Bittersweet Smiles

Chapter 7 Confused

Chapter 7 Confused

There was a loud ringing coming from someone’s phone, it sounded like those end of the world alarms. It kept ringing and no one was getting it, Nina stirs under her blanket and rolled on her side hitting her sister Uila in the face with her hand.

“mmmhhhh” Uila.  “Can anyone get that” Nina said and took her pillow and hid her head under it.

Aiden was sleeping on the floor next to his bed; he woke up to the alarm from his phone.  He checked the collar I.D. and it was unknown, he hit the answer button just so that the ringing would stop and walked outside the room.

“Hello”, ‘hey babe’

“Hey Cora” Aiden smiled as he said her name. ‘I thought you were going to call me last night’ she sounded like a love struck teenager on the phone.

“Oh! Yeah, I was but my girls didn’t get here until almost 12,” he said walking down to the living room.

‘I see, is everything ok with the girls?’

“Yeah, it’s just….” he paused for a moment remembering all the nonsense he heard last night; he thought it’s better to not mention anything. “The car broke down but everything is fine now” he reassured her, ‘that’s good news, at least the girls are safe’ she said.

Aiden was curious apart from the whole incident last night; he was wondering why Cora’s phone was unknown, so he asked her “Babe, why does your phone have an unknown number?”

‘Babe that’s why I called, I know its last minute but I booked a plane for you and the girls to come on the Big Island; as a 3 day vacation. So you can introduce me, as for the phone, the reception here is really bad, so I bought another one that has a good one.’

Aiden thought that after last night there should be no more outings from now on, but knowing his daughters, they would love to go, since they’ve never been on a plane or anywhere beside on base. He thought that he should ask the girls first, but he already knew the answer to that. Besides this should be a good time to introduce them to Cora and get to know one another. Aiden smiles but sighed on the phone “ok, I will get the girls ready, text me the information. Are we going to meet you at the airport?”

‘Oh no babe, I am already here, I am getting all the tour and hotel things ready for all of us. I got here just an hour ago. Don’t worry babe, I will take care of it, think of it as my gift to the girls, oh and don’t be late, I got a surprise for you and the girls’ she laughed. Before Aiden could interrupt she already said goodbye and hung up on him. Aiden laughed and thought that ‘she really does know how to work around me. ‘

As he was walking up to his room, he got a text from Cora, saying that their flight will be at 1 and the airline they should check into. Aiden smiled and walked into his bedroom where his daughters where sleeping. He didn’t want to wake them up, he looked at his phone for the time, it was almost 9. He thought he should just let them sleep for one more hour and so he came back outside to do a quick phone call. He called Keahlani, to see if she was ok, she answered ‘I’m sorry Aiden’ she said, Aiden answered back “you have no reason to apologize to me, the important thing is that you and my girls are safe. Also you are to take a week off; I am taking the girls to the Big Island for a couple of days.”

‘Its about time you take the girls someplace’ she laughed

“Yeah, Thanks for taking the girls out……… and about last night what exactly did happen?”

There was silence on the other line, Aiden heard Keahlani sighed and started tell Aiden about everything up to the part where she fainted. Aiden was just silent while Keahlani was talking, it felt weird to him, like he knows this is not new and he feels like he knows what they are but just can’t quite get a hold on, like there is something missing. He was suddenly brought back to his senses when Keahlani asked him ‘what time is your flight?’

“oh…ah! Yes! Um! The flight is at 1” Aiden stuttered. ‘Well you better get ready, traffic is very unpredictable’

“yeah, we will see you when we get back. Take care.”

‘Have fun with the girls also Aiden……be safe, I can’t shake this feeling like something is going to happen’

“Don’t worry I will be there. Nothing is going to happen to my girls” Aiden reassured her.

‘ok, safe travels and call if anything happens.’

“yeah, I will. Bye Keahlani”

‘Bye Aiden.’

Aiden hung up his phone and went back into his bedroom where his daughters where at, when he got in, Uila was already sitting up and rubbing her eyes looking around the room confused. Aiden went and sat  next to Uila on the bed, “morning love, how did you sleep?”

“Morning, good but why are we in your room dad?” she said while yawning and stretching her arms out. Aiden just chuckled softly “well someone was knocked out and had to be carried like a baby in the house,” Uila frowned and said  “well you could have just woke me up, I could walk perfectly fine” she pouted. Nina was still sleeping on the other side of Uila, she was never much a morning person.

“okay love, don’t scream ok, we are going on……” before Aiden could even finish Uila squealed so loud and high that woke Nina up but still half asleep  “w-what w-was that…ah a-alarm , fire….dad …fire….” and went back to sleep. Uila and her Dad looked at each other and started to laugh, “o-okay dad, where are we going?” Uila was still so excited about going anywhere.

“Well I was thinking more like a 3-4 vacation on ….another….island”

“WOW! Dad, when do we leave?”, “we have to leave in about….*looks at phone* an hour and half”

Uila looked excited and annoyed at the same time “dad, you should have woken me up, you know how much packing I have to do, ugh dad” she stood up and ran outside the room. Right when she was in her room she ran back to her dad and hugged him “thanks dad, love you” she kissed his cheek and kept squealing and skipping back to her room. Aiden can’t help but wonder why Uila didn’t mention anything about last night; she must be too excited about leaving.

Nina was still asleep despite her little half-a-sleep moment awhile ago; Aiden stood up, walked over to the other side and sat at next to his daughter still sleeping. He slowly removed some hair that was covering her face; he saw that her eyes were going to be puffy from crying last night.

“Love, wake up” he patted her arm. Nina slowly opened her eyes, “aahh! Dad it’s still early” she pulled the covers up and turned to the other side and tried to go back to sleep.

“Love, we have a plane to catch at 1, we have to leave here at 12 and it’s almost 11” he said softly. He saw that Nina rose up  while he was talking and started to stretch her arms out “it’s going to be 3-4 day vacation…on another island” when he was saying this, Nina’s arms froze when he mentioned another island.  Nina turned back to her dad, hugged him “thanks dad, you’re the best” and ran out to pack her stuff for the trip.

Aiden was the first to finish back, Nina was second and of course Uila was last, actually she still wasn’t done. Aiden decided to get a taxi to go to the airport, it’s too much of a hassle to take his car, besides it’s his daughters first time at the airport, he wants to be there the whole time. As they made their way to the taxi, Aiden was dressed in brown short khaki pants, with a nice lose white t, with brown sandals and black aviators. Nina being the tomboy, she was wearing short gray dickies, with a white t-shirt that has black tattoo designs; it’s one of the shirts she bought at the shop in Laie. She had on, grey lugz shoes, with a plane grey beanie which she put all of her hair in, along with white aviators, people would think she’s a guy simply by how she dresses. Uila is whole different story; she had on a knee high yellow strapless dress, with red flower designs, paired with red slip on sandals with her yellow shades.

The taxi driver was mostly eyeing Uila the whole time until Aiden coughs and snaps him back to earth and he started to load up the luggage’s into the taxi. Aiden asked for a van taxi, because he knew that there needs to be room for his daughter’s luggage. As they were about to leave, Aiden ran back to check on the house and made sure everything is secure. He called Keahlani to ask if she could look after the house while they are out and she screamed at him on the phone for asking such stupid question, and said she was going to look after it even if he didn’t ask. With Aiden in the passenger’s seat and the twins in the back, now they are heading towards the airport.

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