Skygods (Hydraulic #2) (11 page)

I ran a hand along the side of the damp, fungus-covered cave then promptly yanked it back, recalling that I shouldn’t touch the walls. Freud would have a field day with that one.

“I never saw any of them again,” I repeated, “because they weren’t you. You’ve spoiled me for other men, Cabral. And I know, deep down, you’re probably ecstatic about it.”

His shoulders sagged, the fight leaving him. He flipped off his light so he could talk to me. I did the same, rendering us blind in thick blackness.

“Relieved, yes. Ecstatic, no. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy, Kaye. And if that meant you found your happiness with someone else, so be it. But I don’t think I’d be strong enough to watch it. In fact, I rather want to beat the piss out of them,” he said through gritted teeth.

My heart pounded because his words could have been yanked straight from my brain. “When you were with Caroline, I told myself I could still be a part of your life. But now I know I could never watch you love someone else. I nearly went crazy.”

I felt Samuel’s ungloved hand slip down my arm, cautiously threading his fingers through mine. “I told you, Kaye—only you. It wasn’t just a promise. It’s reality.”

I nodded, feeling in the maturity of my tired, twenty-seven-year-old self how far away we’d grown from the innocence of Caulfield and Aspen.

“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you,” I said softly. “I just didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry, too. I guess this is yet another consequence of letting you go like I did—knowing that other men have seen your lovely body, and touched you, and had you.”

I shivered, the chill air hitting my spine. “I’m not exactly thrilled about it either. I don’t like to think about the shame I felt when I pretended they were you. And I don’t like three other floozies sharing my memory of your body, or the faces you make when you’re lost in the moment,” I said plainly, because we deserved the plain truth.

He searched for the right words to give voice to the heavy emotion hanging between us. “Look how we’ve hurt ourselves, Kaye. We’ve both grasped at shards of life, hoping to reclaim some sort of wild elation only to find we cut ourselves a little bit more.” He clutched my hand as we stood and listened to the quiet plops and trickles of water echoing through the cave.

“May I kiss you?” Samuel asked.

“No. I’m sulking.”

“Thirty minutes ago, you were convinced I’d slept with the entire Eastern Seaboard,” he gently reminded, his arms circling me.

“I’m not going to kiss you. I don’t want to tie beautiful things like kissing you to the ugliness of this particular conversation.” But I tugged his coverall strap and pulled him closer anyway, touched my lips to his, and rested my head on his shoulder.

He had the grace to refrain from pointing out I’d been the one to initiate this talk. “Come on, then.” Flipping on his light, he maneuvered over the rocks and then helped me down. “Let’s find some sky.”

We made our way through the cave until the light beckoned us back to the world above. Gray day washed gray faces, revealing our scattered walls. But it also brought to light another ill-omened barrier rising between us, one that hadn’t been visible until those other walls tumbled down.

I hoped, with all my might, we’d see the other barrier for what it was and knock it down before it strengthened and grew to insurmountable heights.

Chapter 4

Glide Path

The predicted flight trajectory of a diver
from plane to ground.

Hydraulic Level Five
[working title]
Draft 2.25
© Samuel Caulfield Cabral & Aspen Kaye Trilby
25. Best Last Prom

A
SPEN
I
S
N
OT
A F
RILLY
G
IRL
.

She never has been, and swears up and down she never will be. Despite Maria’s best efforts, she fights makeup brushes and flat irons like a feral cat.

“I can’t believe Caulfield dragged me from the dorm just to have you claw and hiss at me for trying to make you beautiful.”

Aspen tries to hide the sting of her words. Maria means well, but she’s too blunt. “Caulfield asked you to make me over?” she says casually.

Maria pauses, flat iron hovering over Aspen’s locks. “No,” she admits. “I didn’t mean for it to sound that way. He thinks you’re beautiful just as you are. I’m the one who pushed. But it’s
prom
, Aspen! You skipped out last year and threw a hissy fit over Caulfield’s senior prom, and there’s no way I’m letting you out the door without the full treatment this time. So just sit back, let me fix your hair, and be grateful.”

Aspen does, not without an exaggerated sigh that says “I will tolerate this but so help me I’ll be in cargo pants before the weekend is over.” If it were up to her, she’d hijack Caulfield for the weekend and they’d drive to the guitar shop in Boulder, mess with the equipment, then find a quiet spot for some horny teenager time in his car. She hates watching the back of him as he leaves for college after his weekend visits.

Gusts of wind skip over the rooftop and rattle the old windows of her mother’s farm house. This spring is a cold one. Even so, she smells the cusp of summer, and with it comes freedom. She counts the days until she and Caulfield pack their cars and escape—together this time—to college.

It’s hard, watching her classmates do the high school thing. Hold hands in hallways, kiss outside classrooms, hit the diner after evening practices. Caulfield comes home when he can, but she wants him around full time. Breaking up is out of the question—she’d rather suffer through her last years of high school in a long distance relationship than be without him entirely. High school is a bust. So what? She’s ready for graduation, ready for college, and ready for carefree days when it doesn’t feel like half her heart is missing.

“Ow! Flailing beefeaters, Maria!” Aspen’s shriek floats down the stairs and into the living room, where Caulfield sits on the sofa, awkwardly bouncing his knees while her mother watches a gardening program. “Leave me some hair!”

“For crying out loud, you’d think someone who wants their own apartment would at least know how to use a brush!” Caulfield hears Maria fires back.

He glances at Aspen’s mother, who pays no mind to the apartment revelation, but leans in when the televised gardener demonstrates a bulb transplant.

Caulfield is also ready for his girlfriend to join him in Boulder. Afternoons spent hovering over the photo album Aspen made for him…late nights in the computer lab, exchanging emails until the building closed…his dorm room long distance service suspended each month because he reaches his max limit…It’s ironic that he’ll finally have Internet and unlimited long distance in his apartment next semester. Aside from his parents, he has no one in particular he wants to email or call once Aspen is with him.

Aspen’s mother clears her throat, piercing Caulfield with a look that absolutely tells him she can read his mind.

“Are you going to shack up with my baby girl?”

Two points of red spread across the young man’s cheeks. “No, ma’am.”

Her lips twitch once, then she turns back to the television. Caulfield flips the corsage box between his fingers.

That was another point of contention—the apartment. Aspen hints that she wants Caulfield to ask her to live with him. He’d side-stepped her hopeful looks and implications. She should spend at least a year in a dorm or she’ll never have any close girlfriends in college. He knows from experience what the consequences of shutting out other students are—a slew of casual acquaintances and no real friends.

It’s what she
claims
to need, anyway. A chance to be a kid after stressing over her parents’ messes for so long. Parents who, after seventeen years, finally decide to be parents and insist she live in the dorm, no arguments, which only makes headstrong Aspen fight harder. The woman is a mess of dichotomies. One minute, bouncing on the heels of her feet in a mad rush to grow up. The next, lamenting the passing of childhood. Caulfield runs an aggravated hand through his somewhat tamed hair. Right now, he just needs to give Aspen the best last prom he can.

And Aspen. All she focuses on is keeping Caulfield from slipping through her fingers. But the moment she descends the stairs, gauzy plum fabric trailing behind her, neither Aspen nor Caulfield believe there is any danger of the other slipping away. Because they are Caulfield and Aspen. They are in love.

Caulfield meets her halfway up the stairs. She is gorgeous. Not a poofy, pastel prom queen sort of gorgeous, but elegant, unassuming, all Aspen. Taking her pale hand, he pulls her to eye level. “You are.” He tenderly kisses the tip of her nose. “Lovely.”

Aspen rolls her eyes and smooths his black lapel with her pretty fingers—fingers Maria tortured into submission with files and nail polish. “You’re pretty sexy yourself.” She winks, ignoring her mother’s throat clearing. Leaning against her chest, she whispers into his ear. “Thank you for this. Not every college guy would escort his high school girlfriend to prom.”

He pulls the delicate orchid from its box and slips it over her wrist. “He’d be a fool, then, to let such a chance pass him by.”

All right, Kaye, let me have it. I reworked the dual thoughts with your suggestions. Despite your insistence, I’m maintaining that you were in a hurry to grow up because of your parents, not just to catch up with me. All you talked about (aside from your utter hatred of “MmmBop”) was getting away from your mom and dad. ~Sam

Dr. Phil—Fine, I’ll give you that. I wanted to get the heck out of Lyons because I was sick of my dad gushing about his girlfriend like he was a fifteen-year-old perv, while my mother was just down the street, pretending I didn’t even exist during planting season. I will, however, forgive your shrink-like ways because you remembered my thanking you for prom. It was important to me, even though I acted like a brat. ~Kaye

You weren’t a brat—you were seventeen. And having a moody, self-involved boyfriend didn’t help. ~Sam

Thanks, cliff-hucker. Hey. Is chili okay for dinner? After getting half-drowned in our tent last night, something warm sounds good. ~Kaye

Kaye, I’m sitting next to you. You can just ask. ~Sam

You didn’t answer my question. ~Kaye

Chili is…(kissing the tip of your nose)…Lovely. ~Sam

For someone who claims to hate The Creek with the fire of a thousand suns, that was a very “Dawson” thing you wrote there. Just say—

A quartet of groans echoed around our measly campfire circle as several more raindrops splattered our foreheads, half-eaten hot dogs, and s’mores, then plunked woodenly on Samuel’s discarded Gibson guitar. We needed to keep an eye on this storm. We were surrounded by a massive alpine forest, and if the wind and rain were bad, falling tree limbs and wash-outs could be a problem.

Kevin, our caving guide, had retreated to his canvas sanctuary the instant his girlfriend, Kiki, arrived. She was a buxom, black-haired woman who breathed too heavily and vaguely resembled Elvira, minus the whole vampy cleavage thing. She had a fixation with
Water Sirens
, and when Kevin let it slip that one of his clients was Samuel Cabral, he couldn’t keep her away. Luckily, her libido was stronger than her star-struck curiosity. Kevin whisked her off for a “spiritual reconnection.” Or, as Molly crassly put it, the exploration of her foreboding cave.