“Likethat,” Kimo said urgently. “Like she’s twenty again. And touching his hand like they’re about to spin a clay wheel together. And looking at him like she wants to—oh my God, is she about to feed him mahi-mahi? Straight off the skewer?”
“She already did,” Cal murmured.
Kimo recoiled slightly. “What is happening? Whoishe? Is he a spirit? Is he a shaman? Should I summon the volcano gods?”
“He’s the original,” Leilani said flatly.
Kimo gasped. “Our grandmother had a secret lover? And it’sthat guy? With the top hat and a whiff of mothballs so strong I can smell it through the smoke from the fire?”
“Apparently so,” Leilani said.
Kimo placed one hand dramatically over his heart. “I need someone to hold me. Or slap me. Or explain this entire subplot in chronological order.”
“I’ll do it for you,” slurred Mrs. Mulroney, one eye looking at Kimo, the other… looking somewhere else entirely.
“And this is Mrs. Mulroney,” Leilani said. “We’re still trying to undo some of her earlier… speeches.”
“She means well,” I offered, even as Mrs. Mulroney raised her cup again and shouted, “To intergenerational lust and the miracle of public nudity!”
Rashida made a quiet, despairing noise.
“Anyway,” Leilani cut in quickly, shifting gears like a pro. “This here—” she said, looping her arm around Angus’s shoulders before he could bolt. “Is Angus. He’s Cal’s brother and—”
“And we’ve already imprinted,” Kimo interrupted, his voice serious as he turned so fast the sweat and shimmer from his godlike muscles gave us all a refreshing spritz.
His eyes locked onto Angus like they’d been waiting for an eternity for this exact moment. “I’m currently deciding who’s the golden retriever and who’s the feral cat.”
The table paused. Even the wind seemed to stop and take a curious breath.
Angus looked up—mid-mouthful with a dribble of purple down one side of his mouth—and blinked. “I… I think I’m the feral cat. But like… a clean one. With pretty whiskers.”
Kimo stepped closer, his gaze laser-focused. “I’ve been told I’m a retriever with fox energy. Do you feel the aura?”
“I feel… something,” Angus said, dropping his fork entirely. “Mostly my heartbeat. I may be having palpitations.”
“I felt that,” Kimo whispered.
Everyone just… watched.
Cal leaned in and muttered to me, “Should we say something?”
“No,” I whispered. “Any distraction away from Mrs. Mulroney and Basil over there is welcome right now.”
With a whimper, Angus continued gazing into Kimo’s eyes.
Leilani glanced at us, feigned a laugh, and said, “Wow. Talk about a Hawaiian roller-coaster ride, huh!”
CHAPTER 17
Back at the house,Cal and I lay side by side in our gigantic canopied bed, our legs tangled beneath the cotton sheets. The moonlight slanted across the timber ceiling and cast long, sleepy shadows over the walls, but neither of us was close to sleep.
From downstairs, the freight-train rumble of Mrs. Mulroney snoring vibrated through the beams.
“She’s still going,” Cal murmured. “Maybe we should try to wake her and attempt to get her upstairs again.”
“Are you kidding? It took forty-five minutes just to get her from the front door to the couch. She’s denser than she looks. Just leave her—she’ll be fine. So long as the structural integrity of the building holds.”
Cal rolled onto his side and trailed a warm hand across my stomach. “You know she’s gonna wake up at four a.m. thinking she’s still at the luau.”
