What a Girl Wants (17 page)

I inhaled a forkful of cream while I thought about my answer. ‘When I was in the police station, I called Charlie because he I knew he would come and get me without being all dramatic about it. He makes me feel safe and comfortable and it’s easy. He knows me.’

Kekipi flicked a packet of brown sugar before ripping the top and dumping it into his coffee.

‘Fine,’ he said after a moment’s consideration. ‘Now tell me why you slept with Nick last night.’

Eurgh, I thought.

‘Eurgh,’ I said.

‘First thing that pops into your head,’ Kekipi said. ‘Don’t overthink it.’

‘That’s the problem,’ I replied, shifting from thigh to thigh in my seat. ‘I didn’t think about it at all. If I had, I wouldn’t have bloody done it.’

My fairy gayfather smiled into his coffee cup and sipped. I frowned at the chocolate pastry in front of me and helped myself to his fruit tart.

‘Someone wants to have her cake and eat mine?’ He rapped my knuckles with his pastry fork. ‘I think we’re uncovering a major character flaw in you, young lady.’

Harsh, but fair.

‘Once upon a time, I was involved with two men.’ Kekipi pushed his plate towards me and took a forkful of chocolatey goodness in exchange before starting his story. ‘One was older than me, such a smart man. Educated, considerate, caring … All he wanted was to take care of me, start a family, be together. I don’t think anyone has ever loved me as much as he did.’

‘What about the other one?’ I asked. I couldn’t imagine Kekipi with a sugar daddy.

My interest was officially piqued.

‘He was younger, my age, and just about the most wonderful man I have ever known.’ He loosened his tie and cleared his throat, his elegant fingers lingering on the buttons that fastened his collar. ‘I had never loved someone the way I loved him. We were young and reckless and all the other words older people use to describe two people in love when they know it won’t work out. But I couldn’t bear to be away from him. Every time he was near, it was like I had rolled around in poison oak. He didn’t make me feel alive; he made me feel immortal. I thought we were invincible, him and me.’

It was strange to think of Kekipi as a young man in love. It was hard to think of Kekipi as anything other than Al’s sidekick and my confidant. I realized I knew next to nothing about him and suddenly felt terribly guilty for never stopping to ask questions.

‘If you were so in love with him, where was the competition?’ I asked. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘He was married.’ He tightened his tie again and turned his attention to organizing the sugar bowl by packet colour. ‘To a woman.’

‘Bit of a road bump,’ I said. Kekipi let out a quick, hollow laugh and nodded.

‘Every time we were together, me breaking my heart over him going back to his wife, his family, I told myself it was the last time. I knew the other man was better for me. He loved me, he cared about me …’ He paused his sorting and looked me in the eye. ‘He made me feel safe.’

‘But you didn’t love him, did you?’ I said, seeing exactly where this story was going. ‘He was just a rebound, wasn’t he?’

‘No, I did. I did love him,’ Kekipi countered. ‘In a different way. He was like the ocean: when he left, I knew he would come back, I knew he was forever. The other man, he was a volcano: explosive, unpredictable. That kind of relationship sounds more exciting but it can burn, will consume you, if you let it.’

‘Nice Hawaiian metaphors,’ I smiled and sipped my coffee. ‘What happened?’

‘Everyone said the same, don’t mistake passion for love.’ He looked off down the arcade. It was strange to watch someone tell a story that still caused them such upset after so long, especially someone so generally positive and happy. ‘And after many hours of contemplation, many conversations with our friend, Mr Bennett, I made my choice.’

I slipped my camera out of its case and took a few quick pics while he wasn’t looking. His expression was so beautiful, something I’d never seen on him before and I couldn’t help myself.

‘Who did you choose?’ I asked.

‘I chose the ocean,’ he said, shaking his head back into the present. ‘I wanted to be with someone who would take care of me. I wanted to be with the man who said I love you every night when we fell asleep together.’

I couldn’t wipe the surprise off my face. ‘Then what happened?’

‘What always happens when you aren’t true to your heart,’ Kekipi replied. ‘We were happy for a while until I began to resent him. And then the arguments began, arguments, drinking, cheating. That was the beginning of the end, really.’

‘You never thought about going back to the other man?’ I asked softly.

Kekipi gave a decisive shake of his head. ‘He left the island. Moved his family to California, I think. When I told him it was over, he went crazy, threatened all kinds of things. It was only when I ended it that I really understood that he loved me just as much as I loved him but it was too late.’

‘And he was married all that time?’

‘Yes,’ Kekipi nodded. ‘But you have to understand, this was a different time. Our community was very conservative, it wasn’t easy to be out back then and not that long since it was illegal to be gay in Hawaii. I never blamed him for getting married, and I was never angry with his wife, the poor woman. She knew all about it. It must have been awful for her. But in the end, he wasn’t the one who made the decision that kept us from being together, I was. Now stop taking my photo before I Britney you with someone’s umbrella.’

I pursed my lips, camera in hand, and considered his story.

‘So you if you could do it all over again, you would choose the volcano?’ I said, rolling my aching shoulder and squeezing my sore thighs. ‘Even though it seemed like the dangerous decision?’

‘I wouldn’t want to do it all over again, at any cost,’ he said. ‘But I do know you shouldn’t make decisions based on what makes you feel safe. Make your decisions on what makes you feel alive. Life might be too short for regrets – but it’s far too long to live with a compromise.’

It was a fair point. It felt like a lifetime since I’d first seen Charlie sauntering across the university campus with a sticker-covered guitar strapped to his back, but when I thought about how quickly a whole decade had gone by, it made me catch my breath.

‘Just out of interest,’ I said, scooping up the last bits of pastry with my fork. ‘What did Al say? When you broke up with your boyfriend?’

‘He didn’t say anything,’ Kekipi replied. ‘But I wished I had listened to his advice in the first place.’

‘He told you to choose the married man?’ I asked, not sure whether to be surprised or not. Al had an unnerving tendency to be right about things.

Kekipi nodded and tapped the table twice.

‘Now, have you finished? There’s a lovely mosaic of a bull over there and if we stand on his testicles and do a shimmy and a spin, it’s meant to be good luck.’

‘We have to shimmy?’ I asked.

‘I added the shimmy,’ he said, standing and brushing off his immaculate suit. ‘No one has any flair these days.’

‘This is really beautiful,’ Amy said, pulling a white silk sleeveless blouse covered in delicate polka dots out of a stiff cardboard carrier bag. ‘Kekipi has the best taste ever.’

‘How do you know I didn’t choose it?’ I asked, hanging up my new clothes and trying very hard not to look at the price tags.

Amy raised a dismissive eyebrow and handed me the shirt. ‘Do you think he would take me shopping? Do you think he would pay?’

‘Do you?’ I stroked a baby blue T-shirt that was softer than the basket full of kittens I would inevitably grow old with and yawned. ‘You OK?’

‘Yeah.’ She draped herself over the arm of the big squishy chair closest to my wardrobe. ‘Charlie called me while you were out.’

‘He did?’ My heart stopped for a moment. He hadn’t called me. Or texted. Or emailed. Or faxed. Or carrier pigeoned. ‘To say what?’

‘Just wanted to know if we’d got here all right,’ Amy said, stretching and arching her back like one of my future cats, her minuscule bum rising off the seat as she did so. ‘He said he hadn’t heard from you.’

It was fair, he hadn’t. I wasn’t quite sure what to say and I couldn’t imagine he was desperate for me to FaceTime him to give him the double guns again.

‘What did you tell him?’ I asked, terribly interested in the hanging loops on a pair of white denim Rag & Bone shorts, covered in tiny motorcycles – an incredibly practical purchase on my part.

‘I said we were so fine that you’d shagged Nick all night long and now you were too knackered to bother texting him so he should probably go and throw himself off Tower Bridge,’ she said, kicking me in the arse. ‘What do you think I said?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, closing the wardrobe and rubbing my bum cheek. ‘I don’t want you to be in the middle of all of this. You didn’t actually say that though, did you?’

‘I told him Al had been working you like a slave and that I’d knocked you out with Night Nurse last night because you weren’t feeling very well,’ she replied. ‘He bought it, obviously. But yeah, you owe me.’

The number of times we had exchanged those words.

‘Anything from Mr Miller?’ she asked.

I folded in on myself, collapsing onto the floor like a grumpy giraffe and lay flat on my back. Things always looked better when there wasn’t any further to fall.

‘I still can’t get over how offensively sexy he is,’ Amy sighed.

‘Don’t call him sexy,’ I said with a wince. ‘No one says sexy any more. It sounds so nineties.’

‘But he is sexy,’ she argued, twisting upside down so that her head dangled down in front of me. ‘He’s not just
handsome
; he’s got that “grr” thing. Like when Daniel Craig came out of the ocean in James Bond, only fully dressed. Imagine him in swimming trunks. Oh God, imagine him
naked
.’

I held my breath and waited.

‘Oh my God, of course, you’ve seen him naked!’ Amy shouted, holding her hands over her face. ‘It’s too much for my tiny mind. You have literally blown it to pieces.’

‘But you have seen what a twat he is,’ I said, stretching my arm out for my handbag. I couldn’t quite reach it, meaning the universe didn’t want me to text Charlie just yet. I’d text him later, just as soon as I could reach my bag without having to move – and just as soon as I had worked out what I wanted to say. ‘So you know why it’s a no go.’

‘I know, I know,’ she said, rolling down onto the floor at the side of me, ‘but there’s definitely something going on with you two. You’re all jumpy and sketchy around him.’

‘I am not sketchy.’ I didn’t bother to try to refute jumpy. ‘He makes me uncomfortable.’

‘Yeah he does, all night long,’ she replied, snapping her fingers and singing what I knew for a fact was her favourite Lionel Richie song. ‘When we were in the car on the way to that weirdo’s place, he was just, like, staring at you. The whole time. Didn’t look out the window once. He just sat there, really enjoying the back of your head.’

‘That’s because Milan can’t compete with my incomparable beauty,’ I said, sniffing my armpits and wondering if I could get away without a shower before dinner. ‘I am a goddess.’

‘Yeah,’ she nodded, ‘definitely that. Also, he can’t put his dick in Milan.’

‘As eloquent as ever,’ I said. ‘Did anyone say anything to you about dinner tonight?’

‘Nope,’ she said, rolling onto her front and dragging herself up to her feet. ‘I got the car back, I saw the lovely Domenico, confirmed for the millionth time that we had everything we needed and then came up here for a nap. Now you’re back.’

‘I was gone for five hours,’ I pointed out. ‘And that’s all you did?’

‘It was a hell of a nap,’ Amy said, pumping her hands over her head and swinging her hips. ‘Can we go out tonight?’

‘I should call Charlie,’ I said, staring sadly at my handbag. ‘And I need to look at the photos from this morning. And talk to Al about what we’re doing next. And God, look at the Perito’s pitch.’

She lowered her arms slowly, sadly. ‘So that’s a no, is it?’

‘We’ll go out tomorrow night,’ I promised, the words sounding awkwardly familiar. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Fine, I’ll go and find out about dinner, I’m rav.’ She patted her flat stomach and trotted out the door. ‘Go and have a shower, you stink.’

You couldn’t put a price on the value of an honest friend, I told myself, as I rolled to my knees and crawled into the bathroom.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

After a very long, very hot shower, I’d found a note from Kekipi shoved under my door, telling me that dinner would be in the dining room at eight before giving very explicit directions as to how I was to prepare. I did as I was told, worried that if my efforts weren’t up to scratch, he’d withhold food, and since I hadn’t eaten anything other than a few bites of breakfast and the pastries at lunchtime, I really wanted my dinner. And so I dutifully made sure I’d shaved my legs below and above the knee, dried my hair properly, put on make-up, and, as the note explicitly instructed, slipped into the little black dress he had chosen for me in the Valentino boutique. There was no way I could have ever afforded it if he hadn’t flirted his way to a sixty per cent discount, and for that I would be eternally grateful. It was the most perfectly fitting dress I had ever owned. Short but not too short as to show my knickers, it was nipped in at the waist and had a perfect straight-across slash of a neckline that tethered my unmanageable boobs in place without making them look like they’d been bound down for netball practice. It was a miracle.

I assumed I was being preened by proxy so he could show off his fabulous styling to Amy and Al over dinner but instead of finding a table full of friendly faces, there was only one guest at the table and his face wasn’t friendly at all.

‘I take that look to mean you were expecting other people to be here as well.’ Nick poured himself a glass of red wine from one of the four open bottles of booze on the table and kicked his feet up on one of the empty chairs. ‘Excellent.’

His bare feet.

Although I was annoyed at being set up, I couldn’t help but take a little perverse pleasure in the fact that Kekipi had got one over on Nick the genius. Even if it did mean I had to sit through dinner with him, all on my own. Immediately I felt my skin begin to prickle.