those pictures of him on MenSayHi.
When I walked into the Rod and Reel Club, Sergei was already at the bar making conversation with Fred, the bartender. Fred’s handsome but brainless, a sexy dude with a buff chest, a diamond stud in his left ear, and enough charm to pave the length of the Kamehameha Highway. I felt jealous, wondering if Sergei would go home with Fred rather than with me at the end of the evening.
But Sergei was glad to see me, enveloping me in a big bear hug, kissing me on the lips, and squeezing my butt. I felt a second wind and ordered a Longboard Lager. When it arrived, Sergei and I went outside to the patio.
The moon moved in and out behind clouds above us. The ground light was too strong to see any stars, but the music wasn’t loud and I could smell plumeria blossoms from a tourist’s lei behind me. I started to relax.
“How’s life in Honolulu treating you?” I asked.
“Way different from Anchorage, I’ll tell you that. I don’t think I’ve stopped sweating since I got off the plane.”
“Haoa working you too hard?”
He shrugged. “I do the payroll, and I interview and hire guys. That’s the toughest part. Americans don’t want to work that hard for that money. So most of the guys these days are from someplace else. Chinese, Okinawan, Filipino, Malay, Samoan. I could run a Pacific branch of the UN if I wanted.”
He took a swig of his beer and leaned forward. “I shouldn’t tell you this, you being a cop, but sometimes you have to look the other way when a guy doesn’t have the right paperwork. I mean, you have no idea what the government wants these days. Some guys, they just don’t have the stuff.”
“You think they might be illegal?”
“I don’t ask, I don’t tell.”
I’d always thought my brothers were scrupulously honest-but who among us can pass every test? I’d lied to my family for years about my sexual orientation. Lui had sent TV reporters to chase me when I came out, making a news story out of my life. Even Haoa had reacted badly, beating up Tatiana’s friend Tico when he went on a gay- bashing spree with some of his workmen because he couldn’t deal with the fact that his little brother was a mahu.
For the next couple of hours, Sergei and I drank, played some pool, and danced. I kept thinking about Mike, though, and when a big Samoan guy asked Sergei to dance, and they locked lips on the dance floor, I was happy to turn Sergei over to him.
MAJOR CONVERSATIONAL SHIFTS
Saturday morning I slept in, letting my body recover from the stress of the week. I wasn’t sure what to do with the knowledge that Sergei might be hiring illegals to work for Haoa’s landscaping firm. Should I just keep quiet? Tell my father and let him decide what to do? If I told Haoa, he’d explode; Tatiana would have to mediate. Maybe I should just go to her? It was too confusing.
Around noon I drove out to Diamond Head and caught a few waves, stretching my body and clearing my head. On the way back, I rolled up the flaps on the Wrangler, turned the CD player up on some classic Bruddah Iz, and chilled out. It was the weekend, after all. I’d worry about what to do about Sergei on Monday.
Since Mike and I were meeting Terri and her new boyfriend for dinner out in Hawai’i Kai, it made the most sense for him to pick me up. It was a cool night, with a stiff breeze blowing in off the ocean, and I waited outside for him wearing a navy sports jacket over khaki slacks and a light-blue oxford cloth button-down shirt.
It was the way I’d dressed as a teenager for formal occasions, and I guess it stuck with me. “You look nice,” Mike said, when I slid into the front seat of his truck.
There was something so deja vu about the experience-almost by reflex I leaned across the seat and kissed his cheek, saying, “You do, too.”
He still smelled the same, a lemon aftershave with tones of sandalwood. He must have shaved just before leaving his house, because his face was smooth. I remembered the texture of his cheek when he had a five o’clock shadow, the slight roughness that always reminded me I was kissing a man.
Mike was wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt and black pants, and I loved the way his short sleeves took hold of his upper arms and showcased his biceps.
“What have you been up to?” I asked. “Any progress on the shopping center investigation?”
“I had another case, took up most of the week. This twenty-eight-year-old guy was dumped by his girlfriend because of his drinking problem, so he poured gasoline on the furniture on her lanai and set it on fire. But he didn’t realize that the wooden furniture with foam cushions would burn so fast. The stuff caught while he was standing out there yelling for her, and he ended up with third-degree burns.”
“Bummer.”
“It made me think about love and liquor. How when things go bad I turn to alcohol, just like this guy did. And I need to be aware of that.” He turned onto Diamond Head Road and said, “Why did you invite me tonight?”
It was lame to say I didn’t know why. So I thought about it, and I said, “Remember when I came to your house last Sunday?”
“It was memorable,” Mike said dryly. “Your ears must have been burning that night when my dad and I had a conversation about you.”
“I’m not his favorite person.” I looked over at Mike. “Does he think I’m the one who made you gay?”
Mike laughed. “You mean are you the seducer who converted his innocent little boy into a cocksucker? No, he said to me one day that he knew I was gay back in high school.”
“So what’s he hate me for? Does he think I turned you into a drunk?”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
“Do you think we’re ever going to be able to have a conversation without one of us hurting the other?” he asked.
“Man, your brain is just popping neurons like crazy,” I said. “I’m having trouble keeping up here. The answer to your first question is the answer to your second question.”
“Now who’s being obscure?”
We got onto the Kalaniana’ole Highway for the last part of the drive out to Hawai’i Kai. The mountains loomed up beside us, trapping us between them and the sea. “What I mean is that a month ago, if somebody had asked me if I still had feelings for you I would have denied it like crazy,” I said. “And then I saw you at the fire, and I realized that was a total lie.”
I looked over at him. “When you challenged me at your house and I said that I still loved you, that was the truth. I’m not sure I love you enough to start dating again and work through all your shit, but I can’t deny there’s still something between us.” I took a deep breath. “And that’s why I asked you to come to dinner. Because I want to either get you out of my system, or get you back in my life.”
“My dad hates you because he thinks you broke my heart, and he thinks it’s because of you that drinking became a problem for me again,” Mike said, as he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. “And both of those things are true.”
He got out of the truck then, forestalling any further discussion, and we saw Terri and a tall, handsome guy approaching us. Mike shrugged into a sports jacket and plastered a smile on his face.
Terri handled the introductions. Levi Hirsch seemed like a nice guy, and there was definite chemistry between him and Terri. The four of us walked into the restaurant, where a slack key piece by Hapa was playing. The ceiling arched above us in imitation of an old Hawaiian halau, or meeting house, and the furniture was all dark wood with a floral print of hibiscus and red ginger on the cushions.
We sat at a table on the terrace overlooking the dark ocean, making small talk. When the waiter came by, Levi said, “Why don’t we share a bottle of wine. White all right with everyone?”
I looked over at Mike, who said, “Fine with me.” Levi surveyed the wine list, ordering a bottle of Alto Adige Sauvignon, which, according to its description, was an Italian white that was racy, with distinctive flavors of melon, grapefruit, and grass followed by spicy green peppers and gooseberry notes. I would have preferred a beer, but I
