It's All Relative(127)

As Harmony’s eyes grew comically large, Kai leaned down to Jessie and whispered, “Why is she calling me Ricardo?”

Ignoring him for a second, Jessie concentrated on her shocked friends. Well, Harmony seemed shocked. April still just seemed contemplative. Jessie wondered what else the astute woman was putting together. Face full of disbelief, Harmony pointed a finger at Kai. “He was your one night stand? I thought you said you just found out you weren’t related?”

Jessie heard Kai mutter, “Oh…right.”

He seemed about to answer Harmony, but surprisingly, it was April who spoke up first. Twisting to Harmony, she said, “They didn’t know.” Harmony shook her head, still not understanding, and April glanced back at Jessie. “I’m right, aren’t I? You’d never met before. You probably hadn’t seen a picture of each other in a bazillion years.” With a grimace, she shook her head. “And we got you really, really drunk.”

Jessie nodded, relieved that she didn’t have to say it. She glanced up at Kai. “I didn’t know he was in town yet. He didn’t recognize my nickname. A million little things went wrong, and we didn’t catch on to who we were…until later.”

Harmony’s expression finally softened. “Wow. That had to have been a shock. To find out you’d just slept with your cousin?” Her face morphed into mild disgust and she crossed her arms over her chest, but even still, Jessie thought she looked a little less bothered by it all.

Kai let out a long, weary exhale. “You have no idea.” Shaking his head, he smiled at Jessie.

Jessie squeezed his waist before returning her attention to her friends. “Once we found out, we obviously tried to stay away.” She shook her head. “But we’d never met before. He didn’t feel like family to me, and I didn’t feel like family to him. We were just…hopelessly attracted to each other.” Jessie flushed and looked away. Kai chuckled as he squeezed her hip.

April tapped her finger against her lip, thinking. “Is that why you went out with me?” She pointed to Jessie as she spoke to Kai. “So you wouldn’t have feelings for her?”

Kai nodded, his eyes deeply regretful. “Yes. I’m so sorry, April. It was really stupid on my part to involve you like that.” Looking back at Jessie, his eyes turned sad. “I was really hoping that being with you…would stop me from falling in love with her.” He smiled as Jessie stroked his back. “It didn’t. I fell anyway.”

Harmony shook her head. “That’s why you left the lodge. There was no emergency…was there?”

Kai looked down while Jessie looked away. No, no emergency, just feelings they couldn’t control. “No,” Kai whispered. “No emergency…but I still had to leave.”

Tears pricked Jessie’s eyes at the memory of waking up and finding him gone. She didn’t ever want to feel that way again. “We caved. We…slept together…”

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment after admitting that to her friends, and the tears she’d been fighting fell down her cheeks. Kai brushed them away, his eyes sad as well. Harmony laid a hand on Jessie’s arm and Jessie turned to look at her. Harmony’s eyes were surprisingly moist as she watched her friend’s pain.

Feeling encouraged, Jessie expanded on her torment. “We both felt like we’d done something so wrong…so horrible. But we loved each other so much, we knew it would happen again if Kai stayed in Denver…” Her voice trailed off, and she couldn’t finish. She was so grateful that that future wasn’t happening.

Resting his head on her hair as he pulled her in for a hug, Kai finished the part she couldn’t. “I made plans to head back to Hawaii, to distance us with space, since nothing else was working. I found out who I really was today, when I met with my…biological father, when I turned in my notice.” His voice thickened with emotion. “I couldn’t deal with the truth. I came here, to see Jessie. She helped me through it, and when we realized…”

Her eyes teary, her face wistful, April clasped her hands together. “When you realized that you could be together, because you weren’t really cousins, you finally got to express the love that’s been building between you.”

The entire room quieted as everybody stared at April. Finally, Harmony laughed and slung an arm around her shoulders. “God, you really are a closet romantic.” Jessie felt her residual sadness roll off of her as she laughed along with Kai. April sighed and shrugged.

Wiping her cheeks dry, Jessie looked between her roommates. “So…are you guys going to be okay with this? With Kai and I dating?” She felt like crossing her fingers. If her friends understood, if they accepted the two of them, then maybe she could get her family to accept them, too.

Harmony sighed and looked over at April. April shrugged and glanced back at Jessie. “I got drunk at a party once and French kissed my cousin. It happens.”

A muffled chortle escaped from Harmony, and all eyes turned to her. Her cheeks turned rosy as she shrugged. “I lusted after this guy at a family reunion once, thinking he was a friend of my second cousin. We were halfway through ‘show and tell’ when I finally figured out that he was an actual cousin.”

A light laughter filled the room as Harmony shrugged again. “Obviously our experiences weren’t as severe as yours, but…” she sighed and stepped forward to give Jessie a hug, “I guess I get it. You didn’t know. You tried to stop once you did.” Pulling back, she looked between Kai and Jessie. “But love is a hard thing to shut off.”