Page 14

Chapter fourteen

Keala

Keala

Been choreographing a lot recently and keep thinking about our sessions at your apartment. Miss you tons!

Josie

Don’t make me cry. I miss you more!!

K eala had two big reasons to be stressed about practice that evening. The first was that she’d stayed long after her shift ended yesterday and hadn’t made it to Zoe’s for an extra practice, which meant she might not be perfect today. The second was that Angelica would be at the choreography session tonight after practice, and all Keala had been able to come up with was what she’d thought up in the hospital closet yesterday plus a couple more beats.

Cora forgave unpreparedness to a certain extent. Angelica did not.

Attempting to meal prep, she seasoned her chicken while twirling around the kitchen, completing the choreography she’d strung together so far. She hoped if she continued working through it, the next steps would reveal themselves to her. So far, she hadn’t had much luck.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,” she muttered as she moved, rolling her hips and looking side to side. Picking up the baking sheet with the seasoned meat, she put it in to broil.

Keala put a fifteen-minute timer on her phone, like the online recipe told her to do. She figured she should prep her meals for the week to make sure she ate enough to keep her energy levels up. She wasn’t the biggest fan of chicken and vegetables, but she also wasn’t the world’s greatest chef by any stretch of the imagination, so her choices were limited.

Back in her room, she ran through the first dance they would practice tonight from start to finish before going through the other three. The pregame dance was the same every game, but the other three were new pieces, which meant they had limited time to perfect them. Keala put in her wireless headphones and started moving.

She was beginning their halftime dances when a piercing, high-pitched noise sounded somewhere in the apartment. It was so loud, she could hear it clearly with headphones in, and when she took them out, she all but collapsed onto the floor as she attempted to cover her ears again.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” she whispered, trying to figure out what could possibly be making so much noise. Her brain moved slowly, but finally she realized.

Her vegetables.

She had left her vegetables in when she’d started broiling the chicken. She was supposed to have taken them out.

Shit .

Keala stood, rushing into the kitchen. Sure enough, smoke billowed inside the oven, and she was certain she saw a hint of flames.

“Oh god. Oh no. This is so not good.” What if she burned down Ikaika’s apartment? He was going to throw her out and she would have to live out of her car. Or worse, with her parents.

She grabbed the oven mitt, ripping the oven door open as the front door slammed. Ikaika had come home from the facility early and was going to see the mess she’d made of his apartment, and that was going to be it. Trying to fix it any way she could, she pulled the baking sheet out and threw the vegetables into the sink, turning on the water to put out the small fire.

Her eyes burned. Her nose burned. She was glad Chowder hated her presence so much that she was probably downstairs in Ikaika’s bedroom, well away from the smoke.

Keala turned, coughing, and took in Landon’s tall form in the entry of the kitchen. All he had on was a pair of shorts and socks, thighs on full display.

My god . They were thick as tree trunks, and she could just make out the start of a tattoo disappearing underneath the hem of his shorts. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but he was the most muscular man she’d ever seen. Strong forearms turned to stronger biceps, a full sleeve of tattoos from his left hand to his heart, where a butterfly and a date were located. Her eyes dropped to his abs and the trail of hair that disappeared into his shorts.

“Keala!” Landon waved a hand to get her attention. The fire alarm still screeched overhead, and she half read his lips. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. He walked around the island, taking stock of what had happened. Turning off the tap, he frowned at what had once been sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. It was nothing but a charred lump now.

“What the hell happened?” he yelled.

“I was baking my veggies and forgot to take them out when I started broiling my chicken.”

“You didn’t smell them burning? They must have been smoking for a while before this.”

Keala glared at him, not liking that he’d flown into her apartment to berate her. Something told her to be nice, but it was easier to let out her stream of consciousness. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was practicing because, unlike you , I’m not a slacker. What are you doing here when the rest of the guys are at the facility?”

Something she couldn’t identify flashed across Landon’s face as he pulled on the oven mitt, taking out the chicken and setting it onto the island. If she could have heard over the sound of the smoke detector, she might have been able to discern her phone alarm going off. He grabbed a towel and used it to waft the smoke out, opening balcony doors while Keala stood in the kitchen, waiting for an explanation. Though she regretted being so rude to him when he was trying to help.

Even if he could have chosen his words better.

In an effort to assist him, she tried unlocking the large windows behind the kitchen sink, but nothing she did worked. After a few seconds, Keala felt Landon behind her, a hand on her lower back as he gently moved her out of the way, murmuring, “I got it.”

It took him all of a couple of seconds to get them unlocked and open.

Landon turned to her, a small smile on his face. “Tuesdays are typically our day off. A lot of the guys go in to get food, but I like to cook my own meals when I get the chance, so I don’t go in.”

“Oh.”

Now she felt bad, but where she might have apologized to someone else for jumping to conclusions, she couldn’t bring herself to do so with him.

Over the last few days, Keala had been trying to figure out why she felt comfortable enough to be direct with him. To be a less perfect version of herself. Someone who didn’t have to do everything right, who could lash out like others did, make mistakes and not worry about being left behind. Who didn’t need to placate him for fear of escalation.

Maybe it was because he’d proved that he would stay in her life despite her messiness, despite the blunder she had made their first night together. Maybe it was the knowledge that he was aware of some of her darkest secrets and didn’t seem to think less of her because of them. Whatever it was, she felt perfectly comfortable telling him exactly how she felt when she’d never been able to do the same with anyone else.

Testing the limits, checking to see how much of herself would end up being too much.

Keala did feel bad for calling him a slacker though. At least in this instance. She knew she should apologize.

She remembered how she’d felt when he had mentioned his mother on the couch a couple of days ago. Landon hadn’t said much, but the way the light in his eyes had shuttered after a few moments—sputtered out as if the thought of her had blown out a burning candle—had unsettled her. He’d raised walls she hadn’t known had come down, then thrown out a joke to cover his emotions, and she hated that it had made her want to know more about it.

About him .

“Doing an awful lot of thinking again,” he said, tapping a finger against her temple gently, smiling down at her without any of his usual cockiness. “Climb out of there and come hang out with me.”

Keala searched his face, watching his smile widen when she still didn’t answer. “One second,” she responded, realizing the smoke detector had stopped. It reminded her to turn off her alarm and close Chowder in Ikaika’s bedroom to prevent her from going out on the balcony.

When she came back, Landon asked, “Do you want some help cooking?”

She wanted to say no, to keep pushing, but even she could see that she was wrong for what she’d said.

“Okay,” she mumbled. Clearing her throat, she nodded. “Sure. Thank you.”

“Do you have more veggies? I can order more if not.”

Keala opened the fridge and pulled out the other half of the vegetables she’d purchased from the grocery store across the street. If things hadn’t gone so poorly, it would have all been enough for a week’s worth of meals, but now she would be lucky to stretch it for three to four days.

Landon chopped them swiftly.

“Do you cook a lot?” she asked, watching the deft movement of his hands, like a musician playing a familiar tune. The sparrow on his hand looked like it was taking flight, and the words across it that read “to the moon and back” were more tender than Keala could have ever imagined from him.

“I try to. I find I like the quality and taste better than the facility meals, and this way, I know my exact macros. Which, yes, we have nutritionists who are keeping track of that stuff but…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. I like doing it myself.”

Keala pulled the paper with charred vegetables off the baking sheet, tossing it into the trash before cleaning the tray. Her cheeks burned when she remembered that this was now the second time she had embarrassed herself in his presence. She hoped this didn’t become standard practice.

She set the tray down, adding another paper liner to it.

“Did you teach yourself?”

Landon stepped beside her, and her breath caught for a millisecond as he added the chopped vegetables onto the tray. “My mom taught me. She was a great cook, and though I was always busy with football, the kitchen was the one place we got to spend time together.”

Keala tucked that past tense “was” into a file in her mind. No wonder he’d seemed to shut down after his mother had come up in conversation Sunday evening.

“That’s sweet, actually.”

Landon smirked. “I am capable of being slightly less of an ass sometimes.”

Keala rolled her eyes, pouring olive oil over the vegetables. “Sure. Like, two percent of the time.”

“You make it so easy.”

“To be an ass?”

He nodded, grabbing the spices she’d left on the counter and handing them to her. “Has anybody ever told you it’s fun to get under your skin?”

“Never.” But she’d also never let anybody know they were under her skin.

“You’re telling me I’m special because I’m the only person in your life who bothers you like this?”

Keala seasoned while he took a knife to the chicken. “I wouldn’t use the word special . You’re just in my space all the time and love the sound of your own voice. Annoying me is inevitable with that combination.”

“Ah, so you were sent to humble me.”

“You do need a healthy dose of humbling.”

“Don’t worry. You running out on our one night of fun was plenty humbling. Job well done.”

She glared at him, though he had that lopsided smirk on his face and was obviously joking. Keala remembered how forward he’d been when asking her out the other night, talking about finishing that “one night of fun.” The thought excited her more than she could comprehend, but it was a bad idea.

“And you’re back to being an ass.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? You only gave me two percent. I’m running with it.”

Ignoring him, she changed the settings on the oven, double- and then triple-checking that they were set properly for the vegetables.

“I’d better do that,” he joked. Landon took the sheet from her and placed it in, reviewing the settings once more. “The chicken’s perfect. Do you have containers I can put these into?”

Keala hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Oh, I…damn. Let me run downstairs to get some.”

“No need. I have a ton. Be right back.” He turned, placing his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened at the contact and at being so close to his muscled chest, the scent of pine just poking its head through the smell of smoke. “Don’t burn down the place while I’m gone.” He turned and moved out of the kitchen.

“Shut up! And put on a damn shirt.”

His head popped back into the room, dimple on full display as he laughed. “You might have been sent to humble me, but you can’t deny the sway of my rock-hard pecs.”

“I hate you.” But she also couldn’t disagree because her request had been a plea for her own sanity.

A couple of minutes later, he returned with a few glass containers, and to Keala’s chagrin, an apron. It read This guy rubs his own meat . She started to ask about it but thought better of it.

“So, who taught you how to set a kitchen on fire?”

Keala added some rice from the rice cooker to the containers, then added the chicken Landon had sliced for her. “My mom is also a great cook. I didn’t inherit the gene or the interest. I’m more of a premade salad or frozen meal person since I’m so busy, but I finished up some social media work early and decided to try.” She smiled down at the counter shyly. “It went about as well as I’d expected, all things considered.”

Even as a child, Keala had pushed herself to her limits, making sure she was always boasting crazy hours and achieving as much as she could to compensate for the fact that she wasn’t as naturally smart as Akoni. It was no surprise that cooking had never been of particular importance to her.

“So should I expect the building to go up in flames any day now? Will this be a weekly occurrence? Because we do have Thursday games, you know. I might not always be off on Tuesdays.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find the fire extinguisher.”

“Good. Because I have a vested interest in this place now, you know?”

“Yes, I kind of figured that when I walked into you mid-move.”

Landon chuckled, opening the oven to check on the vegetables. “You were so pissed when you saw me, I thought you were gonna go full homicide.”

“Yeah, ’cause I’m the type of person who would commit a crime,” she muttered sarcastically.

“No? I could’ve sworn I saw your mugshot at the police station for arson. Very pretty, by the way.”

“Oh my god, will you go away?” She shoved him, but he didn’t budge. Her embarrassment meter was going to be full for the foreseeable future.

“I can’t until the vegetables are out. You haven’t proven to me that you know where the extinguisher is, and until then, I’ll handle the veggies.”

One of the three sets of balcony doors creaked shut from the September breeze, and Keala walked over to close them now that the smoke had dissipated. She was sure Chowder was most displeased at being closed into a room, so she made her way downstairs to free her.

Just as she’d thought, the moment Keala opened the bedroom door, Chowder went running up the stairs, upset meows drowning out the pitter patter of her paws as she found Landon and rubbed against his leg.

“Him you like? But the person who gives you food every time she eats gets screamed at?”

“Chowder’s very particular.”

“I can tell.”

When the vegetables were finally in the containers and safely in the fridge, Landon shut the windows and locked them with a self-satisfied smirk. He shouldered past Keala, his hand just brushing against hers as he passed her in the kitchen entryway.

Pulling open the front door, he kept that smile as he said, “When you’re ready for something more advanced that tastes a hell of a lot better, I’m across the hall.”

And then he was gone. Chowder glared at her like it was her fault.