Island Vibes

6. us

Once I'd had time to wake up like a normal person, I tossed around the idea of being late just to spite him, before thinking better of it.

Admittedly, I still kind of wanted to make him wait, but there wasn't much to gain in being late for the sake of proving a point. The point, obviously, would have been that I could do whatever I wanted, but in all honesty, I was wide awake and ready to go before half nine even rolled around. It was still tempting, but ultimately I knew I'd only be wasting my own time. We did have a lot of work to do, after all. 

My parents had prepped me on what they wanted out of their café. Their laundry list of hopes included that the place would be welcoming, fresh, open-plan, clean, and easy to maintain. I didn't see why we couldn't achieve that for them. Noah was a pain, but if he was handy enough to fix pipes and get the job in the first place, he and his tool belt were still welcome to work with me. 

See? Mature, responsible. I could absolutely handle this. 

I just had to look at things from a different perspective. Noah wasn't some cute-but-incompetent potential future boyfriend, he was an asset. More correctly, a business asset – ie. not for personal use. 

I checked my purse one last time before leaving and slung it over my shoulder, the strap dipping into the flowy, light fabric of my spaghetti-strap top. Because it was warm in the house, I knew it was going to be scorching outside, so I'd gone minimal and simple, pairing the top with some peach-pink shorts and covering myself in a decent coating of suncream. Sunglasses on, I stepped out into the sunshine and immediately was glad of my outfit choice. I had no idea how people could live like this year-round, but I supposed there really was nothing quite like the warmth of the sun blasting you in the face every morning. 

I was too hot in under a minute, but luckily Maluhia was a small town and the café was close by enough that I got there before I could melt into a gross, suncream-smothered puddle of white girl. 

The first thing that struck me about the place was that it seemed a miracle it was still standing. 

The windows were so dusty they looked as if they'd been painted a murky orange, and the door had barely any paint left on it. Remnants of an odd green color remained, but the rest had flaked away over time. They'd told me it was a run-down property, but... 

Through one of the windows, I saw movement, and then recognised Noah's face peering back at me through the dirt. His expression brightened, and then a few moments later, the rickety door swung open. He extended an arm grandly in my direction, as a welcoming gesture to a very unwelcoming place. 

"Your kingdom awaits," he said, beaming and chuckling at his own words. 

"Thanks," I mumbled, only trying to burst his bubble a little bit as I breezed past him to survey the insides. You know, if this crumbling shack even had an inside. 

It was dustier inside than even the windows could have led me to believe. Noah looked too clean, or maybe just too alive, somehow, stood amongst the disrepair. 

The urge to call my parents and bitch them out was growing – this was a much bigger task than I'd anticipated. Even just cleaning the place out would likely take a week, and beyond that, I couldn't tell what was salvageable and what wasn't. For all I knew, we could've needed to tear the thing down and build it up from the ground. 

I turned from surveying the room to glaring at Noah, like this was somehow his fault. 

"My kingdom is... less than satisfactory," I said. I knew I sounded stiff and awkward, but I was trying to pretend this wasn't such a nasty shock. 

"Yeah," Noah laughed. "It's a fixer-upper," he nodded, venturing further inside with me. The sun streaming in was enough to illuminate the place, so he left the door open behind him. Unfortunately, the sun also lit up every little fleck of swirling dust that the two of us were unintentionally unsettling, and it made my nose feel itchy just seeing it happen.

"Understatement of the year," I sighed, examining the wood of an old bar area that had once been either an orange or a pink color but was now sun-bleached and worn out. "This place is..." I trailed off, at a loss. 

"Full of potential?" Noah grinned, nodding righteously. 

"Full of dust," I groaned, looking up the length of the wall in front of me, then back down it before kicking idly at the skirting board. 

Noah laughed and dipped behind me to stand at the bar. "New fixtures and fittings, a fresh coat of paint... it'll be beautiful," he smiled, so genuinely and sincerely that it kind of shook me. He really believed in us that much? I didn't think we could do much more than vacuum, throw some paint around, and hope for the best. 

But of course, I was underestimating us. And, okay, by us, I meant Noah. 

"I already hammered down the floorboards and shored up the beams," he explained, pointing up to the ceiling where we could see the beautiful and dust-less beams. "We just need to clean up and toss some of this stuff." 

I raised an eyebrow at him. "And that's our job?" 

He tilted his head at me. 

"I mean, can't we hire someone to do that?" 

He wandered over to me and planted his hands on my shoulders. I glared up at him as he scanned my eyes, his gaze flickering over my features. "Sorry, had to check." 

He turned around and collected up the broom that was in the corner, and I waited a few long moments for an explanation without getting one. I knew it was exactly what he wanted, but from between gritted teeth I eventually asked, "Check what?" 

"If you were kidding or not. Your parents already did hire people to clean up," he explained. "Us."