Steve hid his sigh of relief when Danny finally agreed to hire him. After he'd talked to Kono and realized how desperate Danny was, Steve'd figured the man would've gratefully snatched up his offer, maybe plied him with thank yous until Steve forced him to stop. Steve hadn't reckoned on Danny's stubborn streak. The man would probably drown rather than allow someone to pull him to safety if he decided on it.
So far, he hadn't had to lie. He and Chin had decided to stick as close to the truth as possible, and Steve's father had indeed made him move the summer before he went to college and spend it working at one of their franchises. His work with the SEALs – classified, of course – had taken him around the world but had allowed him very little free time to spend the money he was accumulating. Leaving the Navy to work with his father meant that he was making even more money, the hours he contributed to his new job still giving him little time to spend any of it.
"When can you start?"
"How about tomorrow?" He'd come directly to the shop from the airport and was feeling the jetlag. Plus, he needed to air out the house, unpack, and catch up on the e-mails he'd accumulated.
Steve's dad still owned the house Steve had grown up in, choosing to rent it out to vacationers rather than just sell it outright. The rental agent had told Steve that she hadn't had anyone in there for the past couple of months because Steve's dad refused to spend any money on upgrades. Steve still wasn't sure what had prompted that decision, since it was common knowledge that his dad wasn't planning on returning to Hawaii. Ever.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Steve had booked it for the next two weeks with an option to extend, thinking that it would give him than enough time to figure out what to do about the franchise and sneak in some surfing.
Danny sighed, and Steve had to squelch a small smile at how the man obviously didn't want Steve working there. Well, he was just going to have to suck it up and deal.
"Um, okay. Why don't you come in around two tomorrow?"
Steve frowned. "Wouldn't it make more sense for me to come in before opening so I can get a feel for how the day starts?"
Danny's face turned to stone as he said quietly, "Maybe you're used to giving orders, but I'm the boss here, and I make the decisions." He looked at Chin. "This is a bad idea."
"Give him a chance, brah," Chin said.
Danny stood there, shaking his head, and Steve could feel his chance slipping away. He reached out, barely touching Danny's sleeve. "I'm just jet lagged." He tried out a hopeful grin. "I'm also really good at taking orders; you'll see."
A thump behind the back wall preceded a part of the wall opening, revealing a doorway. One of the little girls walked in, stopping short when she saw the three men in the kitchen.
"What is it, Bear?"
"The machine's not working," she said, her eyes stuck on Steve.
Danny's eyes moved from the little girl to Steve and then back to the little girl before he shook his head. "I'll be up in a minute."
" 'kay," the girl said, still staring at Steve.
Danny put his hands on the girl's shoulders, physically turned her around, and patted her gently on the butt. "Go."
"Hidden door?"
"If something happens down here, I want the girls to be safe up there."
Steve frowned as he turned to Chin. "Are things that dangerous around here now?"
"Danny's just paranoid," Chin said, turning toward the front of the store.
"Paranoia's gonna be the one thing to save us during the zombie apocalypse, my friend," Danny called out as he headed upstairs.
Steve laughed, following Chin back into the front of the store. "Zombie apocalypse?"
"I've been telling him about the zombie show I've been watching," Kono said. "I think it's getting to him. So, how'd it go?"
"I start tomorrow at two," Steve said, smiling when Kono gave a little cheer, "although I still think that coming in before the store opened would give me a chance to learn from the beginning." Unused to taking orders in one of his own restaurants, he found that having to back down still rankled at bit, especially when it was so obviously a poor business decision.
"I asked for tomorrow off, and it doesn't start to get busy until late afternoon. He's probably thinking that he can minimize payroll," Kono said. "He can teach you the morning baking stuff anytime, although he tends to do that himself since he's right here."
Stopping short, Steve suddenly remembered Kono's comment about Danny's financial situation. Suddenly, Danny's decision didn't seem quite so misguided.
"Don't worry, though. Danny's a terrific teacher. Before I got here, I couldn't even brew coffee. Now I can make all of the pretzels and a damn fine cup of joe."
Smiling, Steve strolled up to the bake case, appreciating the clean layout but underwhelmed at the custom-made cards listing the individual items.
"What's wrong?"
Steve's eyes flashed up to Kono's before returning to the case. "It's just that these don't look like the cards I've seen at other Boones."
"I did them. Danny had these terrible things that no one could read – his handwriting is horrible – so I used a program on my computer at home." She shrugged. "Danny said that we'd get official ones, but I've never seen them. But these do the job."
Steve realized that the pineapple pretzel had been a good snack, but he knew that he was going to be really hungry later in the evening. Deciding to push his grocery shopping back until the next morning, he reached into his pocket for his wallet. "Give me one ham and cheese and one western omelet." He hesitated for a moment before giving in. "And two of the pineapple."
"No BP&J?"
Steve gave Kono a wan smile. "I'll save that for a special occasion."
True friend and sneaky bastard that he was, Chin had called a few of Steve's old friends, and they greeted him as he arrived at his dad's house. They stood crowded around the front door, cleaning items in tow – except for Kamekona, who'd arrived with shave ice and shrimp. Instead of a quiet evening trying to ignore the memories from an empty house, he spent it in the company of friends, laughing over old stories. Kono arrived with Longboards after her shift, and she eagerly joined in the fun.
With everyone pitching in, they finished setting up the place pretty early and had time to just hang out on the lanai before everyone started to leave, knowing that Steve needed some time to decompress and get his legs back underneath him.
Proof that you could take the man out of the SEALs but you couldn't take the SEAL out of the man, Steve had changed his watch to the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone right after he'd checked in with the airline in DC, so he was handling the time change fairly well so far. After everyone had left, he'd changed into the pair of board shorts that someone had gotten him as a welcome gift and had gone for a long swim on the private beach, enjoying the pull from his muscles. Knowing what he had waiting for him, he hadn't eaten much during the impromptu party, and he nuked one of the stuffed pretzels before settling down and checking his e-mails on his laptop. He'd handled most of the urgent matters during his layovers, but he didn't feel comfortable staying out of touch for too long. Smiling, he opened an e-mail from Cat.
Just checking in to see that you arrived safely. Made first contact?
He typed, I'm settled in at Dad's house. Met the shop owner and got hired on, starting tomorrow. I'll keep you apprised. Keep an eye on Dad.
After that, he scanned through the call list his assistant sent him, made a tentative priority list, responded to the easier e-mails, and decided to call it a night.
After all, he was starting a new job tomorrow.
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Friday nights, Danny found himself scrubbing the ovens, soaking the cooling rack trays, using the really good stuff to mop the floors. He scraped off the gum underneath the tables and found the coffee cups he'd managed to lose throughout the week. In between projects, he'd take some time and go upstairs with the girls, maybe use the air popper to pop them some popcorn while they watched their programs.
He sat on the sofa, trying to stay awake, while the girls sat enthralled with the many ups and downs in the world of sparkling horses. Or unicorns. He wasn't sure which and didn't really care. There were rainbows and sprinkles and floating colorful stars, and he just hoped that the girls didn't get cavities from watching the show so much.
He had Kono to thank for that one. In fact, she was the reason they had so many choices. Once she'd stopped laughing at the fact that he still had a VCR and had gotten over the horror when he explained that he wasn't planning on getting cable, she'd rallied the family and managed to unearth an amazing number of kids VHS tapes. He'd never admit to hiding the scarier ones that seemed to involve people wearing what looked suspiciously like sex toys. She'd even found a few action movies that Danny would fall asleep to on days when he couldn't turn off his brain and one romcom that she'd forced upon him and that he secretly loved with a devotion usually limited to the Jets and the Knicks.
He blinked, and suddenly he had a girl on either side of him, their faces so close to his that he automatically pushed his head deeper into the sofa.
"Danno, is Kono leaving?" Grace, the regular spokesperson for the two, asked.
Damn, damn, damn. In his panic about the store, he hadn't thought about the upheaval Kono's departure was going to make into the girls' lives. What a shitty father he was. And now, here he was, exhausted and unprepared, confronted with explaining the upcoming changes in a way that wouldn't frighten them.
"Yeah, baby, she is." He pulled each girl to his side, holding them tightly. Infusing happiness into his voice, he said, "She's going to be a police officer, like Chin."
"Like you were once 'pon a time?"
"That's right. She and Chin are going to make sure that the islands are safe."
"But can't she make sure that we're safe and still be here?"
"It's not like you won't see her again, Monkey. She'll come to visit sometimes."
"But who's going to help us in the store?" Jenna finally spoke, rubbing her hand against her side. She didn't do well to change, and this was one of the ways Danny could tell that she was upset about something.
"Remember Steve?"
"Pretty Steve?" Grace asked.
Danny let out a soft laugh. "Yes, Pretty Steve. He's going to help us out until I can find someone else."
Grace looked thoughtful, and Danny knew she was processing things. He waited patiently. "Is he nice?"
"I think he is, but I'm not sure he's been around many kids," Danny said, recalling the brief flash of panic he'd seen when Steve had looked over at them. "You tell me if he's mean to you or if you feel uncomfortable around him, and he's outta here. Okay?"
"Okay," Grace said.
Danny tilted Jenna's chin so she was looking him in the eye. "Okay, Bear?"
"Okay," Jenna said seriously before beaming at him and giggling. "Pretty Steve."
"Maybe we should just work on calling him Steve. I'm sure his self esteem will manage perfectly fine without hearing that nickname."
Grace gave him that look that meant that she didn't understand what he was saying, but she was going with it. "Okay."
"Bedtime." He tickled each one in turn, turning their groans and sighs into giggles, and walked them into their room. He snuck kisses as he pulled up their covers.
"Goodnight, my sweet girls," he said.
"Goodnight, Danno," they answered in unison.
Clicking off the light, Danny look longingly at his bed in his bedroom before heading back downstairs.
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Steve woke early, going through his exercises and running for about five miles before returning to the house for a shower. It felt a little surreal, living in the house that he hadn't seen since he'd left the islands after high school, that he hadn't actually lived in since before his senior year. Everything seemed to have a memory attached to it. Sure, most of their family items were no longer around, but to be honest, Steve's dad had never been one for displaying family memorabilia anyway. So here he was, in the same old house, but he'd changed so much. Shaking off his strange thoughts, he quickly showered, heated the last pretzel, and sat down at his computer to do a little research on one Danny Williams.
He found surprisingly little. Evidently, Danny wasn't much of a joiner, no Facebook or Twitter account, not even MySpace. Steve dug a little deeper and found a small article in a New Jersey cop site's archives containing a grainy picture featuring a much younger Danny in uniform. Evidently, he'd gotten a commendation for helping to track down a serial rapist. Then he found a small article in a Hawaiian independent newspaper that mentioned Danny's opening the Boones. But that was it.
He was going to have to go through Boone files and pull up Danny's franchise application and the requisite background and financial checks. It wasn't his first choice, because if he didn't play it carefully, he'd attract Victor's attention. He should've contacted Victor the moment he'd heard about the pineapple pretzel, but his gut told him that the VP of Franchising wasn't as clean as he pretended. He hadn't been able to find any proof, but that didn't mean that Victor didn't have something shady going on. Steve just hadn't been able to find it. Yet.
Shutting down his laptop, he was surprised to find his plate empty. He'd thoroughly enjoyed his pretzel the night before and was disappointed that he hadn't taken the time to enjoy this one as well.
The knock at his door surprised him. What didn't surprise him was Kono's opening it and sauntering in with Chin behind her.
"Isn't it customary for people to wait for someone to open the door?" He asked mildly, gathering his papers and putting them in his briefcase. "I might've been naked or something."
Kono looked interested. "You make a habit of hanging out in your living room naked?" She pretended to take out a notepad and pencil. "What times do you do that?"
Steve laughed, motioning for them to sit.
"We brought you breakfast," Chin said, holding up a bag.
"You didn't have to do that," Steve was touched – and appreciative, considering he hadn't taken the time to go shopping yet.
"Don't look so impressed," Kono warned, "it's not gourmet or anything."
Chin pulled out a container of orange juice and a bowl of fruit and set them on the coffee table. "You look like you're still a bit of a health nut."
"Thanks." Steve said, dragging the items closer. He wasn't starving, but he felt guilty about eating so many pretzels. They weren't terribly unhealthy, but by their very nature they contained quite a sizable number of carbs.
Leaning back, Kono tucked her legs underneath her and pulled her hair behind an ear. "We also came to give you some information on Danny."
Mouth full of fruit, Steve just raised an eyebrow.
"We're not telling you any secrets, but there're some things you should probably know before you step in there today."
Steve nodded.
Kono sighed and looked at Chin, who began. "Danny was an orphan, living in a group home in New Jersey when he met Rachel. She was at the orphanage too, so they had a lot of the same issues, as Danny likes to say. After a few years, when he'd just gotten out of the police academy, they got married. Rachel got pregnant pretty quickly after the wedding. She had Jenna, but she didn't want to –" Chin paused, looking at Kono.
"She decided she didn't want anything to do with a special needs child, so she split," Kono finished with a glare. She caught Chin's look and shrugged. "You never met her. I did once, and she was a real piece of work."
Steve wasn't sure how the story would progress, but he noticed Kono's use of the past tense when she spoke of Danny's wife, so he figured it wasn't going to end well for Danny's ex.
"Anyway," Chin continued, "Danny quit his job so he could be there for Jenna. He met up with a nice older lady, what was her name?"
"Gladys," Kono said.
Chin nodded. "Gladys, who owned a Boones, took him under her wing, teaching him the business and watching little Jenna whenever Danny needed some time.
"Then Rachel came back," Kono said.
"Danny, being Danny, took her back. She was there long enough to get pregnant again, have the baby, and find another man before she left. Again."
Steve wasn't sure what horrified him more, the fact that this Rachel seemed like such a flight risk or that Danny let her treat him like a doormat.
His expression must have said it all, because Kono said, "He thought she was back for good. Turns out, she was only biding her time until she managed to nab herself a rich guy who didn't mind taking on a perfectly healthy baby."
"They moved here to Hawaii, and Danny and Jenna followed a little while after that."
"I'm not sure what Danny did when he first got here; he doesn't really talk about it," Kono said, stealing a strawberry before Steve could bat her hand away. "But he had enough money to open the shop."
"And then Rachel and Stan, her new husband, died in a car accident." Chin added.
Steve lowered the orange juice, his attention focused on the tragic turn.
"So now, instead of having Grace whenever Rachel needed to attend some function or event," Kono said disdainfully, "he got her fulltime. Which he loves."
"He really does," Chin said, grinning at Kono, who smiled back while they did that crazy cousin-telepathy thing they used to do back in high school.
Steve waited, amused, his eyes bouncing back and forth.
Kono was the first one to shake it off, and she smiled apologetically at Steve. "But the thing is," she leaned closer to Steve as if she were just about to impart an important secret, "Danny got nothing from Rachel's estate."
Steve frowned. "Didn't you say that her new husband was rich? And he didn't have enough foresight to prepare for something like that?"
"He did," Chin said, "for his two adult children from a previous marriage. Turns out, he didn't feel the need to do the same for Grace."
"What with her not being his kid and all," Kono muttered, stealing another piece of fruit.
"You don't know that was the reas –"
"Actually I do," Kono interrupted, fire in her eyes. "Stan's attorney visited Danny personally to let him know not to expect anything from the estate, that the bulk of it was going to Stan's children with a small stipend to some local conservationist organization." She seemed to notice Chin and Steve's expressions, so she added with a shrug, "Danny's still under the impression that I can't hear what goes on in the kitchen when I'm at the front of the store."
Steve grinned at Chin. "Was she always this scary?"
"Just don't get on her bad side, and you'll be fine," Chin said, his light tone belaying his warning.
"We're telling you all this, because Danny won't, and you need to know what you're up against." Kono was silent a moment, obviously collecting her thoughts. "He has so many balls up in the air that everything is going to collapse around him if he doesn't have help. He's not good at asking for it."
"And he's proud. If for one moment he thinks you're feeling sorry for him, he'll give you the boot. And it won't be pretty."
"I get it." Steve said, yanking his fruit away from Kono's reaching hand, "He needs me."
"More than you need him," Kono said, eyeballing the room before returning her gaze to his. "Just be… careful with him. He's not as tough as he pretends to be."
After confirming that he did understand the warnings he'd been given, Steve managed to push the cousins out the door so he could do a little more work before heading in for his first shift. He tried to ignore the curl in his stomach as he pictured Danny, eyes narrowed as he took in Steve from head to toe.