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“My mother will want to meet you.”
“Your mother? Kal!” Meg protests, but she’s whispering. So I pretend I haven’t heard her and keep going.
Mom talks to Uncle Soren, but Soren’s eyes nod to me as we approach at her back. Mom turns around, eyes widening at the sight of us. Tall and lovely Meg Miller right beside me.
“Makuahine,” I say, putting a hand on the aqua-blue back of my mother’s lavalava. “I want to introduce you to someone.”
Mom’s eyes glisten, roving over my face. Her hair, gray-to-black curls around her face, hugging her smiling, swelling cheeks. A ring of pink flowers crowns her head. She stands at five foot two, so it’s a long look up to our faces. Her lips sprout a grin.
“A girl! A date?” She grabs hold of my arm and shakes.
I pinch my lips together and give her a knowing look. “A date.”
“Ohh, Kalani!” She sings. “And you’re in pants.” She looks as though I’ve accomplished something miraculous. And she is the proudest mother in the room.
“Pants again? You have issues,” Meg whispers beside me.
But Alana Jex has supersonic hearing, nothing gets by her. And with Meg’s words, my mother obliterates rule number one. She reaches up on tiptoes and clasps Meg around the neck, pulling her down to her level and smothering the girl in a tight hug and three too many kisses to the cheek.
She finally releases Meg, leaving pink kiss marks on the girl’s creamy, pale skin. Meg must be regretting her decision to come with me. But, it’s too late now.
“Kaikamahine nani,“ she says, calling her a pretty girl in pidgin, while still hugging Meg about the waist.
I’d like to look away. It’s like the perfect wipeout on a surfboard. It isn’t pretty, and yet I watch to make sure the sucker surfing comes up for air.
“Ah…Kal?” Meg says, her voice small.
“Beautiful girl,” I tell her. “She’s calling you a beautiful girl.”
“Aw,” Meg says, her gaze softening its deer-in-the-headlights look and returning to my mother wrapped around her as if this is the girl who will save me from myself and my beach bum ways.
“Yes,” Mom says, her fingers slide from around Meg’s back, to her forearms, then to her palms. She leaves her hands in Meg’s. “Beautiful girl. Beautiful girl. What is your name?”
“Ah, Meghan. Well, just Meg. Meg Miller.”
“Meghan Miller, you are a sight. I am Alana, this bum’s Tina.” Mom leans back, holding Meg’s arms out wide and looking her up, then down. She drops Meg’s hands and grabs a hold of my suit coat, hauling me two feet over until I stand flush beside Meg. Side by side. She studies the two of us. I don’t bother putting up a fight. Nope, it’s better to let the woman play this out. “Beautiful. So beautiful.”
Meg twists her neck just an inch toward me. “Does she do this to all the girls you bring home?” She asks, and while I’m sure Tina can hear her, Meg’s got a future in ventriloquism.
“I’m not sure. This would be a first,” I say as Mom still studies the two of us side by side.
Before I can register what’s happening, Meg’s hand flies up, smacking me on the chest. “I am the first girl you’ve brought home? Me?” she hisses.
“And spirited!” Mom says through a laugh. She gives Meg an approving nod. “Come on. Let’s meet the family.”
Meg’s blue eyes go wide. But Mom doesn’t seem to notice. She snatches Meg by the hand and pulls her out to the middle of the floor where Auntie Lani and Auntie Halia stand.
I watch as each of my aunties forces Meg into a hug. She wanted to experience Hawaii…Wait, that’s right, she didn’t. She was hiding in her room, and I thought she needed to experience Hawaii.
“Who’s Mom with?” My sister Leilani walks up beside me, drink in hand.
I watch Aunt Lani cup both her hands over Meg’s cheeks and pull her in, leaving another bright pink lipstick mark on the woman’s face. I snicker. I really shouldn’t be enjoying this so much. She’s going to be covered in lipstick by the time she makes her way back to me. “My date.”
Leilani’s drink freezes halfway to her mouth. “You have a date?” She scoffs, turning to face me.
“Yep.” I steal the wine goblet from my sister’s hand and down the sparkly liquid inside. I might need some liquid courage after Tina gets done with Meg—because the girl is surely going to let me have it.
“Since when do you bring girls home?”
