One Drop of Golden Sun

Ch. 8 Poetry or Not? Hot or not?

*Ray

Ray swiped the screen to see who had sent a message and what it said. Two more messages arrived. If it was her surfer boy...please let it be him!

Cryptic lines appeared in pastel bubbles, the soft, rounded font totally out of sync with the words.

In silence standing, blue above crashes into blue below

In wait drowning, water around me crashes into water within me

In hope asking, your steps to crash in the sand next to mine

Wow.

She sat back on her butt, staring at the screen and reading the lines again.

What did this mean?

Another message appeared, but in a different tone than the others.

If you want, meet me at Waikiki beach, Royal Hawaiian to surf, Saturday 6:30 am

Then as an afterthought, the writer sent his name in one lonely, last bubble. Zach.

She grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. He wanted to meet her to surf together. He was amazing. He was wonderful. He was hot and sweet and thoughtful and holy cow she had no idea what the rest of his message was supposed to mean.

Was it poetry?

It looked like poetry.

If it was poetry, what did it mean, though? And not just the words, but the fact that Zach (she had to repeat his name a couple of times) sent her a poem. Did he write it?

For her?

She sat stunned, mumbling the words. Poetry. It had to be.

She needed help. She flipped back to incoming calls and held her thumb over the green phone symbol.

But she couldn't call Beth about this. Ray couldn't bother her sister about this or anything in her life until the baby was safe and sound.

Ray stood up to pace, her go-to movement when worried. On the other hand, it wasn't Beth she needed, but her soon-to-be brother-in-law. She needed a man to weigh in on this situation. What did it mean in manspeakese to send a girl a poem to ask her on the first date?

She smacked her head. She didn't need Russell, either. The house was full of men—eight to be exact, although one wouldn't help her. Which was too bad, because Zach was Lokela's friend and if anyone could explain this poem to her it would be him.

Ask Mr. Scowlsalot? Right.

But that left plenty of others. That left seven if they were all home for a change. She would find out.

She hurried across the hall and knocked briskly. Either Travis or Hugh moaned and then mumbled a question. She could tell it was a question because the end of the sentence went up in pitch, not because she understood any of the words.

She turned the knob and opened the door a crack. The air was thick with man smell and unwashed socks. It was the consistency of cream of tomato soup, thick and well, soupy. The stale air poured from the room like the sulfer filled steam from volcano vents cutting deep into the blood and bones of the earth, but less romantic than that sounded.

Ray took a breath through her mouth.

"Hey, can I bug you guys? I have a problem," she whispered in case they said no and decided to go back to sleep. "I need masculine advice on a weird message I just got."