My Kind of Town
>> Kapiolani Boulevard Seeing eye to eye
Just seeing her cousin Quinn on his HPD bike going the other direction made Lily Ah Sun swoon. A cousin isn't supposed to make you feel like that. But she'd felt it before she knew they were related, when he'd pulled her over for speeding. Standing at her door, he'd taken off his Oakley wrap-arounds, leaned down and stared into her eyes. As she looked back into his light brown hapa eyes, her heart raced and she felt warm inside. There was nothing logical or rational about it, but in those moments she knew that this was everything she wanted. And every signal she was getting from him was that maybe the feeling was mutual.
But then he'd looked at her license and said her name and sounded shocked.
Only then had she noticed the name stitched in gold on his blue uniform. The form-fitting uniform that showed off the physique of a man who worked out often and hard. Emphasis on hard. But his name was also her's, Ah Sun. It's so unfair -- the man of her dreams finally shows up at her car door and turns out to be her first cousin.
At the moment he must be on serious police business, judging from the way he accelerated away. And she couldn't help feeling disappointed that he'd seen her and just disappeared again.
Maybe she'd been wrong about their having mutual feelings. Probably just as well. Damnit.
>> Bishop Square
Greg was giving up already. He sighed sadly. Maybe later he'd shed a tear thinking about Lance in the past tense. He could be such a sweetheart. But if Lance had given a cockroach's okole about their relationship, he would have been here for the hate crimes bill rally and the march to the Capitol.
Not for the first time in his life, Greg was alone in a crowd.
"Greg! Omigod. You look so good!"
"Oh, hi!"
Omigod, indeed. It was Ralph. Greg didn't really like Ralph. He forever gossiped about people Greg didn't know or care about. But Greg did appreciate Ralph's understanding of, ah, human anatomy.
"Ralph, what a surprise! I didn't know you had a political bone in your body."
Actually, Ralph was just cruising. And he saw an opening. "I do on this issue!"
"I'm so glad!"
"Mind if I walk with you?"
At that moment, with Lance a no-show and their relationship apparently over, Greg needed a friend. "Please!"
"I love your sign."
"Oh, thanks." Greg carried a placard on a stick. Hate Sucks.
Soon to be the infamous sign.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com