The Big Break. Cara Lockwood

water?” Jun asked, nodding toward a dispenser in the corner.

      “I’ll get it,” Tim offered, eager to do what he could to speed Kai’s exit from his gym, no doubt.

      Once he was out of earshot, Kai looked at Jun. “I guess you can tell training me won’t be easy.” Kai couldn’t help sounding defeated. His knee had failed him again, and this time in front of Jun. He was a lost cause and he knew it. But he wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. Not yet. Not when Jun could help him.

      “But...tell me, which way are you leaning?”

      Jun studied him a second, and Kai felt for sure she’d tell him a flat no. Her face told him that was exactly where she was leaning. He couldn’t let that happen. He felt suddenly seized with panic. If she didn’t help him, who would?

      Kai had an idea in that moment, one that he might regret, but she was going to turn him down, so what did it matter anyway?

      “Wait,” he interrupted, hoping his Hail Mary would work. “Before you turn me down, come to dinner.”

      Her eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed in suspicion. “Excuse me?” Clearly, she thought he was asking her out on a date.

      “Not just with me. With my sister, my aunt. My friends Dallas and Allie. You remember them?”

      Jun slowly nodded. Dallas and Allie had pulled Po and Kai out of the floodwaters and to safety on their kayak. Without them, Kai knew he could’ve died out there. They were also the ones who’d found Jun and reunited her with Po.

      “They’re having a dinner tonight at the Kona Estate. Why don’t you come? Bring Po.”

      “I wasn’t invited,” Jun began, unsure. Kai noticed she was still a little distrustful, as if she suspected it was some kind of trap. And, really, it was. Kai knew she might be able to tell him no, but Aunt Kaimana would be another story. She loved kids, and he knew that once she saw Po, it would be love at first sight. She’d practically insist on taking on the babysitting.

      “They always cook more than we can eat. Dallas is barbecuing, which means he can’t stop unless he’s seared the whole cow. I’m serious. Besides, Aunt Kaimana knows me better than anyone. If after you talk to her, you still want to tell me no, then I’ll leave you alone.”

      “One dinner tonight with them and then if I say no, you won’t show up at my work? Stalk me?”

      “I wasn’t stalking you,” Kai said.

      Jun stared at him, dubious.

      “Okay, so I was. I admit it. But come tonight and if you don’t want the job after that, then I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”

      Jun mulled this over. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll come.”

      “I can pick you both up at six.”

      “No,” Jun said quickly. “I’ll meet you there.”

      Kai decided not to press the issue. She’d agreed to come. He’d have to be satisfied with that.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      THAT EVENING AS Jun made her way to the Kona Estate, she griped her steering wheel and thought, once again, about turning around and going home. She glanced in the rearview and saw Po happily kicking his feet out from his booster seat, staring out the window and clutching his favorite Spider-Man figure in his tiny fist. She felt nervous about meeting Kai’s family—his aunt and sister. She already felt an unnatural pull to the man. Maybe meeting his sister and aunt would show just how hopeless he was. If they were in any way rude, she vowed to leave. Plus, he’d offered his aunt as a babysitter while they worked. If she found fault with the aunt—say, if the woman was mean to Po—then it would be easy to tell Kai no and walk away. Maybe the dinner would give her the excuse she needed to bow out of the job offer.

      Dallas and Allie, of course, were another story. She remembered them from the emergency room last year, when they’d looked after Po and helped find her. Jun had liked them immediately, but then, she would’ve loved anyone who delivered her son safely to her. She still remembered how Po’s hands had been sticky from mango candy that Allie had fed him. Under different circumstances, she would’ve been disapproving of the sugar, but right then she was just so happy Allie had shown her boy kindness in a difficult time that she didn’t care. She knew Dallas and Allie were good people: they’d risked their lives going out in the flooding to find Kai. And by doing so, they’d found Po, too. She’d seen the couple around the island since and always said hello, but this would be the first time she’d been to their house.