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My heart races a mile a minute, my mouth has gone as dry as a desert, my life is flashing before my eyes quicker than you can spell C-H-U-C-K. And he’s laughing.
“It’s Kal,” he says. “I’m not a creeper. But I am in pants. Which is a crime. No one should ever wear pants. Blech.” With that, his slacks slide down to his ankles.
“Eek!” I squeak, only to be faced with of pair a blue-and-white floral swim trunks.
Whew. My stalker is not dubbing as a flasher. My hand holds at my chest, clinging to my beating heart, while sweat trickles from my hairline to my neck.
But then his fingers start at the top of his white dress shirt. With the undoing of the first button, I turn back to my gate. How in the world do you get inside this dumb thing?
“Hey,” Kal says, not nearly as far away as he should be. Coconut and musk waft into my senses. The stripper is attempting to hypnotize me. “Let me help you with that.”
I take three steps back with his closeness—and his lack of clothes-ness. Those trunks are the only thing separating him from a full-on striptease.
“I’m guessing if you just jimmy it here,” he says, wiggling the lock mechanism. He smacks the top of the gate, drawing my eyes to his forearms. Holy smokes. Do men normally have arms like that?
Men in Love do not have arms like that.
Boys at CU did not have arms like that.
Maybe he isn’t human. Maybe I have a stripping, alien stalker on my tail.
More sweat pools across my hairline with the thought.
The door swings open, and I escape past Kal, the stripping stalker, and through the door to my back porch.
“Better?” Kal asks before I can shut the gate.
I spin around to face those unwavering eyes once more. Better? Did he ask if I felt better? “No, not really. I’m not better knowing you can just jimmy your way into my personal porch—nope, not one little bit.”
“Whoa. I wouldn’t do that.”
“No?” I say, and I’m pretty sure my face looks exactly like I feel—crazed and unconvinced.
“Hey, for real. I was just trying to help you out. I didn’t mean to hear all about your loser boyfriend—”
“Ex-boyfriend,” I correct.
“Right, your loser ex, who tried to steal your vacation away from you. It just happened.”
“It just happened?” I cross my arms over my chest, more annoyed than intimidated at the moment.
He scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah…” He nods one too many times. “Island breezes. They carry every word.”
Island breezes? I don’t believe him. At least I don’t think I believe him. This is my first time on an island.
“I was just trying to help.” He steps forward, but not through the gate. “We got off on the wrong foot. I’m Kal.” He holds a hand out to me.
“Why are we getting off on any foot? Why are you here?” I say, ignoring his outstretched hand.
“I live here.”
“Here? You live right outside my gate? Right beneath this palm?” The dress shirt and pants now lying in the sand fit him like a glove, that beard on his face is trimmed to perfection. He’s clean and fresh, smelling like the beach all bottled up. There’s no way this guy is homeless, living beneath my palm. He does not live here.
“No,” Kal says, dropping his arm. “I don’t live here here. I live in Lana‘i, in Hawaii.”
And he does, I’m certain, just by the way the word Hawaii drips from his lips—this is his home. And seeing how I’ve never been here before…maybe he isn’t stalking me.
“This is my favorite beach, and this palm often shades me while I work,” he says.
