Page 41 of Café Diablo

I pinch him in the side and start clambering into the hammock. “Armani needs to learn how to share! This hammock was made for stargazing and you’re not getting the whole thing to yourself!”

“I’m pretty big. I’m not sure you’re going to fit,” he shoots back, as I practically toss myself in next to him. “Jesus, woman!” He catches me before we flip the whole hammock over and dump ourselves on the porch. “When did you turn into a circus monkey?”

He lifts his arms up and tries to avoid groping me, adjusting his position, and there are several—at least a dozen—curse words to accompany the game of hammock twister we just started playing.

Right hand hammock center.

Left foot tangled in the carabiners.

Right hip hooked over partner’s thigh.

The rafters creek. He startles. I pinch him and he shifts. We sway. The whole thing has me laughing and trying to avoid an elbow to the face.

When we finally manage to settle, I end up curled against his side with my head on his chest. There are several more beats of awkwardness when Edwin doesn’t know what to do with his hands, holding them up like a criminal above his head. But eventually, he realizes that putting his arms around me is the simplest option, especially when I’m draped over the entire left side of his body. The truth of the matter is hammocks are meant for cocooning and snuggling—with a book, with a hot lawyer—they’re not designed for personal space.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a shit-eating grin on my face, because Edwin’s whole shifting, cursing, awkward display of trying to be polite is adorable. Not to mention, the last two times we were alone with each other, we both got some major face-time with one another’s privates—so, I’m not sure polite really matters at this point.

“Soooo—” I say, playing with a button on his shirt. “Do you think this would be a bad time to mention I have to go to the bathroom?”

“Are you kidding me?” he hisses, adjusting, but making zero progress, because the last thing he knows how to do is extract himself from our tangled hammock position. I laugh so loud it echoes through the dark palm trees around us.

“Yes, I’m kidding, Edwin!”

God, making him squirm is my own personal catnip! Plus, making him writhe in the hammock is extra hot because I get to feel his whole body shift against me.

“You take everything so seriously,” I laugh. “It’s too easy to ruffle your feathers.”

“You know what,” he clips out. “When the time comes and you actuallydohave to go to the bathroom, please go right here in the hammock. I’m pretty sure all semblance of romance flew out the window the second you tried to do your cirque-de-soleil aerial act a second ago.”

“Oh my gosh, Edwin,” I lift my head up to look at him, batting my lashes obnoxiously. “Are you a romantic at heart?”

“Not anymore, obviously.”

“Oh man, that’s too bad, because I was about to wow you with the world’s most romantic night sky.” I shift so I can point up between the palms. “You can see the Milky Way between those trees, and, hold onto your shorts, it’s at melt-your-Armani-panties level of phenomenal.”

I reach up and grab a string that’s hanging above us. The string is rigged so that it hooks to a pully, which is then attached to the lamp by the front door. When I tug on the device, it clicks the plunger on the porchlight and douses us into darkness, because—Hello!—you can’t see the stars with the freaking lights on.

“You sit out here in this hammock a lot, don’t you?” Edwin notes, nodding to my whole light-n-pully rig.

“It’s the best seat in all of Oahu, if you stop talking and sit back to enjoy it.”

“IfIstop talking?”

“Shhhhh.” I press a finger to his lip and it’s so soft my neck prickles. I force myself to remove my hand from his mouth. If I don’t, I’m not going to be looking at the stars for even a minute.

I snuggle up against his wide, hard body and quiet, listening to the soft thrum of his heartbeat below me. Slowly, in the balmy night, our eyes adjust and what starts out as a spray of stars slowly transforms into a marvelous celestial extravagance. Nature always blows away everything that’s man made if you take the time to stop and look.

Edwin’s body is large and warm next to me, and his arms are anchors wrapping me in a sturdy cocoon. Truth be told, as much as I love to poke all of Edwin’s buttons,this—this quiet trust and softness—might actually be even nicer. Butshhhhh, don’t tell anyone!

Our breathing starts to match and the night deepens its colors, midnight giving way to indigo and violet and a turquoise spray where the gold stars are dense and sparkling. The hammock sways beneath us and I imagine us floating in the ocean with an elysian canopy of stardust above and beneath, covering us from all sides.

The night tastes like sea salt and the tang of whiskey from the glass Edwin had at Zelda’s earlier. I inhale the scent of his chest that’s beneath my cheek, his button-up shirt smelling day-worn with a hint of starch and linen. There’s also the soft musk of his skin underneath, making me run my tongue across my teeth as it reminds me of the fact that I’ve tasted his skin before. I’ve felt that velvet thickness against my lips, my tongue coated in coffee and alcohol, his skin heated with a wicked lust. Butthisis more delicate and less charged. This skin between us is whisked with the whisper of humidity, my exposed arms and legs and ankles air-kissed and tacky.

As the sky starts to sparkle, I lift my hand up and start pointing out constellations. “The North Star is over there, which is called Hokupa’a in Hawaiian. You can always find the North Star by using the Big Dipper—Nahiku. You line up the two stars at the end of the ladle and they point you right to the celestial peak.” I continue to show him several more star formations, reciting their Hawaiian names and his hand starts stroking my hair gently.

“How do you know the Hawaiian names of the stars?” he asks. “Did you grow up here?”

“That wasn’t obvious?” I ask. “The tiny surf-shack of a house didn’t give me away? Yup,

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