Chapter 11
Kaila had gone to get her darts from her room, so she told Peter she would meet him in the lounge of her dorm. The dorm attendant was there so it was OK for boys to come in the girls’ lounge.
When Peter arrived he wasn’t familiar with the room, so he looked for the area where the dart board was located. They had a pool table just like the boys’ lounge and even a ping pong table just as you walked in. In the middle of the room were two columns that separated the pool table area and the lounge chairs and tables. He did not see the dart board right away, so he assumed it must be past the columns. Kaila did not appear to be in the lounge yet but he decided to walk around anyway. He slowly rounded the columns and then he spotted her. There she sat at a small round table alone with her head down, scanning over her smartphone.
Just a glimpse of her sitting at the table made him smile. She had let her hair down and it was draped over her cheeks as she hovered over her phone. His heart raced as he walked towards her. She was so beautiful to him. When she noticed someone approaching, she looked up and saw Peter. She smiled broadly and jumped out of her chair.
“Hey! You made it!” she said sweetly.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Sorry I’m late, traffic was awful.” Kaila laughed out loud. She loved his playful sense of humor.
“Ready to get schooled in darts?” Kaila asked as she proudly held up the darts. A radio sitting on a nearby table was tuned into the Lunas football game.
“Sure am,” Peter responded. “Got the game on, huh?”
“Yeah, it just started.”
Peter glanced around the lounge, admiring the different things the girls had. “You have a much nicer lounge than ours, I can tell you that,” he commented. “We don’t even have a ping pong table.”
“Yep,” Kaila laughed. “We got it all here. Better than the Ritz-Carlton.”
“In that case, tell the waiter we’ll have two mai tai’s,” Peter joked.
Kaila chuckled, “Yeah that would be nice. And keep ‘em coming.”
They approached the dartboard on the wall. Next to the round board was a small whiteboard for keeping score. The scoreboard had two rows of numbers, fifteen through twenty, and at the bottom of each list was the letter B. At the top of each row was a place for each player’s name. Kaila picked up the marker and wrote the letter K on one side and T on the other.
Peter looked at the letters curiously and wondered aloud, “What is the T for?”
“T is you,” Kaila said promptly.
“My name doesn’t start with the letter T.”
Kaila smiled broadly and teased him, “K is for Kaila, that’s me.” She curtsied to him and Peter laughed.
“And T?” he asked.
“And T is for trouble. That’s you.” Peter laughed out loud. He loved the way she teased him.
“I’m trouble, huh?”
“Yep.”
“OK. I can live with that,” he laughed. “So how do you play this game?”
Pointing at the scoreboard, Kaila explained, “See these numbers, fifteen through twenty? You try to hit each one during your turn. Whichever one you hit, you put a mark by it on the board. Simple as that.”
“Easy enough,” Peter nodded. “And B is for ‘bullseye’, right?”
“Yes. And you won’t have to worry about me hitting that one. I never get a bullseye,” she complained.
“Awww. That’s awful,” Peter snickered. “But I bet you do sooner or later.”
“Nope, never.” She walked to the line on the floor to stand behind and faced the dartboard. “We take turns. You get three darts each turn. I only have one set so we’ll have to share these. And no, I don’t have cooties.”
“Whew!” Peter exhaled. Kaila slapped his shoulder playfully. “Who goes first?”
“The lady does, of course. Stand aside, buddy boy.”
“But of course. How silly of me,” Peter laughed. He stepped to her side and watched her throw her first dart. She hit the eighteen on her first try. “Hey, not bad!” Kaila smiled broadly and she continued to throw the other two darts. One hit two and the last one landed on eighteen again, right next to her first one with a thump.
“Two eighteens!” she called out happily.
“Holy cow!” Peter exclaimed. “You’re an ace at this! Man, I’m losing already. So how do you score that?”
She walked over to the scoreboard and showed him. “It means I get one slash for the first one and I complete the X for the second one. If I get a third eighteen, you put a circle around the X and then it’s closed out.”
“Closed out?”
“Yep,” she answered. “Once a player hits a number three times it’s theirs to keep adding to and the other player doesn’t get any points if they hit that number after that. So if I get another eighteen before you can get three of them, it’s mine. I own it. And you suck.”
Peter laughed as hard as he could. “It’ll be yours, huh?” Kaila nodded proudly. “All right, we’ll see about that.” Peter retrieved the darts from the board and stepped to the line. He threw his first dart and it landed on the outer edge, scoring nothing.
“Boo!” Kaila teased.
“My eyes were closed,” Peter said, trying not to laugh.
“Uh-huh.”
He threw the next two darts and one landed on fifteen and the other on eight.
Kaila nodded in recognition. “Not bad, not bad. So now you get a slash mark by the fifteen on the board.”
“I think I’ve got the hang of it,” he replied. “This is fun.”
They began to play darts and listen to the football game on the radio at the same time. A couple other students were in the lounge watching TV or just sitting and chatting. But otherwise Kaila and Peter pretty much had things to themselves in there. No one bothered them as they played. A cheer came from the radio as some excitement was happening during the football game.
Kaila leaned towards the radio to hear what had just happened. “Hey, I think we just scored. The Lunas are winning already.”
“Sweet,” Peter said. “My dad said they are supposed to be good this year.”
“Yeah,” Kaila nodded. “They’ve even made the playoffs a couple times. Never won it all though. Those other schools on Oahu are tough to beat.”
“Yeah, I remember. Not too many teams did well from the Big Island, either.”
“So how’d you like living over there?” she asked him.
He grabbed the darts from the board and talked while he threw them. “It wasn’t bad. Not quite as busy as Maui is. So it’s mostly quiet. But you are far from everything. Have to drive a long ways to do anything. They don’t call it the Big Island for nothing.”
“You get bored?” she asked.
“Yeah, sometimes. It’s probably why I’m going to school here now. Got too bored I guess.”
“Oh yeah, what happened?” Kaila’s curiosity was getting the best of her.
“Got busted,” he said flatly. “These friends of mine, they were cookin’ up meth. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but they kept saying they can makes lots of money with it. Well the cops had already found their lab and one night I was on my way over there to pick them up. But they had already split. I guess they knew the cops were coming. As soon as I drove up they busted me as an accessory. I had to go to juvenile and everything. My mom was pissed.”
“I can imagine.” Kaila thought for a moment. “So…”
“I’m not into that stuff, I promise.” Peter assured her. “I never take drugs, never even tried them. I’ve never wanted to. Just lousy friends. So they sent me here to get me away from them I guess. My dad got me in since he was a boarder here a long time ago.” He was a bit concerned about what Kaila was thinking about him now that he told her the truth. “You believe me, right?”
She nodded. She knew he was being sincere. “Well, that’s not the person that I’ve been talking to these past weeks. I know you are not
like that. So don’t worry.” She paused for a moment. “It’s good you have parents who care so much for you to try and get you away from that stuff. There are worse places to be.”
“Ha ha, my dad said the same thing. ‘Nothing wrong with being a pig farmer’, he said.”
Kaila smiled. “I like your dad.” Peter threw another dart and it hit the bullseye. “Hey, nice shot!”
Peter laughed out loud. “Not bad, huh? Let’s see you top that!”
“Beginner’s luck. Has to be,” she chuckled. She skipped over to the board and made a mark for him for the bullseye. After she retrieved the darts she bounced back over the line and stood next to Peter. “That was awesome. I’m having fun.”
“Me too,” Peter said as he inched closer to her. As she was aiming the dart, he casually placed his hand on the small of her back. She paused for a moment, almost shocked as she realized the warm touch of his hand on her back. She couldn’t believe his boldness. But he was very comfortable around her and she could sense that. She felt the warmth of him next to her and he had a natural scent that was intoxicating to her. Or maybe it was the cologne he wore. Either way, she loved it. And the fact that he was so calm when he was around her. It was something she had never experienced before with another boy. She tried her best to keep her composure as she aimed the dart. She finally let it go and the dart bounced oddly off the frame of the board and landed on the floor.
“Ugh,” she gasped. “That was terrible.”
Peter laughed a bit and said, “Sorry to distract you.”
“Oh I bet,” she said, smiling broadly. “You did that on purpose.”
“Maybe.”
“Mmm hmm.” She tossed the other two darts and both landed on twenty. “See? I’ve already overcome your powers.”
Peter laughed again. “That was awesome. Oh man, now I’m really losing bad.”
“Get used to it,” she snickered. She marked down her score, grabbed the darts and sauntered over and gracefully handed them to him. She definitely did not mind flirting with him. She liked how easy it was to be around him. It just seemed to fit, but she just could not put her finger on why. That question seemed to stick out in her thoughts. Why was she so comfortable with him? Why did it feel so right? She tried to push those questions aside and just enjoy the moment. Of all the years she had been a boarder at Lahainaluna, she had never had this much fun.
Peter had some thoughts on his mind as well. He wanted to ask her if she had any weekend plans but did not know how to approach the subject without sounding too obvious. He really wanted to spend more time with her though. He wondered if she was feeling the same way. He could sense something about her that was completely foreign to him. But he was loving it nonetheless. He wanted to know more.
“So, you have a lot of studying this weekend?” he finally asked. Just then the Lunas scored another touchdown in the football game. “Hey they scored again.”
Kaila pumped her fists in the air. “Woohoo! This weekend? I guess I have some math to do and I’m still wracking my brain about my senior paper. But I still have time on that. You?”
Flipping another dart at the board, he casually said, “Nah, I guess I have some math too. Gotta history test next week.” He thought for a moment more. He knew they would not need the whole weekend for homework, that was for certain. “What else are you gonna do?”
“Well…” she said as she slid next to him for her turn at darts, “Tomorrow I was going to take my scooter over to the Cannery Mall to watch my little sister in the keiki hula show. Would you like to come with me?”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Peter answered excitedly. “I’d love to meet her. Both your sisters dance, huh? Did you ever learn that?”
“Of course. My mom had us all in hula. It was fun. But Leilani, she’s definitely the best at it. You have to see her too. Maybe one night she can get us in at her luau.”
Peter nodded. “That would be cool. I’d love to go.” He meant it too. He really wanted to spend more time with her and this was a perfect way. He felt on top of the world after she asked him to go with her Saturday.
Kaila continued, “Kari loves to dance too. She’s so cute in her little hula skirt.” Peter laughed at her. “So, what do you know about West Maui?”
“Nothing really,” he said frankly. “I’ve seen the church and the school. All I know is the view up here is amazing. But Hawaii has a lot of that. Waimea has some great lookouts too. Maybe I can show you sometime.”
“Yeah, that would be great,” she said sweetly. “I’d love to see where you’re from. I’ve never been to that island.”
“It’s got some great places,” Peter said proudly.
“Well, maybe I can show you around West Maui a bit. You up for it?”
Peter threw another dart and it plunked right in the center. Kaila’s jaw dropped in amazement. “You tell me where and I’ll be there. Bullseye!”
“That…is…amazing!” Kaila exclaimed. She laughed out loud. “`Never played much before’ my ass! Now I’m losing. You rock!”
Peter’s face turned flush. “Nah, beginner’s luck.”
The game on the radio had ended and it was time for the boys to leave the lounge for the night. The Lunas won the game over King Kekaulike, 29-0.
Peter and Kaila had started to become closer with each passing moment. In fact, Peter thought it was the best day so far and he hoped things would keep getting better. He never expected anything like this would happen when he first arrived at Lahainaluna. But he was loving every minute he got to spend with her.
Deep in her heart, Kaila knew there was something special about Peter. His past did not bother her. She knew in her heart he was not that sort of person. She did not quite know where all this was leading, she just knew she was happy spending time with him. She had been on dates with a few boys, but never had she made such a strong connection with someone like this before. They just seemed to click. She could not explain it, she just knew it.
She stepped outside with him before he headed back to his dorm. The air was crisp and the breeze had picked up a bit. She stared into the heavens and breathed a heavy, happy sigh. “We might get a little shower tonight.”
“Yeah, looks that way,” Peter replied.
“I love it,” she said. “Brings out the sweet aromas on the plumeria trees. Well, thanks for showing me up in there. That was fun.”
“Hey, I had a great teacher,” he said smoothly. “I had fun too, thanks for asking me. I can’t wait til tomorrow, should be fun.”
“I don’t have the pigs tomorrow at work. I’m helping Taney in the cafeteria,” she said. “So I’ll see you after work?”
“Yep. I have the landscaping tomorrow. Might be mowing grass, I dunno. But yeah, I’ll see you then.”
He was hoping to at least give her a hug, but he was not sure if he should or not. She was thinking the same thing, but was waiting for him to make the first move. Finally she thought, What the hell, and took the initiative. She leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Peter was all too glad to give her a hug in return. He laced his arms gently around her waist. Her scent intoxicated him. She felt so soft in his arms, so sensual, so right. His heart pounded in his chest. He had been wanting to be this close to her all evening.
She looked up at him, smiled and said softly, “Good night, Pika. Thank you.”
His face beamed with emotion. He was definitely falling for her. And he loved that she knew his real name. Everything about her just amazed him.
“Thank you too. Good night,” he said lovingly to her. “You sleep well.” He was dying to kiss her but he did not want to seem too forward. He hoped that time would come soon. The hug was more than wonderful, though. A perfect ending to a perfect night.