Chapter 50: Chero

“If you ask me, Isabela’s not worth your effort,” Eva muttered in resignation while standing outside my walk-in closet with her arms folded.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not asking you,” I muttered while standing inside the closet buck naked after taking a quick shower, hurriedly stepping into a pair of boxer shorts. I wanted to get dressed quickly and get out the door to go talk to Isabela. “And if I’d listened to anyone telling me that you weren’t worth my effort back when you were being standoffish and giving us all the cold shoulder, where would we be now?”

I’d just pulled up my jeans and still had my hands on the waistband when Eva’s arms suddenly wrapped around my head and her lips sealed over mine. My heart stopped as an electrical shock of pleasure zinged like a lightning bolt into my brain, momentarily stunning me. There was a raspy purr in her throat as she devoured me, a growl of conquest and passion. But just when the initial flashbomb of scintillating whiteout started to fade away and I found myself starting to recover enough to consider returning her kiss, she took one step back, folded her arms across her chest again, and smirked.

“Was I worth the effort?” she asked coyly.

“Uhhh...” I muttered dumbly before summoning enough brain cells to get my head to nod an affirmative.

“Did any of the BTC girls actually tell you that I wasn’t worth the effort?”

Now recovering, I shook my head while grabbing a fresh t-shirt off the shelf. “Belle was a little ‘take her or leave her’ about it, but no. None of them told me to NOT put in the effort. They all know me. They know who I am and what I’m about. We made Izzy part of The BTC, and I don’t just abandon BTC girls. I don’t.”

Eva sighed. “I get it. I get it. But if there’s a key difference between me and her, it’s that she’s choosing to leave.”

“But why is she choosing to leave?” I pulled the t-shirt over my head.

“You heard what Neevie said. Isabela’s a low-drama kind of girl. She wants to have fun, and shit started to get a little intense last night. This isn’t the first time she’s walked away from a relationship because it started to get a little more serious than she really wanted to deal with.”

“I get that.” Tugging down the hem of my t-shirt, I emerged from the closet and headed for the open doorway, with Eva following after me. “I went through the same thing with Holly, actually, where she’d decided that shit was getting a little more serious than she wanted to deal with.”

“And you talked her out of it?”

“Well, no. In the end, I respected her decision to walk away,” I stated while starting my descent down the stairs.

“But Holly came back eventually.”

“Eventually.”

“And you’re hoping for the same thing with Isabela?”

“I don’t know what I’m hoping for right now,” I admitted, pausing halfway down the stairs. I glanced back over my shoulder at Eva, adding, “I just want to talk to her.”

Eva smirked. “You do realize, it’s precisely because you want to ‘talk’ that the low-drama girl wants to walk away. You’re getting clingy, and I don’t think she likes to feel ... uhhh... ‘clung’.”

“She said I’m chero,” I stated with a shrug, “a cherished friend. I just want to find out if she really meant that or not.”

“And if not?”

I sighed. “Then I can let her go.”

When Eva and I hit the main floor, I saw that Naimh’s bedroom door was still closed. While Sam and Naimh had both understood immediately that I’d want to leave and go talk to Isabela, they were both understandably more interested in sharing with each other the discussions they’d both had with me this morning. While I knew that both girls were committed to remaining friends and to keeping The BTC in harmony, the events of last night hadn’t “just gone away”, and a lot of communication would be necessary moving forward.

Glancing at Eva, I suggested, “How about I walk you home?”

Eva took one look at Naimh’s closed bedroom door and nodded her agreement. I knew without asking that she had no interest in going with me to talk to Isabela, nor in sticking around the house by herself while Sam and Naimh were holed up together. So she quickly popped into Sam’s bedroom to grab her bag, and then we left the house together and started down the sidewalk.

“Think it’s gonna rain?” I asked while looking up overhead at the dark gray clouds that filled most of the sky and blotted out the sun.

“Hard to say,” Eva replied, glancing up with her blue contacts back in place. “Felt like almost every day had at least one passing rain shower on the islands. It was rare to see dark clouds and NOT have it rain. But here in Berkeley, it feels like there are clouds in the sky every day, and sometimes gets foggy, but yet it often doesn’t rain at all.”

“So you can’t read the cloud signs? You never studied up on Lono, the Hawaiian god of rain?”

“Wrong Hawaiian girl. Lily’s the real Kānaka Maoli: the true indigenous native, at least on her dad’s side.”

“How is Lily?”

“She’s good.” Eva pursed her lips before glancing over at me. And after a moment’s thought, she added, “If you really want to know how she’s doing, she’s probably home right now.”

I blinked. “You think I should try to talk to her today?”

“Yeah, actually,” Eva began, but then frowned when I immediately grimaced. And with a disapproving glare, Eva muttered, “Of course if you’re gonna make that face when--”

“Oh, n-n-no. No. That face wasn’t for Lily,” I stammered with a blush. “I’ve wanted to talk to her for a while now, but you kept telling me she didn’t want to see me or any of the others yet.”

“Then what was that face for?”

I blushed. “I was actually a little worried about running into Mrs. Morris. I told you: she terrifies me.”

Eva snorted and shook her head. “Mrs. Morris? She’s harmless. What is it with you and older female authority figures?”

“Can we not psychoanalyze me today?”

“I still find myself curious to meet your mom, especially after all the Oedipus Complex jokes.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head while Eva laughed.

“But seriously, Mrs. Morris won’t be home right now,” Eva explained. “She goes to church Sunday mornings and spends the afternoon with her group of batty old birds.”

I exhaled slowly, thinking it over. “I still need to catch up to Isabela, but if you think Lily will actually talk to me today...”

“I know she will. She wants to see you.”

“Really? That’s a change.”

“She actually asked me to bring you over yesterday, but we had that party to go to.”

I blinked in surprise. “What changed? The last time I suggested coming over, you told me not to. That Lily wouldn’t want to see me.”

Eva’s eyebrows went up. “Well ... things are different now.”

“Different how?”

Eva stopped walking and gave me a serious look. “Lily’s got a new boyfriend.”

I felt my heartbeat speed up a bit with anxiety as Eva took out her house key and snicked it into the lock. She’d told me that Mrs. Morris wouldn’t be home, but some deeply instinctual part of me still feared that the front door would swing open to startlingly reveal the pale, white-haired old woman glaring at me like a haunted ghost from some horror movie.

But no such wraithlike apparition greeted us, and Eva calmly walked through the door, completely oblivious to my miniature panic attack.

I don’t know why I assumed Lily would be up in the girls’ bedroom. Perhaps some part of me considered the rest of Mrs. Morris’s house to be off-limits to her two temporary tenants or something. And therefore I assumed I’d have several seconds to collect myself while heading up the stairs before meeting Lily face-to-face.

Instead, Eva turned the corner into the living room and immediately greeted, “Hey Lil. Look who I brought over.”

“Matty! Heyyy...”

I froze like a deer in headlights. My heartbeat had not yet calmed down from its anticipated Mrs. Morris jump-scare, and instead started racing again in surprise to find the cute Hawaiian girl seated on the couch in the living room. She’d been reading a textbook on the coffee table, obviously studying for one of her Finals, but sat up straight and smiled rather shyly at me.

My jaw flapped open, but it took an agonizing two seconds for me to get my mouth into working order before I managed to stammer, “H-hey, Lil. How are you doing?”

“I’m...” my cute ex-ku’uipo began before furrowing her eyebrows and letting herself trail off for a second. And in the end, she took a deep breath and finished, “I’m okay.”

I heard a note of uncertainty in Lily’s voice, the kind of hesitation that was a siren’s call to my heart. That note washed away my own hesitation, replacing it with an urgent signal that compelled, Girl needs support. Go! Go! Go!

Walking quickly into the living room, I slid onto the seat beside Lily while Eva closed the front door. Taking Lily’s hand between both of mine, I gave her a concerned look and asked, “What’s wrong?”

At first, Lily’s angst appeared to melt as that sunny smile I’d come to love burst forth, bringing lighthearted joy to my very soul. But a moment later that smile faded, and she slowly but firmly removed her hand from my grasp.

It felt like the room itself had started to glow, but now that ethereal illumination faded, leaving nothing but the starkness of reality.

Lily shook her head with a sigh. “How can you still have this effect on me?”

I blinked. “What effect?”

“The kind that makes butterflies flap around in my stomach, makes my heart race, and...” Lily’s eyes sparkled like diamonds for a moment, and I basked in the glow of the way she gazed into my eyes as if I were the sexiest, most incredible, most desirable man on Planet Earth. “And makes me wanna tear my clothes off and go for a ride on your lala-hu.”

I blinked twice. “Uh ... well...”

“I shouldn’t feel this way anymore,” Lily sighed. “We’ve been broken up for a while now.”

“It’s only been three weeks,” Eva pointed out.

“Really? Feels like it’s been a lot longer than that,” Lily mourned.

“I know what you mean,” I agreed. “These last three weeks have certainly been ... busy.”

“So Eva tells me.” Lily glanced up at her roommate, who stood between the living room and foyer with her arms folded across her chest. Returning her attention to me, Lily explained, “Your high school girlfriends coming to visit over Thanksgiving, Eva finally telling the girls the full story of her and Kai, and then another party in the hills last night, right? How did it go? Did they put up a bounce house again?”

Eva laughed. “How did Sam put it? ‘Do guys like bouncing breasts?’ or something like that.”

“I wish I’d been there,” Lily sighed regretfully.

“We would’ve loved to have you come,” I assured her.

But Lily shook her head. “I’m not BTC anymore. I’ve moved on.”

“You’re always welcome to move right back.”

Lily shook her head sadly.

“Almost better that you didn’t come,” Eva remarked while sauntering into the living room and then taking a seat on an armchair. “You got to avoid all of last night’s drama.”

“Drama?” Lily asked.

“Neevie versus Sam finally came to a head,” Eva explained.

“Oooh, that sounds bad.” Lily winced. “What happened? Did they have a catfight? Did Neevie pull a Dynasty and throw Sam into the pool and start slapping her around in her fashionable dress like Linda Evans did to Joan Collins?”

“What? No!” I squawked. “Where did you even watch that?”

“Nothing like that,” Eva drawled. “Neevie just got steamed with Sam and told her to get lost.”

“Okay...” Lily said a little uncertainly.

“They talked and patched things up enough to not interfere with the evening’s regularly-scheduled drunken orgy,” Eva quipped with a grin. “Although the two of them having a wrestling match with their claws out in the bounce house would’ve certainly been entertaining.”

“Don’t worry about Neevie and Sam. They’re working things out and they’ll be fine,” I interjected, shooting a glare at Eva and then turning my full attention to Lily. “I came here to talk to you. I would’ve been here weeks ago to talk to you, but Eva kept telling me you weren’t ready yet.”

“I wasn’t ready yet,” Lily confirmed, taking a deep breath. “Still, it’s nice to know that you cared.”

“I did,” I stated first before correcting, “I do. Eva’s been keeping me up-to-date on most things going on in your life. Hanging out with your Hawaiian club ... You were worried about your sick uncle last week ... Some trouble with Calculus – you know I’d have been perfectly happy to keep tutoring you.”

“You’re not my boyfriend anymore. You don’t have to help me with math,” Lily insisted.

“But I’d still like to be friends, if we could.”

Lily looked at me skeptically. “You don’t have any friends you’re not sleeping with.”

I blinked. “That’s not true. You and I were friends before--”

“Before I started sleeping with you,” Lily interrupted. “Same with Eva.”

I blinked twice. “I’m not sleeping with Skylar.”

“Yet...” Eva drawled.

I rolled my eyes at her and challenged, “Luna.”

“Fine. One. Maybe,” Eva conceded grudgingly. “And only because she’s gay. Plus, Luna might not count anymore if this thing about Isabela wanting out is true.”

“Wait, what’s going on with Isabela?” Lily interjected.

“Fallout from last night’s drama,” Eva explained wearily. “She was only hanging with The BTC for fun and games, and I gather that when the going gets tough, Isabela just gets going.”

“We don’t know any of that for sure,” I countered. “I know what Neevie told us, but I still want to hear it directly from her, AND Luna. I actually feel like I’d get a straighter answer from Luna than from Izzy.”

“Probably,” Eva agreed.

“But we’re getting sidetracked,” I said, returning my attention to Lily. “I came over to talk to you.”

“And I did want to talk to you,” Lily replied, “but I think I just got all the answers I needed.”

“You did?”

She gave me a wan smile, sighed, and shook her head. “Thanks for reminding me that I’ll never be more than Girlfriend Number Five out of Seven.”

I frowned. “Is that really why you wanted to talk to me? To try and decide whether or not you could ever mean more to me than Girlfriend X out of Y?”

“She just admitted she’s not good at math,” Eva drawled, but then she immediately blushed and looked away when I shot her a harsh look.

“I didn’t come over here trying to win you back as a girlfriend,” I told Lily sincerely. “I miss my friend. I miss your sunny, bubbly presence in my life. It feels like my life was so much lighter and happier when you were with me and the rest of The BTC. And while your absence isn’t the only reason why things have felt so ... heavy ... lately, I know that your return to The BTC would only make things better.”

“Make things awkward, more likely,” Lily contradicted. “The BTC’s dynamic only works when all the girls are sleeping with you.”

“Luna’s not sleeping with me,” I pointed out.

Eva chimed in, “Does Luna still count if she and Isabela--”

“That part still remains to be seen,” I cut her off.

Lily shook her head. “Sex and friendship go hand-in-hand in your house. What am I supposed to do: come hang out for a study session and then quietly sneak away when one of the girls decides she wants a study break?”

“You could always join in,” Eva suggested. “Get some study-break stress relief from one of the girls whenever you want.”

“And then things would just be awkward for me and Belle.” Lily sighed. “Seriously: I’m not coming back to The BTC.”

I deflated somewhat, but still pressed forward. “Can we at least still be friends? I’m not asking you to come over to the house and hang out all the time, but I don’t want us to be estranged anymore. You still mean something to me. You will forever be my ku’uipo. We may not be in a romantic relationship anymore, but you will always hold a special place in my heart – a sweet place in my heart.”

Lily sighed. “And you will always hold a special place in my heart. You will forever be my ‘first’, in more ways than one.”

I raised both eyebrows. “And as I understand it, you’re wondering whether or not you’re ready for someone else to become your ‘second’?”

Lily blushed and glanced at Eva. “How much have you told him?”

“Nothing.” Eva shrugged. “Just that you’d met someone.”

I arched an eyebrow at Eva. “You told me she had a new boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a new boyfriend,” Lily muttered while running her fingers over her left ear, tucking back several stray locks of thick, dark hair. I realized that while she still wore her plumeria flower in her hair, it remained over her right ear, leaving the left side bare. That indicated that she was still single – for now, at least.

“But you have met a guy,” I ventured.

“It’s not like I just met him,” Lily said defensively. “I’ve known him since I first came to Cal.”

“His name is Aiden, he’s a fellow freshman, he’s been interested in Lily since the first time they met at the Cal Hawai’i Club, but she was more interested in you and told him she was taken, but now that she’s been single for a few weeks he’s been chatting her up, and now she’s trying to decide if she’s interested in reciprocating or not,” Eva rattled off matter-of-factly. “And I didn’t tell you any of that stuff before because I figured you’d rather not know about him until it became necessary information.”

I blinked twice. “Oh. Okay...”

Lily looked mournfully at me. “I can’t tell if I’m feeling lonely and sorry for myself for breaking up with you and leaving The BTC and now I’m latching onto the first really nice guy who takes an interest in me on the rebound or not.”

“You are. You definitely are,” Eva stated in an equally matter-of-fact tone.

“You don’t know that,” Lily muttered defensively. “And it’s not like you’ve got years of maturity and experience to back up that kind of conclusion.”

“Three weeks, Lil. It’s only been three weeks. I may never have gone through a rebound relationship myself, but I went to high school.”

Lily waggled her head and rolled her eyes. “What was the high school rule? A week’s mourning period for every month you were together? Three weeks is more than enough given that Matty and I were together for less than three months.”

“Look: I’m not telling you that you can’t go out with Aiden or anything,” Eva muttered. “I just want you to be ... cautious ... with your heart – that’s all.”

“Be careful, Eva,” Lily teased. “Keep that up, and people might think there’s a considerate human being underneath that catty exterior.”

Eva bared her teeth and brandished her long fingernails as claws.

“I’m with Eva on this,” I added. “All I’ve ever wanted was your happiness. I’d hoped that would be with me, but ... but if you like this guy, I mean ... you don’t need my permission or anything to go out with him.”

Lily’s eyes narrowed. “It wouldn’t bother you?”

I blinked. “I feel like I’m going out on a limb here, but am I correct when I interpret that tone as to mean you WANT it to bother me? As in, you’d be happier for me to say, ‘Hell no! You’re mine! I want you back, my cutie ku’uipo. You belong with me.’”

Lily’s eyebrows arched. “Does it bother you?”

“Well...” I took a deep breath and thought about it. “Well kinda, yeah.”

“Really?” Lily perked up a bit.

“Really?” Eva put in at the same time, blinking in surprise. “What happened to ‘All I’ve ever wanted was your happiness’? When you two broke up, Lily made clear that she wanted kipona aloha - that she wanted the kind of deep, intense love you could never give her.”

“I never said it was the kind of love I could never give her. I said that kipona aloha takes time,” I contradicted Eva before turning my attention back to Lily. “Were we there yet? No. But I told you that everyone has to go through shallow water to get ‘into the blue’. I told you Aloha au iā ʻoe, Lily. I was coming to love you. And I told you I wouldn’t give up on us.”

“Until you gave up on us by letting me go without a fight,” Lily muttered bitterly.

I grimaced. “Did you really want me to fight for you?”

“Well it would’ve been nice.”

“Even though you explicitly told me you realized you’d never really loved me, that you were just infatuated with me, with the Disney Princess idea of falling in love. And that you explicitly told me to leave you alone and not bother you until Eva gave me the all-clear to come talk to you again?”

“Well...” Lily hedged before repeating a little more softly, “It would’ve been nice.”

“DISobey a girl’s explicit instructions in order to make her feel wanted. Got it.” I rubbed my forehead and sighed at Eva. “First Neevie. Now Lily. I’m such a slow learner.”