Between Hello and Goodbye(15)

Instead, I was confronted with Nalani shoving a tinfoil-covered pie into my hands. Her famous key lime, judging by the scent.

“Take this to her.”

“To who…?” I began and then rolled my eyes. “Shit, seriously, Nal?”

“It is not the aloha spirit to leave her without giving her a little something from the island. You know this.”

Nalani gave me a stern look that reminded me of her grandmother, Momi. The look that said, I’m older and wiser than you and you’re going to do what I say.

Nalani was four years younger than me, but there was no arguing with her all the same.

“Fine.” I took the pie. “I’ll just go to make sure she got dinner. That’s it.”

“Sure, sure.” My sister-in-law broke into a grin, turned me around, and shoved me back out the door. “Hurry. Before it’s too late.”



I drove the forty-five minutes from Hanalei in the north, down to Kapa’a on the eastern coast, with Nalani’s key lime on the passenger seat. My thoughts drifted back to my New York City days. It’d been a dick move to accuse Faith of promoting mindless materialism when I’d worked in finance on Wall Street for four years. My entire job was to make money for clients simply by moving it around. Turned out, I was good at it. I moved enough of mine around to hit my own jackpot.

That life nearly killed you, so we don’t need to think about it anymore.

Instead, I drove and made use of a residual skill required to survive on the floor of the Exchange—assessing multiple pieces of information simultaneously to make split-second decisions.

I have four days off on my rotation starting tomorrow.

She’s sexy as hell.

She’s trying for a reset, like I did all those years ago.

Great sense of humor.

She’s sexy as hell.

“You said that already,” I muttered.

I arrived back at the Pono Kai condos around nine. At Faith’s door, I knocked, then opened it a crack. “You decent?”

“Never,” sniffed a voice from the couch. “I’m distinctly indecent.”

That was the damn truth.

The wall TV was on mute, and she was lounging on the couch with her foot up on the coffee table, dressed only in a silk bathrobe. Her blond hair was still damp from the shower and brushed back from her face. No makeup, bronzed skin under the flimsy robe, and legs that went on forever…

“You should lock your door,” I said and set the pie and my keys on the kitchen counter.

“Then you wouldn’t be able to come back to me,” Faith said, sounding strained. “Why did you come back to me?”

“Pie,” I said absently, glancing around her place. No sign of dinner. “Did you eat?”

“I’d planned on it but getting cleaned up with Paula took it out of me.” She smiled tightly and I noticed her green eyes were shining. “And because it’s me, I forgot to pack even one tablet of my beloved Advil.”

My eyes flared and I really looked at her. Her slender body was tense, her hand gripping the TV remote in a vise. I’d been around enough people in pain to know it when I saw it.

“The fuck? They didn’t give you anything at Wilcox?”

“They did, but it seemed to have worn off. I…I’m fine.”

“The hell you are,” I said, taking an awkward step toward her. “Faith, I’m sorry.”

“Why? It’s not your fault I’m a complete disaster.” Her eyes spilled over. “My ankle is screaming at me and all I can do is sit here, flipping channels to distract myself.”

I ground my teeth and grabbed my keys off the counter.

“Where are you going?” she asked, almost panicked at the idea of me leaving.

No, she’s panicked at the idea of being left alone again, you jackass.

“Advil,” I said. “And food. You need to eat.”

“You don’t have to. It’s too late and—”

But I was already at the door. Getting her some aspirin was a no-brainer, but moreover, an internal call siren had gone off in me. The same alarm that had gone off when Kal said the photography business was struggling. The same alarm—on a lower key—that had gone off all those years ago when the trailer burned to the ground and Morgan’s safety became my entire fucking world. The only thing that would shut it off, was to answer it.

“I’ll be right back.”



I drove to the nearest drug store and stocked up on Ace bandages and Advil. Most restaurants were closed in Kapa’a, but I was able to grab two orders of fries with wasabi and soy sauce from my favorite food truck before they shut down for the night.

Back at Faith’s, I knocked once, then strode to the kitchen.

“That was fast, Mario Andretti,” Faith said with a weak smile.

I poured her a glass of water and brought her three Advil.

“Your mother raised a gentleman,” she said and gratefully took the pills, missing my grimace.

My mother raised no one.

“You should’ve told me you didn’t have anything earlier,” I said darkly. “Or told Paula.”

Faith shot me another of her wry, flirty looks, already improved by imminent pain relief. “I was too busy being happy to have the mud off me. Besides, the whole point of coming here was to not need a man for once in my life. I didn’t even make it one day.”