Meet Me in Hawaii by Georgia Toffolo (novels for beginners txt) 📕

eyes upwards to find Zoe giving him an apologetic smile over Malie’s shoulder.

‘Maybe we could all meet for a drink later instead?’ Zoe suggested as she was lowered into the beach chair. ‘I’m sure you guys will be thirsty after all this manual labour.’

He could just imagine the glare Malie would be directing at her friend.

‘Sure… if Malie’s up for it.’

‘I am!’ piped up Tara, sloshing her brush about.

‘We’ll see,’ Malie mumbled, with a fleeting look in his direction before starting off down the beach.

He watched them go, unable to stop smiling. So Malie had talked to Zoe about him… Not only that, Zoe was matchmaking, it was as obvious as Malie’s own interest in him. She wouldn’t be half as flustered if he meant nothing to her.

And you really shouldn’t be so happy about that fact.

But he was. There was no point denying it any longer, he wanted to mean something to her…

‘Masters and Malie sitting in a tree…’ His eyes snapped to Tara who was singing into her brush. ‘K-I-S-S-I-N-G!’

‘Tara!’

She pursed her lips into a smile and went back to work.

‘You need to keep the paint on the brush and the wood, not everywhere else, Tara.’

‘Oops,’ she looked to the fresh splodge at her feet and scrubbed at it with her shoe. ‘Sorry, I got distracted by the love hearts floating around your head.’

He shook said head and walked Zoe’s wheelchair inside the school, safe from Tara’s splash radius.

The girl wasn’t wrong though, was she?

His smile that couldn’t be doused was answer enough.

‘Stop it, Zo.’

Malie adopted the same warning tone she used with mischievous kids who were putting their safety at risk in surfing lessons, only this time, the only thing at risk was Malie’s blood pressure.

‘What?’

‘You’re grinning like a fool.’

‘You can’t even see me back there.’

Malie sensed Zoe risk a glance her way but she was busy avoiding her eye and staring determinedly at Kalani and a bouncing Nalu straight ahead.

‘I don’t need to see you to know you’re grinning so you might as well get it off your chest now before I take it out on you with the waves.’

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Try me.’

‘Aw, come on, Malie,’ Zoe’s plea was full of teasing, ‘you must see how funny this is.’

‘What’s funny?’

‘Is that seriously him? The millionaire businessman who’s up here…’ she waved her hand above her head, her body lurching as Malie hit a rocky patch but it didn’t stop Zoe’s demonstration as she swung her hand down towards the ground, ‘and you’re here.’

‘Exactly.’

She laughed. ‘Yeah, he totally looked it in his jeans, painting the school and looking after that girl. Totally untouchable and unattainable by the likes of you.’

‘Don’t, Zo.’

‘Don’t what? I’m merely pointing out that every argument you’ve given me about why you can’t go there with him is utterly flawed.’

‘It is not.’

‘It is so.’ Zoe turned to look up at her. ‘And you need to see that before this chance passes you by.’

Malie looked down at her friend – she wasn’t laughing now, she was serious, her clear green eyes intense in their insistence. ‘He likes you, Malie, it’s obvious… and you like him too, that’s why you’re so unsettled about this.’

She went to deny it and couldn’t. She couldn’t lie to Zo, she’d done enough lying to herself.

She shook her head. ‘It’s just not that simple.’

‘It could be.’

Malie took a deep breath and glanced back to the surf school, to where Todd and Tara were laughing about something, clearly thick as thieves.

‘Stop trying to fight it, Devil. You never know what’s around the corner.’

‘I do, he has a flight out of here in two weeks.’

‘So?’

‘So, he will leave, and life will go back to how it was before.’

‘All I’m hearing are excuses.’

She sighed. Yes, they were excuses, but they kept her this side of safe, this side of a life she knew and understood. She wasn’t ready to take that plunge.

‘You can’t be scared, you’re the daring one, you’re the one who takes the risks and dreams big.’

No, she wasn’t. And how did she tell Zoe that? She’d given up on her big wave-surfing dreams for fear of walking in her brother’s footsteps, of replacing him, of failing him too. She’d fled Hawke’s Cove rather than fight her parents for what she wanted, to surf, to be heard, to be visible again. And now she was running from Todd for fear of the unknown, of being happy and having it ripped away by a mean twist of fate, of feeling the guilt she was sure she’d feel to have it all where Koa would never be able to.

She shook her entire body out of the funk. Now wasn’t the time for it. Now was about getting Zoe back on a board. A dream that she could follow and one that had existed for a decade already. It was long overdue…

‘You’re just trying to delay this,’ Malie said, locking her eyes on Zoe’s and pleading with her to drop it.

‘No, I’m—’

‘Come on, Zo, we’ve waited ten years to get you on a board again, leave it… for now, at least.’

Her friend looked up at her, her eyes wavering.

‘Or are you just chicken?’

Zoe’s eyes flashed just as she’d known they would. ‘You know I’m not chicken.’

Malie shrugged with a laugh as she leaned forward and pushed the chair forward again. ‘In that case, prove it!’

Zoe looked back to the sea. ‘I will… but this conversation isn’t over, Devil.’

‘No, I didn’t think it would be,’ Malie said under her breath, forcing her head to clear and to focus on the here and now: getting Zoe on a board.

‘Aloha, ladies, it’s about time!’ Kalani beamed at them as they neared.

‘Zoe, meet Kalani, my epic godfather.’ Malie stopped pushing the chair and walked around it to give Kalani a kiss to the cheek.

‘Epic?’ Kalani’s chest puffed. ‘I like the sound of that! It’s great to meet you, Zoe.’

He held out his hand to Zoe just as Todd had done and she shook it. ‘Great to meet