Toby Neal: Blood Orchids

“It’s okay.” She stood up. “Thanks for the help.”

“What happened?” He stood up as well, dark eyes concerned.

“She got shot.”

“Oh my God. Wow. Shit just keeps happening to you, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well, let me know if I can help with anything.”

“You sure showed up at a good time. Thanks for that.” She followed him and closed the door behind him as he left. The unsettled feeling she’d had about him was gone-he was just an awkward guy.

Lei went into the kitchen, sighed as she looked at the blood orchid’s fallen petals on the kitchen table. She picked up the neglected plant and the spotted one Tom had given her.

“Maybe now that the child molesters, stalkers, and rapists are out of the way I can go shopping,” Lei said over her shoulder. “Order pizza on me, okay Keiki?”

She went out into the backyard. The last of day was dying out of the sky in a conflagration to the west as she walked across the fallen white pinwheels of plumeria to her orchid bench. She misted the plants and picked a branch of the fragrant plumeria flowers, careful to avoid the sticky white sap, put the flowers in a vase and called for pizza. She and Keiki deserved a treat.

The doorbell rang as Lei sat beside Keiki with the TV on. She got up and put her eye to the peephole. Stevens stood there, holding an orchid plant. Her heart picked up speed.

“Hi.”

“Hey Lei. Heard a friend just got out of the hospital.”

Lei laughed nervously and reached for the plant, but Stevens put the orchid behind his back. He went around her and into the house, kneeling by Keiki on her pallet. The big dog lifted her head. He put the plant down beside her.

“Brought you something,” he said. The vivid spray of dendrobium looked like a flock of tiny yellow butterflies arcing over the dog. Keiki looked at him soulfully, then closed her eyes in bliss as he sat beside her, rubbing between her ears.

Lei ducked her head as she went into the kitchen. He’d told her he wasn’t accepting their breakup, and it was hard to hold out against an underhanded tactic like bringing her dog an orchid. She had to smile as she opened Stevens a beer, brought it to him as he sat beside Keiki on the floor.

“She sure is happy to see you.” The dog had fallen asleep with her head on his leg.

The doorbell rang again. Lei paid the pizza guy and brought the box over to the coffee table beside Stevens.

“Want some?” She opened the box.

“My timing is impeccable,” he said. “We bachelors have a way of dropping by about six p.m. and getting invited to dinner. Pono’s family gave me laulau last night.”

“Hmm, never thought of that. Bachelor timing-I should try it sometime.” Lei bit into a gooey slice, handing Stevens one on a paper towel.

A silence descended. A frisson of awareness of his nearness lifted the hair on the back of her neck, translated into an exquisite hyperfocus on the details of the room, the textures in her mouth, the muted movement of the TV screen. Lei wished she could get up and make herself an emergency vodka shot, maybe two.

They finished the pizza. Lei drank a glass of water instead and kept her eyes anywhere but on Stevens.

“So,” he said.

“So.”

“Did you hear the latest on Ray?”

“No. What’s the story?”

“He’s going to lockup soon as he leaves the hospital. Don’t think he can make bail and the Changs don’t appear to be picking up the tab.” Stevens leaned back against the couch, sipped his beer. “Healani Chang is sending us a message by leaving him in there.”

“I wish I hadn’t liked him. I guess I feel bad he’s paralyzed.”

“You kidding me? The guy kept asking you out. What do you think he meant to do to you once he had you alone?”

Lei thought back to the gun range, the strange expression in those changeable hazel eyes behind the plastic safety goggles as he asked her out for the last time. Good thing she’d been so determined to use up her ammo.

“Shit.”

“No shit,” Stevens answered. He took a sip of his beer. “Just like Ito. You did what had to be done.”

“Not really. I could have let him get away. He almost did.”

“After trying to kill you? After shooting Keiki?” Incredulity in his tone. They both looked at the big Rottweiler, snoring softly in her funnel collar, her head pillowed on Stevens’ thigh.

“You’re right. Letting him get away wasn’t an option.” She felt something dark unknotting inside of her. She hadn’t even realized she felt guilty.

Stevens put his hand over her good one where it rested on the trunk table.

“I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you.”

Lei looked down at the big hand covering hers.

He lifted it an inch, hovering above her hand. She could still feel faint heat, a magnetic tingling. She turned her palm up, reached up with her fingertip to the palm of his hand, drew it lightly down to his fingertip, and swiveled their hands so they were facing each other, palms touching upright.

She saw the hairs rise on his forearm, and he made a tiny sound.

She couldn’t look at him because she knew what she’d see-a longing that matched her own. Their fingers played together, dancing, saying all that couldn’t be said, and finally her hand curled up, resting cupped in his. He held it gently, lowered it to the tabletop. Warmth enfolded her through his fingers.

“Remember when I said we should wait to be together?” Stevens asked.

She nodded. Remembered that long-ago evening when he’d tried to set some rules.

“I told you I was messed up. I still am,” Lei said.

“I told you something then. It’s still true.”

“What?”

“That if you could work on trusting me, I could work on waiting. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

“Okay.” She looked down at her curled hand resting in the cup of his. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. They don’t call me Hurricane Lei for nothing.”