damaged fur off it. “My oldest sister got this for me when I was… five, I think?” He shook his head. “I loved this thing. Took it everywhere with me. I remember one time, we used the bathroom at a gas station, and I left Mr. Bunny on top of the hand dryer. We were half-way home when we realized it, and Mah said the only way to get me to stop screaming was to turn around.”
I laughed. “No bunny left behind.” I took the stuffed animal when he handed it to me again, and he started rummaging through the box. “Remind me of the order of your siblings again?”
“It’s Pania, Tamar, me, Leinani, and Oliana.”
“I love their names,” I said in wonder. “And yours, too. Does it mean anything?”
“Oh, trust me, a lot of meaning goes into every name where I come from.”
“And Makoa means?”
He looked a little hesitant, and I wondered if it was rude to ask, or if it was reserved for just him and his family to know. But then, the corners of his lips curled up. “Bold Man,” he answered.
I smiled in return. “Well, I’d say it fits. Takes a really bold man to attempt dating me.”
He scoffed. “Takes a really stupid one not to.”
We shared a look, something between eww, that was so cheesy and ugh, but I kind of liked it.
“So, Pania got you this?” I asked after a moment, trying her name out. I hoped I didn’t botch it.
Makoa grinned. “She did.”
“What’s the age difference between you five?”
Makoa heaved a giant, dictionary-sized photo album out, wiping dust off the emerald leather cover before he positioned the book half on his knee and half on mine. “Let me show you.”
I leaned in closer as he flipped open the album, smiling instantly at the sight of baby Makoa staring back at me. He was in a car seat, his black hair sticking up every which way, goofy grin in place even before he had teeth to fill it.
“Look at you!” I ran my fingers over the picture. “You were adorable.”
“Were?”
I rolled my eyes as he flipped the page, and smiled again when I saw his entire family. They were gathered in the living room, it looked like — his mom and dad on the couch with a little girl between them, and then Mak and three other girls on the floor below them. A tinsel-and-ornament-covered Christmas tree was in the corner, and wrapping paper littered the floor around them.
“Okay, so, this is my mom, Aleyna,” he said, pointing to his mother on the couch. One look at her and I knew where Makoa got his smile. “And this giant teddy bear is my dad. Loe.”
“You have his eyes,” I commented, laying my head on Makoa’s shoulder. “And her smile.”
“I also have his soft heart,” he said with a smile, which turned downward when he added, “I wish I could say the same for my mom’s superb cooking skills, but as you’ve experienced…”
I chuckled. “Hey, the macaroni and cheese you made us last night wasn’t bad.”
“It was Kraft. Not too many ways you can mess that up.”
I kissed his cheek, and he moved on, pointing to the small girl between his parents on the couch. It was hard not to note the similarities between all of his sisters — their long black hair, bronze skin, soft brown eyes, and long lashes.
“This one is Oliani. She’s the youngest of us, seventeen now, about to start her senior year. She loves Jiu Jitsu and surfing.”
“What a little badass.”
“And she’ll never let you forget it,” Makoa said on a laugh. He pointed to the sister he had his arm around in the photograph. “This is Leinani. She’s twenty-three, in grad school at UH studying geology. And this,” he said, tapping the girl on the other side of him. “Is Tamar. She’s twenty-nine, and just got engaged. She and her fiancé live on the island, about twelve minutes from Mom and Dad.”
“I’m sure they love that.”
He snorted. “Oh, trust me — I’m the only one who’s ventured off the island, and I get shit for it every time we talk.”
“They miss you.”
“They’d miss me if I went to the grocery store,” he teased. His finger moved to the last sister, who I knew without him telling me was the oldest. She looked like a young woman, even in the photograph that was at least fifteen years old. “This is my oldest sister. Pania. She’s thirty-one, and her primary focus