Gap Year - 2. Chapter 2

January 7, 2004

Kahului, Maui

 

Will

I yawned, and that caused me to look at my watch. It was 10:00pm, and only now was the crowd starting to thin out. Both Kai and his mom looked exhausted, and people finally seemed to get that. What started out as a trickle of people leaving soon turned into a torrent. I stayed out of the way as people took forever to fucking say goodbye. I was so glad that my brothers and I had gotten over that habit a long time ago.

“Hey,” Kai said, as he ambled up to me. “My aunts are here from Honolulu. My mom was thinking maybe they could stay here, and I could stay with you tonight.” He said this nervously, as if I wouldn’t let him, as if I didn’t have shitloads of room in my house.

“Dude, my house is your house. You are welcome to come stay, and there’s lots of room if you have other people you need to put up,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said, and shot me a weak grin. I walked over to where his mom was talking to his aunts, but she truncated that conversation and focused on us.

“I’ll need you boys back here tomorrow by nine,” she said firmly. “Then we go down to the beach for the burial.”

“We can do that,” I pledged.

“I want you both in the boat,” she said authoritatively, although I had no idea what she was talking about. Kai looked at me and got that I was clueless, so he answered for both of us.

“Done,” he said. “We’re off.” She gave us big hugs, and so did his aunts, which was really cool. Evidently, they’d decided I was part of the family too. Kai grabbed his backpack and followed me out of the house and down the street to the 4Runner. “Dude, you parked far away.”

“There was a shitload of cars here,” I said. “This was the best I could do.”

We hopped in the Toyota and both of us breathed a sigh of relief at the same time, which was so funny it made us both laugh. I focused on getting home, and started driving toward my house. “Thanks for letting me escape with you.”

“No problem,” I said. “You doing OK?”

He shrugged. “Just a lot of shit in my life right now, and none of it’s good.”

“Losing your dad sucks,” I said sympathetically.

“It does, but it’s kind of a relief too,” he said. Then he got angry, then sad. “That was a shitty thing to say.”

“Why was it a relief?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Look, no judgment here,” I said firmly.

He sighed. “He’s struggled for so long, and this past year he’s been really down. He told me that he was ready to die. I tried to prop him up, but it got to the point where it was hard for him to even use the wheelchair you got him.”

“Seriously?” I asked, surprised.

He nodded. “He couldn’t get his muscles in his fingers to work the controls very well. That thing was more important to him than anything, and it frustrated him that he couldn’t even use it right.”

“Bummer,” I said. I paused to punch the code into the gates, then drove up the drive to the garage.

“So it was kind of a relief, because he didn’t want to live like that, so he got his wish granted. At the same time, I’m going to really miss him,” he said, and tears started to flow out of his eyes.

We got out of the 4Runner and I went around to his side of the SUV and gave him a big hug. “I know how it feels to lose a parent.” He latched onto me like a drowning man as he cried over his father, and I cried with him, thinking of Robbie and my mother.

He finally pulled away from me, and we both simultaneously wiped our eyes, signifying a temporary end to the purge. “Thanks for being here.”

“You were here for me, I’m here for you,” I said simply. I led him into the house and up to my bedroom.

“I’m sleeping in here with you?” he asked. That freaked me out, because I’d just assumed he’d sleep with me, but I had no right to put him into that position.

“I am so sorry,” I said. “We have tons of room. You can have your own room, or shit, the guest house is redone, so you could even sleep there.”

“No Will,” he said with a weak smile. “This is fine.”

“Just because you sleep with me doesn’t mean we have to do anything,” I said hastily. I was pretty much losing it, and babbling on, because I’d so embarrassed myself. Was I that arrogant that I thought that any guy I brought home would automatically jump in bed with me?

“It’s fine Will,” he repeated with a gentle smile. “Show me the guest house.”

“Gladly,” I said with a smile, so happy to be able to put my faux pas in the past. I led him down to the first floor and out onto the deck, where we paused to take in the beautiful views. The invisible edge pool made it seem like the water was flowing into the Pacific, and the evening sky brightened things up enough to see the ocean. I shook off that mesmerizing vision and walked up to the guest house and held open the door for him. I went in before him and turned to see his reaction.

He walked in and stopped in shock, with his eyes bulging and his mouth open. “Fuck!” he said. “This is amazing!”

“They did a great job, didn’t they?” I asked excitedly. “Come on, check this out.” I led him into the bathroom, the one we’d shared when he’d first come to stay with me.

“This is not even the same room,” he said skeptically.

“I walked in here and started laughing, thinking about how we’d bump into the walls when we were taking a shower together,” I said, then I got worried that I was once again making it sound like I was trying to fuck him. I shouldn’t have. He just laughed too.

“No shit,” he said. “Wouldn’t happen now. This is huge.” We wandered through the rest of it, which didn’t take that long, and then ended up back in the main room. “I don’t know if you’re up for it, but it might be kind of cool to sleep here tonight.”

I smiled. “Dude, that is an awesome idea! Want to hit the hot tub first?”

“Absolutely,” he said. We went up to my room so he could get his backpack, and I could change. I had to hang my clothes up since I may need them again, and I had no idea how to iron. I stripped down to my boxers and put on a bathing suit. I was unsure as to whether I should wear it or not, but at least I’d have it with me. I grabbed my dugout and a lighter, then I went back downstairs and got to the pool area just in time to see Kai’s cute ass disappear into the water of the hot tub.

He’d put his stuff in the same room we’d used before, and I wasn’t sure what to do with my bathing suit after I took it off. If I put it in the same room, it would seem like I was once again forcing myself on him. I opted instead to take advantage of the cool outdoor changing area. Now, naked but for the towel wrapped around me, I went out, tossed off the towel, and sank into the welcoming warm water of the hot tub. It was nice to see Kai noticing my body as I did that, but I didn’t read anything into it. “This is the bomb.”

“No shit,” he agreed, as we just lounged there, letting the jets pulse the stress from our bodies.

I pulled out my dugout and loaded the bat, then handed it to him. He took a hit off of it, and seeing his sexy lips wrapped around the end as he smoked the weed seriously plumped up my dick. He handed it back to me, I refilled it and did my own hit, then repeated the process a few times, until we were both pretty high. “I didn’t see Ronnie at the deal tonight,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s the other shit thing that happened to me,” he grumbled.

“What the deal with that?” I asked. He gave me an annoyed look.

“I thought we were doing great until last month, when he called me and told me he was with someone else,” he said. I’d kind of figured this was just a normal breakup situation, but when he looked away from me, it looked like his eyes had gotten watery. That he dunked his head under the water abruptly confirmed my suspicions that he was crying. “I didn’t handle it well.”

“Did you know he was with this other dude?” I asked.

“I knew they hooked up a few times. We were supposed to not do that shit, but I heard some rumors and confronted him about it. He made it sound like it was no big deal, just a way to get off.”

I nodded. “So you put up with it?”

“What fucking choice did I have?” he asked me bitterly.

“Were you hooking up with anyone?” I asked.

“After that, I did a couple of times,” he said, and grimaced. “It was okay, but not great.”

“So how did you not handle it well?”

“He called me and said he’d been hooking up with this dude, and that it had gotten more serious, and that they were together,” he said bitterly. “I asked him where that left us, and he basically told me to fuck off.”

“He said that?” I asked, outraged.

“In so many words,” he replied, letting me know that he was probably embellishing the conversation. “I decided to come back and confront him. Got in a fight with his new boyfriend. That pretty much ended things between us.”

“Did you win?” I asked playfully.

“Of course I won,” he said in his cocky way, the one I remembered so well from our time together. “You know what a bad-ass I am.” I laughed, and he frowned. “You’re not supposed to think that’s funny.”

“Yet I do,” I said, sounding like Grand, probably because I was pretty stoned.

“Dude, this is some creeper weed,” he said, mirroring my thoughts. We’d gotten pretty high, but with creeper weed, the high springs on you after you initially smoke, so you end up a lot more stoned than you planned.

“It is,” I agreed. “It isn’t my usual stash. It’s good though.”

“No shit,” he agreed. “I guess the one good thing to come from that is that I got to see my dad when I was here. That was the last time.”

“The silver lining,” I said. I had to explain that saying to him, to which he just shrugged. “You’re not over him.”

“I’m so done with that dude!” he said, almost a shout.

“Yeah, but you’re not over him,” I observed.

“So you’re a fucking psychologist now?” he demanded rudely.

I shrugged. “An amateur one,” I said philosophically, as I let the pot mellow me out. “I got to see a lot of that with my friends at school. The one thing I noticed was that the person who gets dumped always has it so much worse.”

“Why?”

“Because they have to deal with losing the person they thought they loved, plus they have to deal with being rejected by that person,” I said, offering my opinion. “The person who ends it has already made part of the journey, while the person who’s dumped is just starting out.”

“Yeah, well the end result is the same,” he said dismissively, but I was pretty sure he’d heard what I said “You ever been to a Hawaiian funeral?” he asked, changing the subject.

“No.”

“There’s going to be some sort of words and shit on the beach, then the family gets in an outrigger canoe. That means you, me, my mother, my aunts, and Keegan.”

“Dude, your mom put me in the boat instead of your uncles?” I asked, shocked.

“Tells you how much she loves you,” he said. I nodded and smiled slightly, then dunked my own head underwater to hide the tears such a compliment had started. “Other people will paddle out in canoes or on surfboards. We’ll go out a couple of hundred yards from the shore and scatter the ashes.”

“That sounds better than the funerals I’ve usually had to go to,” I said. “What do I wear?”

“You sound like your brother,” he joked, referring to JJ. He’d never met JJ, but knew of him from me talking about him.

“Or Stef,” I said.

“Wear shorts and flip flops, and a nice short-sleeved shirt,” he said. I mentally scanned my wardrobe until I decided what I was going to wear. He yawned. “Been a long day.”

“For me too,” I agreed. We got out of the hot tub and dried off, with me trying not to stare at his body too obviously. “I’m going to go up and get my clothes for tomorrow.”

“See you in a few,” he said. I got up to my room and rinsed off first, then put on boxers. I grabbed my clothes, deciding they were unwrinkled enough to pass muster, and headed back down to the guest house. I walked in to find him already in the bed of the room we shared, lying on one side.

“I can crash in that room,” I offered.

“Dude, I left room for you,” he said, gesturing to his right, where there was empty bed space.

“Cool,” I said. I got into bed, but he didn’t make a move in my direction, and I was determined not to be a predator. I lay down on my side, looking at him, while he lay on his back with his head tilted toward me. “What’s the deal with your house?”

“Just another fucking thing I have to worry about,” he said. He slammed his fist down hard on the bed, venting his anger. “My uncle wants it.”

“What’s your mom want to do?”

“She’s all pissed off. Says she wants to stay there. Says she’s been in that neighborhood forever. She’s being her typical hot-headed, stubborn self,” he said.

“Can’t she buy the house from your uncle?” I asked.

“She asked him that, and he told her he wants it. My grandparents’ will left him in charge, so as long as he pays a reasonable price to my mom and my aunt, there’s not much they can do,” he said.

“Why’s he want that house?” I asked. I mean, it was an ok place, but it wasn’t really special.

“I don’t know. Who knows why the fuck he wants it? He probably wants to set it up as a meth house,” he spat bitterly. “He’s bad fucking news.”

“How is he bad news?” I asked, even though Scott had already clued me in.

“He’s like a Maui mobster,” Kai said. “Rumor has it he’s the one who set up those dudes to beat the shit out of Scott Slater.”

“Scott seemed awfully calm around him,” I noted. If someone had me beaten senseless, I’d have a hard time being in the same room with them.

“He knows the deal,” Kai said. “Besides, nice people don’t have anything to do with Malo. They’re nice to him because they’re afraid of him, but that’s it.”

“So you don’t think he’d be willing to let me buy the house for your mom?” I asked.

“Dude, you are not buying the house for my mom,” he said firmly. He stared at me, and I just looked right back, saying nothing. “Whatever.”

“You don’t think so?” I asked again. That seemed to be the easy way out of this problem.

“We already tried that, and he wouldn’t go for it,” Kai said, then sighed. “He’s been pissed off for 18 years, as long as they’ve lived there, and this is his time to get payback.”

“So what is she going to do?” I asked.

“She was all ready to fight him, to see if she could get a lawyer to take her case, but then my other uncle told her that she couldn’t work at the restaurant anymore,” he said.

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed. “So now she has no job too?”

“He told her she can have her job back after she moves,” Kai answered.

“Your uncle put the squeeze on him to pressure her,” I concluded.

“That’s what it sounds like,” he said. “So now she’s kind of thinking about it. She just wants to get through tomorrow, but I think he’s planning to evict her next week if she won’t move.”

“What an asshole,” I said. “It sounds like he has a real issue with your mother.”

“He does, and I found out why,” Kai said. “He was trying to get my mother to marry him back in the day, but she picked my father instead.”

“Kind of what we were just talking about,” I said, shaking my head slightly. “He got his heart broken, and he got rejected.”

“From what Keenan heard from his mom, my grandparents always liked my dad better. He was handsome, athletic, popular, and he wasn’t a scumball like Malo.”

“So when your mom picked your father, it hurt that much more,” I concluded.

“Probably,” Kai said grudgingly, probably because he didn’t want to feel any sympathy for this jerk.

“She’s gotta move,” I said. “I mean, she can try to fight this, and I’ll help her do it, but it sounds like this guy has a huge emotional bug up his ass, so that could get ugly.”

“How can it get more ugly?” he asked.

“If he does the same thing to you and your mother that he did to Scott Slater, that’s a lot fucking uglier,” I said.

He opened his mouth to argue about that, but then he closed it as he thought about what I said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck.”

“So she has to move,” I asserted.

“Will, she doesn’t have shit left,” he said. “All she’s got are bills. These last few months haven’t been cheap, with all the medical bills piling up. Shit, even if she could get Malo to sell her the house, she probably couldn’t get a loan. And like I said, she wouldn’t even have a job.”

“That’s why she has to move,” I said, not getting his issue.

“Where’s she going to fucking move?” he demanded. “You have to have decent credit unless you want to live in a shithole.”

“This is bullshit,” I said. “I’ve got a ton of money. I’ll buy her a house close to that one, and then she won’t have to worry about any of this crap.”

“My other relatives offered to help her out too, but she won’t do it,” he said. “She’s so fucking proud, and so fucking stubborn. She’d rather live in the van than do that.”

“Well, at least she has that,” I said fatalistically. I’d bought them a nice van converted to carry the electric wheelchair I’d gotten for Kai’s dad.

“She had to take a loan against it to pay for medical bills, and for the funeral,” he said. “This whole thing has me totally depressed and stressed out.”

I held his hand and felt his sweaty palms. I gripped him tighter and I could feel his pulse racing, as his body reacted to all these challenges life was piling on him. “I’ll help you work through this. It will be alright.”

He turned and faced me than pulled me into a massive hug. I just held on to him and hugged him back for the longest time, feeling how fucked up he was by all this. Only I couldn’t be in bed with Kai, naked, and have his much body contact without having a reaction. He felt my hard dick poking him and pulled away from me, giving me an annoyed look. “Dude, what?” I asked. “You’re fucking hot. Don’t blame me if I throw wood.”

He smiled at me, then reached down and started stroking my cock. “Don’t want to be a tease.” I chuckled until he moved down and started sucking on my dick, at which point I shut up and enjoyed the ride. When I was done, I made him lay back and let me return the favor. It took him a while to even get completely hard, which I interpreted to be due to all this bullshit he was dealing with.

“Thanks,” I said, as I licked my lips and swallowed his load.

“No, thank you,” he said. He rolled over, with his back to me, so I spooned up behind him, making sure I was in a position where I wouldn’t spear him when I got horny again.

“So what kind of house does she need?” I asked. He turned his head around to give me a dirty look.

“Couple of bedrooms, family room, kitchen,” he said. “Small.”

I smiled at his back as I got a major inspiration. “She can move in here.”

He rolled around and looked at me. “What?”

“Here, this guest house. She can live here,” I said.

“I don’t think she’d go for that,” he said.

“We’re starting a big construction project,” I said. “In exchange for living here, she can keep an eye on things. Can you get her to come up here?” I asked. I figured that once she was here, she’d be easier to convince.

“We have to do it before her sisters go home,” he said. “That’s the day after tomorrow.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if she’s being a fucking pain in the ass, they’ll call her on it,” he said. I could see that. If Darius, Matt, and JJ were busting my balls about something, I’d probably listen to them.

“So tomorrow after the funeral sometime?” I asked. That seemed weird and a little disrespectful.

“That might work,” he said.

“Maybe they can come up here and swim and relax?” I asked. “That could be a nice way to escape from the whole situation.”

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’ll make sure it’s just her and her sisters, and not the rest of my relatives. We’ve seen enough of them tonight.”

 

January 8, 2004

Kahului, Maui

 

Will

We’d had a ceremony on the shore, complete with some guitar music, and now we were heading out to spread Mano’s ashes. My moods were roiling around, going from mirroring Kai’s emotions of almost relief that his father wasn’t in pain anymore, to sadness that he was gone. I decided that with my history, especially with those fucking 9-11 attacks, I was bound to be more of a basket case at funerals. The big stabilizer for me was that we were on the beach and the ocean, and I drew strength from the Pacific just like I always did.

It was really weird to be sitting in the outrigger while Kai and Keenan rowed it out to sea. I’d volunteered to help out, but apparently rowing was a post of honor, plus it required some skill, so they politely refused my offers of assistance. After that, I just sat back and let them do all the work. There were people all around us on surfboards, which made me jealous, while a few people were also in boats. I noticed that Kai’s Uncle Malo had his own outrigger with a couple of thugs rowing him and he had several hot women with him who looked like they were whores.

When we got to a point about three hundred feet from the shore, the outrigger stopped, and then Kai’s mom stood up. I was impressed she could do that and not tip the boat over, or fall overboard herself.

“Mano, you are now free from the body that betrayed you. Know that I will always love you. Always,” Kai’s mom said, making all of us teary eyed. She spread some of the ashes on the water, then handed the urn to Kai, who spread the remainder. We paused there, watching as the ashes were absorbed into the water, and then we reversed course and headed back to the shore.

Once ashore there was more socializing, as people came over to console Kai and his mother. I stood off to the side to let them talk. I was kind of surprised when Malo came strolling up to me. “I hear you and Kiki are close,” he said.

“We are,” I confirmed. “She’s like my second mom.”

He nodded, considering that, then stared me boldly in the eyes. I didn’t flinch. I mean, I wasn’t going to pick a fight with this mobster, but he didn’t scare me. “She needs to move out of the house so we can sell it.”

“You won’t consider offers to let her buy it out?” I asked.

“No,” he said abruptly. “I was going to tell her about this today, but since you’re here, I thought maybe you’d be willing to explain things to her.”

I nodded. “How long does she have to move?” I asked. I’d expected him to demand that she move in the next day or two, just to be a dick, and as we stared at each other, I could almost see that’s what he had planned, but he was too smart to pick a fight with me too, or at least, by extension, with my family.

“If you can promise me she’ll be out in two weeks, I’m fine with that,” he said. That put me in a pretty big bind, because he was making me responsible for her leaving, and she could be pretty fucking stubborn.

“I’ll do this,” I said. “I haven’t talked to her about this at all. I’m going to do that today. If I can’t get her commitment to move out by tomorrow, then you can go to your original plan.”

“That means she’ll be out on her ass in three days,” he said callously.

“I’m thinking she’ll see reason, and two weeks will work,” I said.

“You don’t know how pigheaded she can be,” he spat bitterly.

“Yes, I do,” I said coldly.

“I’m assuming we have a deal on the two weeks. You’ve got twenty-four hours to change your mind. Just let Keenan know if you have,” he said. I nodded, and he walked off.

As soon as he was gone, Keenan walked up and took his place. “He’s a pain in the ass,” he said, referring to Malo.

“You would know,” I joked, making him laugh. “He wants me to guarantee Kiki will move, and if I do, he’ll give her two weeks, otherwise he’ll toss her out on her ass in a couple of days.”

“That was his original plan, but he doesn’t want to fuck with you,” Keenan said, confirming my suspicions.

“I’m going to have a busy afternoon,” I said with a grimace, then changed the subject. “You still living with Scott?”

“Yeah,” he said, and frowned. I stared at him long enough that, unlike his normal mode, he actually gave me a more detailed answer. “He acts like he likes having me there, but when we’re out, he treats me like I’m his fucking servant.”

“I can see that,” I said, since now that he pointed it out, I could see where Scott was condescending toward him.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” he said fatalistically.

“You know, I was seeing this guy who would come over, fuck me, and then try to run out of my bed like it was on fire,” I said, making him chuckle.

“Maybe he was worried you were going to try and fuck him,” he joked. I laughed, even though I wondered who he had been talking to who had told him I was hung.

“Nah, since that dude never bottoms. It’s just that after he shot his load, he wanted to be straight again,” I said. He stared at me, wondering how that had anything to do with what he’d told me about Scott. “Stef helped me to see that all I had to do was explain things to him.”

“You mean have a talk?” he asked, like that was the worst thing possible.

“Not necessarily,” I said. “I just made him stick around, usually by lying on top of him.”

He laughed at that. “That would work.”

“He finally figured out that if he wanted to fuck me, he was going to have to stick around for a bit afterward and not be a dick,” I said. “Men can be trained.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll have to try that.” Before I could ask him how he was planning to do that, Kai joined us.

“You coming up to Will’s house?” Kai asked Keenan.

“I think I’ll let you handle that challenge all by yourself,” he said, chuckling.

“Thanks asshole,” Kai said in a pleasant way, then turned to me. “We need to get going. Kalia and Leilani convinced her to come up there, but she wants to invite most of the people here as well.” Kalia and Leilani were his aunts.

“Dude, it’s supposed to be a small party,” I objected.

“That’s why we have to leave now,” Kai said. “You’re taking my mom, while I’m taking my aunts back to the house to grab some of the leftover food.”

“Fine,” I said, and walked over toward Kiki with a purpose.

“Hello Will,” she said. She introduced me to a nice couple that was in their late twenties, but they must have sensed my mood, so they left after a brief exchange of pleasantries.

“Okay, it’s time to go, Mom,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back and patted my cheek, the looked around to see if there were people she still needed to talk to.

“Fine, let’s go,” she agreed.