Romeo Quiles has accepted a job online in lush and sunny Kauai. However, upon his arrival in the Hawaiian Islands, he discovers the job is a scam. The company that hired him has emptied his bank accounts and he must scramble to either return home to Cupertino, California, and certain unemployment, or to give paradise a chance.
He’s thrilled when he lands another job, ironically at the same resort hotel used by the scam artists to lure him to Hawaii. Except that Romeo’s fallen for hotter than hot Julius who just took on the job Romeo wanted—and he’s not a very nice boss. To top it off, there’s secrets. Secrets galore. There’s ancient fire knife dancing, mysterious chants and an old blind man Romeo comes to cherish, but love rips at his heart. Can Romeo and Julius break the curse that separates them? Or will they wind up apart?
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Romeo and Julius
Copyright © 2011 A.J. Llewellyn
ISBN: 978-1-55487-878-9
Cover art by Martine Jardin
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Smashwords Edition
Romeo and Julius
By
A.J. Llewellyn
Dedication
To the memory of John Cassavetes whose work inspires me and reminds me every day love is all there is. Only love is real.
Chapter One
It wasn’t hard to look like he fit into the homeless encampment. Romeo kept his head bent like the others as he tried to keep the sandwich he lifted from the paper plate into his hand in one piece. The bread, which had probably been sitting in the food truck for a while was soggy. A chunk of mahi mahi fell back onto the plate, but he didn’t care. He was starving. For three hours, he’d worked hard on the volunteer clean-up crew, sprucing up the most popular beach park in Waikiki.
He took a bite, trying to ignore the preacher, Reverend Michael, raving on about Jesus and how he cared for them all, no matter what their circumstances. Romeo had heard all the stories growing up. His Mexican-born mother and grandmother were religious nuts. He tried not to feel bitter.
How come Jesus could turn a handful of fishes into enough to feed hundreds according to legend? And yet Romeo only managed to get a tiny piece of fish in his sandwich? He chewed thoughtfully. It actually tasted pretty good. The coleslaw had an unexpected sweetness. Poppy seeds gave it an unusual flavor. He remembered with a pang, that his older brother Jesus—yes, of course he was named after Him—couldn’t eat poppy seeds. He was on probation for drug offenses and had to pee into a cup every week. Poppy seeds gave a false positive for opiate use.
Romeo liked the unusual flavor of the sandwich. He took another bite. Oh, there was more fish than he thought. He glanced up at the preacher, who was actually a nice guy. Reverend Michael was, he’d learned a typical island mix of Portuguese, Japanese and Hawaiian. He wasn’t judgmental like some of the religious freaks Romeo had met. Romeo shut his mind to the memories and picked up the fallen piece of fish.
The preacher’s wife nudged Romeo.
“You like try some poi?”
Romeo smiled at her. She was so Hawaiian everyone said, so accommodating and gracious. She wore a colorful dress he learned was called a holoku. They’d been handed down to the local women by nineteenth century missionaries. Lani, whose name meant heaven, handed him a small plastic container with a lid. She smiled as he fumbled with it.
“You eat like this. Here. You try.” She used her forefinger and middle finger as a scoop. She managed to make everything she did seem so classy and elegant, even eating with her hands seemed beautiful. If he were straight, she’d be the kind of woman he could fall for. He’d learned she was a renowned hula teacher and chanter. Marrying her sweetheart of six years seemed to have been the realization of her fondest dream.
Lani doted on Reverend Michael. And now, she bestowed that same attention on Romeo as he sampled the poi. He couldn’t detect a noticeable smell from it. What he did notice was that most of the people congregated in Ala Moana Park in the heart of Waikiki, weren’t touching the fermented paste made from taro root.
A few of the others had cracked opened bags of potato chips.
“Poi tastes like glue,” a man in a wheelchair said with an exaggerated shudder.
“People always say that. You eat a lot of glue?” Lani asked.
“Only when I’m desperate,” the guy in the wheelchair said. Romeo scrambled for the guy’s name. He was sort of the ringleader, but also wasn’t really. By nightfall, he made himself scarce because he was more of a target in his incapacitated state. The police cracked down, Romeo had learned, on the homeless in Ala Moana Park and nearby Kapiolani Park.
At night, the hardened residents were surprisingly, women. They slept with all their belongings on benches and beach chairs cemented into the ground.
Three days Romeo Quiles had been on the island and so far, he felt numb. He hadn’t meant to come here. Honolulu was supposed to be a brief stopover on his way to a fabulous new job on the island of Kauai. He stared at his now-empty plate.
Stupid. That’s what I am. Stupid. How could I fall for such a dumbass ruse?
He had applied via an online ad for the job of Recreation Activities and Water Area Manager for a brand new ritzy spa resort that had just been built in Kauai. He’d had to submit his social security number, current CPR certificate and bank account details for direct payment deposit.
There had been a moment when he panicked about faxing the voided check to the company in Kauai. But he’d checked. There was a website for the resort. The job listings were plain for all to see. After he sent everything, including personal and professional references, he got the job.
Through complicated means, he got a plane ticket to Kauai. The electronic ticket had been hard to redeem in Los Angeles, where he’d traveled from, and by the time he’d landed in Honolulu, he and seven other new arrivals discovered there was no spa resort. A quick check via his cell phone revealed his conjoined savings and checking accounts had been emptied.
The fraud department of Bank of America was working on his case and it looked like he might get most, if not all of his funds returned, but it could take weeks. His best friend Paul, who’d embarked on the journey with him, had fallen apart when he learned that he. too, had been fleeced.