
“It’s all a bit much,” he said wryly. “At fourteen, being Alfred Nakamura was hard enough without letting anyone know about my two middle names. But my friends found out senior year and started calling me Tennyson. I guess I grew into it after a while.”
“No kidding.” She eyed him appreciatively, then realized what she was doing and looked away with a blush.
“I’ll be right back with your cane juice.”
“Thanks.”
She ran a hand through her hair, still damp from the beach, and forced herself not to stare at him. The restaurant was small, and she was hyper aware of him standing at the kitchen window talking to the crew. She pulled a pencil from her purse and sketched sea life on the back of the menu, her lifelong default destresser.
“You were always an amazing artist.” Tenn set down a tall glass of cane juice, and she flipped the menu over self consciously.
“I was just doodling.”
“May I?” He reached for the menu, and she let him pick it up. He flipped it over and looked at the mako shark she had sketched. “This is not adoodle. This is amazing.”
