2019

"Good morning! Welcome to—"

"We're just looking."

"Well, fuck you too," I whispered as the couple walked into the showroom, weaving through the furniture displays like they were on a mission. Most people were when they went furniture shopping, but that didn't mean they needed to be rude.

Mondays were never good. I wasn't surprised to be in a bad mood.

Someone had called out sick so I had contended with the surprise morning rush all on my own and wasn't due for my coworker to show up for another thirty minutes, which in retail time felt more like an hour. I probably could have called over Tracey, the office manager, to watch the store while I went on a quick but much-needed break. Maybe if I had any self-preservation, I would have. Having to work was quite possibly one of the most draining experiences of my life.

The curse of being a mildly independent adult.

The side door opened and in walked one of the only friendly faces I associated with at this store. Not that I worked with any vile personalities; I just didn't seem to care enough about them to extend beyond a hello and goodbye in passing. Then again, most of the staff at this store were about a minimum of twenty years older than me and any point of reference regarding current pop culture went in one ear and out the other.

Calum Hill only started working here about six months ago but had quickly become my one and only real work friend. I mostly chalked it up to our relatively close ages. Cal insisted it was because we both appreciated the superiority of the Jurassic Park score.

"Time to turn that frown upside down." He slapped his hand onto the countertop that separated us. The ironed aloha shirt he wore for work every day was a stark contrast to his relaxed, easy-going nature.

"I will do no such thing."

"And why not?"

"That would be letting capitalism win."

He laughed and hiked his backpack higher on his shoulder. I found it funny how being at work often felt like living a second life. These people saw me more than my own family sometimes, and definitely more than my friends, and yet I knew next to nothing about their lives outside of work. Whenever I moved onto a new job, which would likely happen sooner than later since I was getting fed up with these abysmal benefits—these people would all be cut out of my life as soon as the ripcord took effect.

"Do you want me to cover?" he asked even though he was early to work and didn't technically work in my area. Our furniture store was divided into three divisions; Calum worked at Wu Home Design, the main store that catered to luxury selections, while I worked at Red, a more modern division meant to attract a younger clientele. "They finally fixed the vending machine yesterday. You can grab a snack or something."

One thing I had come to understand quickly about Calum was his ability to read people well, even within seconds of meeting them. On his first day on the job, he told me I looked like someone that stared too long at the ocean thinking it would reveal some hidden truth. When I asked him why he got that impression, he just told me he knew somebody else like that. One of his best friends.

It didn't surprise me that as his eyes traveled around my face, he instantly recognized how tired I was.

Before I could take him up on his offer, the door chimed with the arrival of a new customer.

"Well then."

Calum turned and followed my gaze to where Nikau had just walked through the front door. The breeze pulled past him into the store, carrying him inside as he took everything in. Since our cash wrap was on the left side of the store right after you first entered and he started on the other side, he didn't land on us until after he'd made a clean sweep of the rest of the store and recognition flooded his senses as quickly as it had mine.

I wasn't staring but it was a shame he was wearing a jacket today. His tattoos were covered up.

My coworker turned around briefly to send me an inquisitive glance, but I dodged it easily, trading an explanation for my comment with a rehearsed smile.

"Welcome to Red," I greeted in my best customer service voice. A disguise meant to make me appear more friendly than I considered myself. While I liked to think of myself as elusive, I could probably be more accurately described as someone most didn't care to get to know.

Nikau broke into a smile as warm as the sun making waves outside, felt through the expansive window storefront.

"Hokulani." My name was spoken with the casualty of knowing each other for years even though that was far from the truth. "Wouldn't have pegged you for working here."

"Have you missed my irresistible charm and penchant for being around people? Honest mistake."

Calum cleared his throat.

I pointed at the vibrant aloha shirt that complimented his warm skin. "This is Calum. The only other salesperson here under forty."

They shook hands as Nikau introduced himself and then turned back to me. I half expected to see Anthony walk through the door behind him, but it didn't look like Nikau had come here with anyone else. Considering that he lived in town, I was surprised to see him make his way over to Aiea for furniture shopping and I felt compelled to point this out to him.

"There's another location on Beretania that you could have gone to," I advised.

He shrugged. "I wanted to check out this mall."

"In that case, there's a new boba place that just opened up."

"You get off at six, yeah?" Calum asked. His question was asked with translucent innocence, but I saw through the devilish grin on his face.

"Don't you have to go clock in or something?"

Calum shook his head. "Nah, I have some time before my shift starts." Bastard. "Unless you needed to take a minute and want me to cover for you—"

"We're fine. I'm fine. Thanks."

He slapped the counter and smiled, looking pointedly between the two of us. Becoming one of the top salespeople in the entire store this early on wasn't a fluke. Calum knew how to read people and tended to use it for good, but he wasn't above playing around with people. And since I was the only one in his age bracket, I shouldn't have been surprised to eventually become one of his victims. I was just lucky he was going easy on me.

"See you kids around then."

Once Calum left for his store, I glanced around the showroom in search of the other customers that arrived earlier, but I didn't catch a glimpse of them and assumed they had also gotten out of dodge. The rest of the store was bare, save for some furniture of vaguely questionable style if you asked me, and it only worried me further that I was about to shove my foot in my mouth somehow.

Not that I cared.

"Is there something specific that you're looking for?" I asked, putting on my retail voice. Even with our nonexistent history, Nikau recognized the unnatural tinge to my voice and almost grimaced. I didn't blame him. "I don't know your budget but there are three other stores—departments, basically—in this building but Red is the more modern section with a lower price point."

"Perfect," he replied easily. "Just what I'm looking for."

I walked around the counter, making sure to smooth out the wrinkles in my shirt as I skirted the corner, hidden out of sight, and pulled up beside him. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses pushed on top of his head.

Nikau held out his hand. "Lead the way."

...

One thing I had come to learn selling furniture at mediocre levels—I was never going to be a top seller, but that was okay with me—was that it was rarely about knowing how to say all the right things. You just had to know how to avoid saying the wrong things. (There was a difference.) People paying for hefty price tags rarely took someone's word over their own intuition when they knew that person was working for a commission, hence why I didn't try hard to sell. I just learned how to be appropriately acceptable, and knowledgable enough to fill the empty spaces left between their Google searches. Very rarely did most people come in completely unaware.

Not that any of this mattered as far as Nikau was concerned. He genuinely appeared to not sway too far either way and listened to everything I suggested, even if I wasn't passionate about this job. I was truthful about which pieces I thought were utter trash and which ones I would buy myself if I had the money or space for it.

By the time we reached the back of the showroom, I had lost track of time.

We sat on a large yellow sectional with a chaise lounge. One of the benefits of working in a furniture store was that I could sit on the job under the guise of showing off the merchandise to customers. It wasn't by accident that I worked them into telling me expansive stories so that I could sit for longer.

"Can I ask you a question?" I asked as I looked down at my tablet, punching in the details for Nikau's order so it would be ready by the time we walked back up to the cash wrap. Truthfully, I would have been fine if the two of us spent the rest of my shift back here just talking. Given how draining it was to socialize with strangers, Nikau made for a more appealing source of mindless conversation.

"Sure."

"Why Hawai'i? I'm sure not just because you knew Anthony lived here."

I avoided the loaded question. I wasn't necessarily the most supportive of people moving here when the native population was disproportionately affected by houselessness and the islands as a whole, particularly many sacred places, were still being negatively impacted by the lasting and insidious effects of colonization and rampant tourism, but I also understood it wasn't a black and white situation. What I did ultimately want if people came here was for them to be respectful toward our islands and give back.

The fact that he was a friend of Anthony's, and therefore, at the very least, had a good role model in him, as well as coming from his own island nation, helped soothe my worries. I didn't like jumping to conclusions whenever I met someone who came here for an extended period, but I recognized it was likely a learned habit after watching how our islands were regularly treated.

I guess the question was more aimed at the way he looked like he was searching for something without knowing what the questions even were. Maybe it was a bit presumptuous on my part, but I liked to think I could recognize traits of myself in others. It had been so long since I knew what to ask that I wondered if I even knew how to speak anymore.

"Besides it being just... beautiful?" He laughed. "I don't know. I wanted something different but maybe still a little familiar. Something about being surrounded by the ocean just... makes everything make sense sometimes. Don't you think?"

More than I could say. But there were also many times when I would stare out at the water and hate that it didn't have the power to grant my wishes. Rewind the clock and get rid of all my troubles. It wasn't a mystical sort of magic but the kind that was grounded in realism. I needed to be reminded of the difference often.

"You're not like... running away from something, are you?"

He was amused by the line of questioning, even if it was baseless. The idea of a hot tatted-up guy on the run added to the allure he already exuded, and maybe that would have provided some justification for why I was unnecessarily enamored by his demeanor.

"Just a regular ol' bandit."

"It's tough keeping up with the hustle of a life of crime."

"I'm not running away, though," he answered sincerely. "It was just an opportunity that came up and I said fuck it and took it. Anthony has been saying for years we needed to take a trip somewhere but he never had the time to go anywhere himself, so he suggested I come to visit."

That was the Anthony I had always known. The kind of man that could make anyone feel welcome in his home, even when they might have been a little lost. I suspected there was more to Nikau's spoken truth than he offered up, even if he was being honest about being opportunistic. If I had a friend that offered to show me around Aotearoa for a year, I was sure I would take them up on it.

"Well, a year is a long time to soak up the sun," I said, not bothering to give him the third degree after his sale earned me my first commission of the day. If they weren't such sticklers about giving out our friends and family discount, I would have offered it. Maybe he would have accepted it. "I'm sure you'll get a lot of writing done while you're here."

"Do you write?" he asked curiously, shifting on the seat so he faced me more. "Anthony said you're really good at the guitar and—" He paused. "Something else. I can't remember."

"The oboe," I answered. I felt his eyes on me, warm like being kissed by tangerine rays of sunlight, as I trained mine forward under the guise of watching for customers walking through the door even though the other poor soul had already taken up his post. "And no. I'm more of a background person. I just like playing music. I don't write anything myself."

He laughed; an invitation to look back at him.

"What?"

"I don't know, I just get the feeling you do that a lot." I waited for him to elaborate. "Act like you're the supporting character in your own movie."

"That's not—It's not that deep."

"I'm sure it isn't."

"I just don't write. Anything. Ever. Not even, like, stories. Can't sit still long enough to read a book, let alone create a melody out of it."

He smiled. "I believe you."

"No, you don't."

Nikau rested one arm on the back of the sofa. "I think you probably write a lot in your head."

I scoffed. "Even if that were true, it wouldn't help if I don't write them down."

"Kanaka Maoli culture is entrenched in oral history. Why would writing it down make a difference?"

"Don't haole-splain Hawaiians to me," I joked, making sure to smile. It was funny, truthfully.

He returned it easily, far too easily for someone who had only walked into this shop with the sole intention of buying furniture for his new apartment. It wasn't like he knew I worked here since Anthony and I hadn't talked since before I started this job. And even if he had exchanged numbers with Kanani at the party, she wouldn't have given up that information without alerting me first and asking for permission. She might get on my nerves sometimes, but she was as loyal as they came.

"So, you are going to that party, right?" he asked, redirecting the conversation. "For that guy."

"Sure. But I don't think it's a real party. Just a bunch of people eating and getting wasted."

Nikau turned his head. "Is that not what a party is?"

"Depends on the ratio of food to drinks, I guess—wait a second."

The conversation at the party where Anthony had invited us to Zach's birthday rushed back to me, and I recalled what he had said exactly. Alex's friend Cal is throwing a party for Zach.

Cal could be short for something else besides Calum, but either version wasn't exactly a common name in Hawaii for as long as I'd lived here—my entire life—and now that I thought about it, Calum did mention having a friend who lived in Mililani at some point because they had dragged him to their favorite dim sum restaurant there.

Nikau eyed me cautiously as I waved Calum over who had walked back into the Red part of the building. I waited until he was near the display directly across from us before confronting him.

"You look comfortable," he mused.

I held up a finger. "You wouldn't happen to know a certain girl named Alexandra, would you?"

"Oh, Alex? Yeah, we're friends. You know her?"

He could have told me I had a week left to live by the way I reacted. It wasn't a big deal and I shouldn't have been surprised considering how impossible it was to escape knowing someone else on an island this small, but I found this realization particularly unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.

"You're kidding me."

"What? Don't tell me you don't like her. I might have to fight you."

"I love Alex. I just didn't realize you were the Cal throwing Zach's birthday party."

He hesitated for a second, probably trying to figure out the clues that had been dropped around him as well, equally as unsuspecting of our surprise connection. It was a game all of us Hawaii locals were all too familiar with despite the way we acted surprised each time it happened.

"You wouldn't happen to be Anthony's friend, would you?" He mimicked me from earlier.

"This island is too damn small."

Nikau watched. "I take it you're both friends of friends."

Now that Calum had been enlightened, he wasn't going to let up. After tossing his clipboard off to the side, he pulled up one of the ottomans from the facing sofa set and looked far too much like a camp counselor getting ready to tell a bunch of children about the day's activities.

Honestly, it was slightly terrifying.

"I'm assuming you're both coming to the party then—"

"What if I said no—"

That didn't stop him. Calum was all too excited to bring this work friendship to the next level—seeing you without the exhaustion of surviving the workforce weighing down on us? Sign me up, Hoku—and he hooked himself onto Nikau like they were destined to be best friends, making me nervous about going to the party now. Although it should be noted that if anyone could accomplish making Nikau feel at home in a foreign environment, Calum was sure to be the most likely. He had a way with people.

Once Calum became distracted by his customer calling for him, Nikau turned to me and nudged his elbow against mine. Skin against skin in the most innocent of forms, but my cheeks became flushed with the same red watercolor backsplash that appeared any time I got too drunk too fast. If I was smart, I would make sure this didn't happen at Zach's party.

"You'll be fine," he told me.