“Hey,” I hear Luke say with concern in his voice. He moves off the rock and crouches in front of me. “Are you OK?”
I didn’t realize I had been so obvious—I certainly wasn’t trying to be.
I force a smile and nod. “Yeah, I’m good, just a little freaked out.”
Luke pushes himself into a stand and reaches out his hand for me. “Come on,” he says. “We’ll walk down and go swimming for a bit.”
I take his hand and he pulls me up from the rock. I don’t know why, but he makes me feel safe, even when just holding my hand. I secretly hope he doesn’t let go.
And he doesn’t.
“At least you tried,” he says, smiling.
Luke leads me back down the rocks and onto lower ground, where a friend of his is sitting watching over my bag—Alicia, girlfriend of his friend Braedon.
“It’s a no-go, huh?” she asks as we step up.
“No,” I say glumly. “After ten minutes of almost jumping, I was pretty sure it wasn’t gonna happen.”
Alicia smiles with a bright set of perfect white teeth. Long black hair drapes her olive shoulders.
“Maybe you’ll do it next time,” she says, reaching over and patting me on the back.
Luke, sitting on the other side of me with his knees drawn up, says with kind eyes, “Well, she has two weeks to conquer the fear.”
“Two weeks in Hawaii,” Alicia says, “now that’s a vacation.”
I glance over and smile at Luke next to me.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I agree. “I like my job, but I’d take Hawaii over it any day.”
Alicia nods, beaming. “I’d take Hawaii over any job,” she says. “What do you do?”
“Sienna’s an event coordinator.” Luke speaks up for me, which I find cute and not at all intrusive.
Alicia perks up a little. “Oh?” she asks, looking between Luke and me with a curious—and maybe even hopeful—expression.
I hadn’t forgotten about Luke bringing up that charity art event earlier; I guess it just got lost in the excitement of staying in Hawaii and how crazy and thrilling and spontaneous the whole thing was. Besides, when he said to forget he said anything about it, that he would’ve said just about anything to get me to stay, I thought he was joking about the event.
“And a damn good one from what I saw,” Luke says.
My face reddens a little. “Thanks.” I’m not sure how much of my work he actually saw, but I don’t probe. I just take the compliment.
Alicia sits up on her knees on the sand and smiles at me eagerly.
“Maybe you could help out with the charity event we’re having over at the community center in a couple months,” she says. She presses her knuckles into the sand on each side of her to hold up her petite weight.
Luke shakes his head. “Well, I did sort of ask her,” he says, “but I feel weird about it now.”
“Weird why?” I ask, looking over at him.
He shrugs. “Just that you’re supposed to be on vacation and getting away from your job. I’m not going to put you to work.” He laughs. “But hey, a few pointers here and there would be awesome—but no working.” He shakes a finger playfully at me.
“Well, I’d love to check it out,” I say. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
And really I don’t mind at all. Somehow, no matter what it entails, I don’t see it making me feel like I’m at work. It could be fun!
Alicia looks relieved.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Luke says. “Melinda—she runs the community center—hosts these charity art events once a year.”
“And she’s been planning them and setting them up for … I don’t even know how long,” Alicia says, twirling a hand in the air beside her. “But she wanted to do something fresh and exciting this year”—she glances at Luke—“so she put us in charge.”
“We have plenty of time to get it all organized,” Luke says. “So don’t think about it too much—you’re here to kick back and have fun.”
“Well, count me in,” I say, beaming at them both.
Alicia looks toward the cliffs, probably eager to take her turn.
“Hey, we’re having a barbecue at our house later,” she says, “if you two wanna come—you can ride over with me.”
Luke looks at me briefly.
I shrug as if to tell her, Sure, why not?
“Yeah, sure,” Luke says. “Just let us know when you’re ready to head out.”
Alicia stands up and dusts sand from her hands.
“Are you OK to sit with your stuff?” she asks, pointing briefly at my bag.
“Oh yeah,” I tell her. “Thanks for bag-sitting.”
“No problem,” she says brightly and then heads toward the cliffs.
I pull a clean beach towel from my bag and go to unfold it.
“Don’t you want to go swimming?” Luke asks.
“Definitely,” I say and lay the towel over my bag to conceal it the best I can.
“I’d tell you not to worry about it,” Luke says about the bag, looking around at the many small groups of people all hanging around the area, which according to Luke is a pretty popular place. “But I don’t know even half of these people—most are tourists.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re not hard to pick out of a crowd, really,” he says and points briefly at a group of girls who just climbed to the top of the cliffs. “Two of them look like they don’t spend much time in the sun. The other two have taken probably thirty selfies each just in the past five minutes, duck-lips and all.” He points at a man and woman who just walked up. “And no locals who come out here wear running shoes and socks in the sand, or big floppy hats and jewelry.”