Page 17 of Gin and Lava

“Well, maybe I’m both the skinny fashionista and the bad ass with a truck,” she says, turning the ignition. “Where I come from, having a truck is status.”

“Where do you come from?” I ask, and a flicker of something vulnerable shoots through her eyes. Or maybe I need to drink three more gallons of water. When she doesn’t answer my question, I go back to teasing. “People will say you’re overcompensating with this thing.”

“Well, I’ve got small tits remember,” she throws back, putting the truck in gear and gunning it out of the parking area. Damn, it would be fun to do some donuts in this thing.

“You’ve got perfect tits.”

“Do I?” She looks at me, sitting to her right. “You got a good enough view from over there to make that assessment?”

“I mean, if you want to let me touch them to be sure, I can. For science, of course.” She rolls her eyes and focuses on the road. “But yes, the view is the only reason I’m letting you drive me home.”

Naomi laughs like she actually finds me amusing and tosses me her purse. “Put your address into my phone, so I know where I’m going.”

I pull out her phone, and of course, it’s gold and sparkly. I flash it at her as more evidence. “Yeah, the owner of this phone totally owns a bang-me-in-the-cargo-bed monster truck. That makes complete sense.”

“Don’t get any ideas, Mason,” she warns, nodding to the ample-sized cargo space behind us that we could totally get nasty in.

“You’d need a blanket,” I say, “but fucking under the stars is hot.”

“You think I haven’t done that in this thing?”

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” I shoot back, holding up her phone again. “You got a special folder in here that I should be looking at.”

“Address, Mason. Focus.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, punching in my address to her maps app. “Turn right at the next intersection and head toward the mountains.” I put the phone into the holder on the dash and hit the start directions button.

“You don’t live near the Gin n’ Lava?” Naomi asks, glancing at the GPS.

“Do you live in the Atlantis Resort so you can be close to the Mandara Spa where you work?” I ask pointedly.

“No.”

“Right,” I nod. “So I own a bar. I work at said bar. I don’t actually sleep on a dirty mattress in the back office like you think. Yes, I’m not a fancy chap, but I’ve got standards.”

“In sleeping locations?” She gives me a side eye.

“Sleeping, yes,” I clarify, throwing that same sarcastic tone back at her. “Fucking, no. You want to hop into that big cargo bed back there without a blanket? I’m game. I’ll figure out how to make it happen.”

“Resourceful?”

“Always.”

She smiles again, amusement playing all over her face as she maneuvers her truck through the streets of Waikiki like a champ. It’s odd to be hanging out with someone who isn’t telling me to shut up every ten seconds. Or it’s nice, I guess. Maybe Naomi and I could actually be friends.

I mean, maybe we could be friends in an alternate universe where I’m not about to go home and masturbate to the idea of her as a Viking goddess demanding I service her every sexual whim.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask, which is a suicide question, but I’m too drunk not to ruin a good thing.

“I don’t know,” she says softly, scrunching her eyebrows together like the last thing she wants is analyze why she’s hanging out with me.

That’sthe face I’m used to. The one that finds me equal parts amusing and repulsive. I learned a long time ago to treat that look as victory. People are either going to like you for you, or they’re not. There’s no good reason to try to impress someone who’s already made up their mind that you’re scum.

Fuck ‘em, and be yourself.

“I guess it just sucks to be the only single people at a wedding,” Naomi says finally, trying to give herself a reason for slumming it in Mason-Land. “Us singles have to band together and all that BS, right?”

“Sure,” I say, shrugging.

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