|18| Hopena (destiny)

"Mine!" I yell running towards the ball, hitting it up into the air. Steve runs up behind me and hits it over the net. Teagan and Jonathan miss the ball, giving us a point.

"Yes!!" Steve yells giving me a double high five. "15-2, you guys wanna keep going?" Steve says with a small chuckle. We look over at them and Teagan is laying in the sand and Johnathan is laughing at her.

"Noooooo. No more!" Teagan yells. Jonathan reaches out a hand and helps Teagan up. "A marine and an ex-cop is not a fare competition." Teagan says.

"Ex-cop?" Steve asks me. Teagan gets an 'oops' look on her face.

"Don't tell me you didn't already know."

"No, yeah. I did." He says. "How about we switch up the teams then? Guys against girls?" He says changing the subject.

"How about we just go cool off in the water?" Teagan suggests.

"Yeah, I like that idea." I say.

"What?!" Both of the boys exclaim.

"Alright, how about Teagan and I go cool off in the water and you two boys play." I suggest.

"Deal." They both say. I give Steve a quick kiss and Teagan and I walk down to our towels on the beach.

"Once Steve starts getting competitive, there is no stopping him." I say taking my flip flops off.

"I can tell. That's pretty much how Jonathan is too."

"I remember. Junior year, after the homecoming game we were at that party playing beer pong."

"Oh god, I almost forgot about that." She says as we both laugh and head to the water.

"He threw that cup at that kid so hard it gave him a black eye."

"That's when I knew I wanted him."

"Oh yeah right." I laugh. "You told me guys who had poor sportsman ship were unattractive."

"I was just trying to play it cool."

"Oh I know. You had the hots for him so bad. Isn't that the night you two hooked up in the back of my car?"

"You knew about that??"

"Of course I knew about that! I walked outside to try and find you and I saw you two in there."

"What?! Oh my god..."

"I just laughed and walked back inside. I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later. I mean not in my car, but whatever."

"High school was a wild time man."

"Yes. Yes it was. College was even worse."

"Oh god yeah. Isn't that when you were dating that Matthew guy?"

"Oh yeah. I try and block that out. He was an asshole."

"Well everyone told you that."

"That's what made me want him even more! The hot rockstar everyone said was a bad boy. Oh god that was my jam back then."

"And then once you found out he cheated on you, you slept with his whole band?"

"I mean not all at once, but yeah." I say laughing.

"We really made terrible decisions as kids."

"We really did. And then my dad found out that I was ditching class to go see some boy after I broke up with Matthew, oh man he got so mad. I mean he couldn't really ground me because I didn't live at home anymore, but he did threaten to stop paying my tuition."

"Did he really?"

"Oh yeah. He told me if I miss one more class without a reasonable excuse, I would have to figure out how to pay it myself."

"Oh geez. I always loved your dad though, even though he was a hard ass. He was such a nice guy."

"He really way. He was the best. You know, I heard that his house, the one Everest came here to fix up, is for sale again. I guess the people who bought it want to move back to the mainland or something."

"Why in the world would they do that?"

"I don't have a clue. I think they were old or something."

"Probably."

"Are you gonna go check it out before it sells again?"

"I don't know. I might. Lots of memories there."

"Remember when you, me, Everest and your sister Emily spent an entire summer there?"

"Oh my god, yeah! And we saw all of those baby sea turtles!"

"One of the coolest things I have probably ever seen. Have you seen any while you've been here?"

"Not any babies. I haven't been awake early enough to see them. I did see a couple bigger ones yesterday when Steve and I went snorkeling."

"Where did you go? Jonathan and I are thinking of going but I don't know any good places."

"Black rock beach. It's literally like a mile down the beach."

"Really? Well we will have to go there."

"You should. It's really cool. And there's a lot of places to go cliff diving."

"Yeah, I'm gonna pass on that one. Jonathan probably will love it though."

"Oh I'm sure." We both look up the beach and see Steve and Jonathan hitting the ball back and forth to each other.

"Ridiculous boys." I say.

"For real. I'm glad they're getting along though. Jonathan probably wouldn't want anyone he doesn't like at our wedding."

"Yeah...WAIT WHAT!?" She just shoots me a cheesy grin. "WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?"

"Last night. We went for a walk down the beach and he popped the question."

"Oh my god! I'm so happy for you!"

"Thank you. It's been a long time coming."

"It really has. What's it been, like ten years?"

"Give or take, yeah."

"My best friend is getting married!!"

"Now you have no choice but to come back to Idaho and visit."

"I guess so." I say with a laugh.

"We've been talking about it for a while but he told me he wanted the proposal to be perfect which is why it's taken so long. But I think we're gonna do it in May."

"May?! Dude, that's like five months from now."

"I know. But we both really want a spring wedding. Oh and I was gonna ask you, do you think your grandpa will let us do it at his ranch?"

"I'm sure he would love that. You've always been like one of his own grand kids. I will give him a call later and talk to him about it."

"Thank you so much."

"I'm just so excited!" I exclaim as I wrap her in a hug.

"Me too!" We both walk back up to the beach and sit on our towels.

"Hi." Steve says sitting down next to me.

"Hi." I say grinning. I look over and Jonathan was sitting down next to Teagan. "Who won?"

"We tied. One to one."

"All that time and the score was one to one?" Teagan asks.

"He's really good." Steve says.

"Thank you, thank you. So are you man."

"Oh I know." We all just laugh.

The rest of the day I spent with Steve. We went to a really cool aquarium and got to feed dolphins and pet sharks and everything. Probably one of the coolest aquariums I have ever been too. I kept pulling Steve over to every little thing I saw and told him how much I loved it. I don't think he really even saw what I was trying to show him because he was just smiling at me the whole time. And then we went a really nice dinner and I told him all about Teagan getting married and all the adventures and trouble we got into growing up.

"So, you were a cop?" Steve asks as we were walking down the beach, watching the sunset.

"Yeah. Only for about six years. I started in the academy right out of high school and I loved it. While I was going to school for that, I was working at a car rental place to help my dad with paying for my tuition and then once I graduated I became a cop. And then I quit about a month before I moved here."

"That's really awesome. How come you never told me about it?"

"I don't know. I don't really talk about it much, you know? Like aside from me really loving the job, there were some pretty tough times. Some of the stuff that happened and that I saw...well I guess you know. Right before my dad got really sick, I had a case where a kid shot his terminally ill mom because he thought it would get him all the money from his trust quicker. He was in a lot of debt from being a dealer and buying to much so he owed people a lot of money. So that one was really hard because I couldn't even imagine doing that to my dad just because I knew eventually he would die. I wanted to spend all the time with him that he had left, and that kid couldn't care less. He just wanted the money."

"There's some pretty ugly people out there. I have seen it first hand. But I have also seen a lot of amazing things while being a cop. I try to focus on that more. Remembering that there are good people out there. I know it's hard when you're job is based around dealing with the bad, but that little bit of humanity you get to deal with, that's what counts. You know you can talk to me about any of that right? I'm probably the best person to talk about it with because I can relate."

"I know. I just am really bad about trying to express that kind of stuff."

"I get it. Trust me. But I'm here for you." He says squeezing my hand.

"Thank you, Steve. Seriously. I never would of imagined that one day I would get to move to Hawaii, let alone meet one of the most amazing guys in the world the very first day I'm here."

"It's fate. You and me were just meant to be together. And it took a lot of time to get there."

"That it did. But I'm glad we're together now."

"I am too." Steve leans down and kisses me. We turn around and start walking towards the hotel.