Page 49 of Big Island Neighbors
Now she just had to figure out how to get her nervous system to listen to her rational mind.
The lies that had piled up in court documents, the sound of his voice… She didn’t know how to stay calm in the face of either of those things. But with untold months of family court left ahead of her, she needed to learn how to keep her fears in check.
This was a good start. Walking through her neighborhood at sunset to a date with the best man she knew.
It was still a mystery to her why Tenn would choose to get involved with anyone in a situation as complicated as her own. Still legally married to her alcoholic ex, with a nervous system wrecked by years of escalating abuse… She had no idea why Tenn was so doggedly interested in her.
Surely there were loads of single women with no baggage who would kill to go on a date with Tennyson Nakamura.
Deep down, she supposed that she didn’t think she was worthy of a guy like Tenn. She saw that fear for what it was and would have felt absurd even speaking it out loud, but the gut feeling of it was hard to shake.
There was another fear, one that was buried even deeper than her insecurities.
In Alaska, she had watched her sweet and considerate husband transform from Jekyll to Hyde. She knew just howdrastically a man could change. And she didn’t know if she would ever be able to trust a partner completely, even someone as seemingly perfect as Tenn.
Dogs barked as she walked by, pulling her back to the present moment. The street was lush with greenery at a time of year when her old home in Alaska was deep in icy darkness. Flowers bloomed everywhere, red and orange and white.
She was grateful down to her bones to be home again.
Tenn’s truck was parked in front of his house, and he opened the door almost as soon as she rapped lightly with her knuckles. He greeted her with a kiss and then stepped back to let her inside. The air was warm with the scent of food.
“What is that?” she asked. “It smells amazing.”
“I’m making tempura. Your timing is perfect. It’s almost done.”
She followed him into the kitchen, where piles of fried vegetables rested on stacks of paper towels. Oil spat and crackled on the stove.
She watched as he dipped hunks of squash into the tempura batter and placed them gently into the hot oil. It hissed and bubbled as the tempura cooked. Quickly, he flipped the battered squash with chopsticks. A moment later, he pulled them out and set them on yet another stack of paper towels.
“Did you learn this from your dad?” she asked.
“I wish,” Tenn laughed. “My dad doesn’t cook at all. I tried to teach him how to make sushi, but it was a disaster.”
“I tried once. It’s harder than it looks.”
“Not once you get the hang of it. My dad is a patient man in most areas, but cooking isn’t one of them.”
“Just microwaving chocolate,” she remembered.
“Right,” he agreed with a chuckle.
He fried the last of the vegetables and set them aside. As they cooled, he set the table with bowls of sauce for dipping and a plate of sashimi from the fridge.
“This looks like a phenomenal dinner,” Lani said. “Thank you.”
“Just some fish and tempura. No big deal.” But he smiled at her praise.
Lani sat down, and he poured them two glasses of sparkling water before joining her at the table.
He had offered hersakeonce on their first date, and she had confessed that she’d stopped drinking when she became pregnant with Rory. Depriving her child of a father through an untraceable one night stand was something that she might never fully forgive herself for. And through all of those dark winter months in Alaska, she’d worried that if she started drinking again, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
Her fears dug in deeper when she watched them play out through Zeke. The charming man who had been her friend in their years working aboard cruise ships changed radically when he came home to Alaska full time, and his drinking made those changes ten times worse.
Now, the stress of Rory‘s custody case was so agonizing that she was still unwilling to risk even the occasional drink.
She hadn’t been fully in control of her drinking in her cruise ship days or even in college - ever since her mom died, really - and she refused to subject her daughter to the stress of a drunk parent. Rory had already endured too much under Zeke’s roof - one more thing that Lani wondered if she would ever be able to forgive herself for.
Tenn had only needed to hear that she was sober that one time. Not only had he not offered her alcohol again, but he had never so much as cracked open a beer when she was around.
