Read Haole Wood for Free Online Page A

ten coats of Triple XXX-tra mascara I couldn’t come anywhere near that lush lash extravaganza he had going on. “Lush lash, lush lash, lush lash,” I said. “Say that three times fast.”
    We talked and drank, bumping shoulders and accidentally-on-purpose touching thighs until the crowded bar started to thin. Jac grabbed my hand, slapped a fifty on the bar and pulled me outside behind him.
    I took a deep breath. “I love Maui.”
    “And Maui loves you,” Jac said. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift home.”
    “Okie-dokie, Dr. Jac. That’s probably a good idea.” I agreed but I felt my lower lip pouting that he didn’t, you know, invite me back to his place or something. He held my hand tightly and walked me down several blocks before we turned off Front Street to his car parked right near the deserted park.
    My hand was practically having an orgasm at the pressure of his palm. As we walked, his bicep kept rubbing my breast, which sent out an SOS for more contact. I floated in a suspended state of animation, a vacuum of well-being. I could hear the waves, smell a hint of jasmine in the air, and the moon spotlighted just the two of us.
    We reached his car and as he opened the door for me, my body twirled into his. I grabbed his shoulders and pulled hard. He bent his head for my kiss and then took over. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to touch and feel and taste . . . and bite and squeeze. Scratch and suck. I couldn’t believe my own hands were reaching down and pulling up his t-shirt, over and off his head. Hubba hubba. What a body. I couldn’t even remember his name but he remembered mine because he whispered it in my ear. He stopped kissing me for a second as he reached into the car for a beach towel and spread it atop the soft grass under the large banyan tree. I wouldn’t let him go and twined myself around his arm. The warm, tangy atmosphere embraced us in a perfect caress as he unzipped my sundress that certainly did its job. Poof. I felt my bra and underwear disappear. Mmm. I melted into him. Between the sound of the Pacific Ocean egging us on and the spiraling whirlpools tickling deep, deep inside my ear canals, I imagined this must feel a lot like surfing.
    Awesome.
    How could I have known sand in my stilettos would be the least of my problems?

Chapter 6

Shit Creek

    I woke up the next morning to a song stuck in my head. It took only a few moments to figure out exactly why a long-lost jump rope rhyme skipped around the swollen membranes formerly know as my brain.
    “Ooh, ahh, I forgot my bra. I left it in my boyfriend’s car.” The cheery sunlight barged through my bedroom window as loud as a laugh track. I searched under my crumpled dress, which hid my shoes. Nope. Rats. I loved that bra and it was the only one I brought with me. It was my BraVo, designed by a friend of mine who’s a fashion designer back in San Diego.
    That’s what a slut like me gets for having sex with some random hunk. In the park. In the dark. In the grass. He had a great ass. I shook my head carefully because it was throbbing. I pulled on my bathing suit. In the mirror, through my puffy slit eyes, my cheeks turned red. I couldn’t even look at myself.
    I went to the linen closet at the end of the hall, just like I used to when I had been a little girl. I didn’t inherit much from my grandmother, not her coloring, almond shaped eyes, smooth brown skin, but I did receive the towel and sheet-folding gene. My grandmother was an amazing folder. Sure enough, I opened the closet to four sets of immaculately folded linens, looking like they could slip right back into the plastic bag from the factory. On the shelf above them, colorful cotton towels, bath towels on the left, beach towels on the right, all stacked precisely the same way, folded in half, then one-third folded in, one-third folded in, then folded in half again. I got tears in my eyes as I grabbed the retro blue beach towel with faded bubbles on it that used to