Read 12 Hours In Paradise for Free Online

said. “And I know when we both sang to someone else. About five minutes ago.”
    “And to yourself. Quick, no time to think about your answer.”
    “Probably last year on my birthday. Every birthday I wake up and sing the happy birthday song to myself before I get out of bed.”
    “Really?” He arched his eyebrows. “I would say that’s a sign of a well-adjusted and happy individual with high self-esteem.”
    “You really think so?”
    “If you think so, then I probably just guessed right. Otherwise…it sounded pretty good, don’t you think?”
    “And you? When did you last sing to yourself?”
    “I’m sure it must have been today or yesterday. I sing to myself all the time.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I record it here whenever I get an idea for a song.”
    “I wanna hear.” I made a grab for his phone, but he held it above my head out of my reach before replacing it in his pocket. I let it go.
    “Question six…”
    His cell phone chimed, and he retrieved it from his pocket, and then swiped his thumb across the screen. A smile crept over his face.
    “What’s so funny? Who was that?”
    “That was the Adonis. The boy of your initial dreams before I stole you away from him.”
    “The blond guy you were with in the cookie store?”
    “The very same one. Should I have put you on with him?”
    “Um…no. Why was he calling?”
    “We’re sharing a room at the hotel with two other guys. He was just checking on me. Obviously, he knows I’m gone.”
    “He won’t say anything to anyone, will he?”
    Arash cocked an eyebrow and skeptically lifted one side of his mouth. “Dorothy…please tell me you’ve heard of the bro code.”
    “Okay, okay. I just don’t want you to get in trouble because of me.”
    “And I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me. Shall we go back to your hotel now? We could text-answer the rest of the questions.”
    “And not stare into each other’s eyes for four straight minutes? The whole test would be invalid.”
    “It’s true, it would…but I think you should go back.”
    “Question six…hurry.”
    “Question six. ‘If you live to be ninety, would you rather have the mind or the body of a thirty-year-old for the last sixty years of your life? You can’t have both.’”
    “I don’t want either. Can’t I have a younger body and/or mind? How about eighteen? Or even twenty? That’s still a long ways away from now.”
    “I suppose thirty is pretty old, so let’s make it a twenty-year-old. Body or mind?”
    “Hmmm…so I could be ninety and have a really hot bod?”
    “But lose your mind.”
    “Mind then. You?”
    “Mind, definitely.”
    We’d arrived at an ice cream mochi store. “You want one?” I asked.
    “First you’d have to explain what ice cream mochi is,” Arash said. “And then I’ll decide if I want one.”
    “Mochi is…well, it’s Japanese, I know that much.”
    “And?”
    “And I think it’s made from rice.”
    “And the taste of this Japanese rice creation. How would it differ from…say, the taste of rice?”
    “Oh, it’s sweet. And gooey. Well, not really gooey but more chewy.”
    “Gooey but chewy. Sweet and Japanese. And something about ice cream?”
    “Ice cream in the middle.”
    “Dorothy, you’ve managed to sell this well. I think I’d very much like to join you for an ice cream mochi. Is there a particular flavor you’d recommend?”
    “I like green tea,” I said warily. I wasn’t sure if I really had sold him or if he was just teasing.
    “Then green tea it is.”
    The line snaked out the door like every other place in Waikiki.
    “We could use this time to answer a few more questions.” I was slightly wobbly with fatigue and leaned back into him. He wrapped his arms around me for a minute before pulling away slightly to rest his hands on my shoulders.
    “This is a hard one,” he said. “Ready?”
    “Ready.”
    “‘Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?’”
    “It’s