Page 127 of CowSex

He gives me a half smile. “Bestgetused to it then.”

He’s been a bit quiet since Malia arrived, or is it since his ex-wife left? The woman’s a complete arsehole, and I’ve no clue how Koa ended up married to two total bitches. One a drunken psycho, the other a straight-up C-U-Next-Tuesday.

Ruby returns, fluttering her eyelashes at Kai and guides us to our booth. Kai and Koa slide in one side, Malia next to me opposite of them.

At her insistence, she’s wearing one of my beanies on her head, and despite the fact that I rolled it up a couple times, it’s still way too big and sliding over her eyes.

She sits up on her knees and rests her elbows on the table.

“Pancakes, please. Just syrup, no bacon. Thank you,” she tells Ruby, who hasn’t even begun taking our orders yet.

“Wait up, Lia,” Kai tells her. She sticks her tongue out at him in response.

“You all right?” I ask Koa. “You’re very quiet.”

“Hung-over more like. Can’t hold your liquor like you used to, huh, old man?” Kai quips.

“I can hold my liquor fine, boy. Just got a lot on my mind.” He winks at me, and I melt into the PVC seat.

Ruby takes our drinks orders—green tea is now on the menu—and hands Malia a cup full of crayons so she can colour the picture on the back of her kid’s menu.

I skim my eyes over my menu and then flick them to Koa, who’s fidgeting in his seat. Kai’s scrolling through his phone, and Malia’s humming to herself as she colours in a mermaid, so I kick his foot under the table to get his attention. He puts his menu down and looks at me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask just as Ruby arrives with our drinks and Malia’s pancakes. Koa shakes his head at me. I frown in confusion.

“We’ll talk about it later.”

My mind trips right into full-on overdrive, and I begin speculating about what I might’ve done to piss him off. Though, he doesn’t appear pissed off, just a little quiet and maybe agitated or uncomfortable.

I think back to earlier this morning when he first opened his eyes and sang, “I think I wanna marry you.” Perhaps he’s regretting that? Or concerned that I might have actually taken him seriously.

Pffft.

Not at all.

Okay, for a split second.

Maybe.

Okay, so I admit, I went to Pinterest and may have started researching Aspen weddings.

Malia stops her humming long enough to order her pancakes, and Koa tells Kai to put his phone away before the rest of us place our orders.

The lack of conversation makes everything uncomfortable, and I rack my brain for something to say that’s not too random.

“So, your names, are they all Hawaiian?”

“Mine is. It means Mary in Hawaiian. Like baby Jesus’s mom, and Daddy’s great grandma who comes from Hawaiian land. Right, Daddy?” Malia says all that without looking up from her now purple-and-pink haired mermaid.

“Right, baby girl.”

“What’s yours mean?” I ask Kai.

“Ocean or sea,” he tells me.

“You have middle names?”

“I do. Malia Lucinda Carmichael. Age four,” she announces proudly and holds up four fingers.