Skygods (Hydraulic #2) (4 page)

He relented. “Kaye, I’m sorry I’m so bent out of shape. It’s no excuse, but it’s been a rough couple of weeks.” Jagged exhaustion edged his voice. Worry began to replace anger and I wondered if that exhaustion ever went away. “If I tell you my entire history with Caroline, will you quit fretting about her?”

I harrumphed, neither a yes nor a no.

Samuel continued. “I first met Caroline when I was a sophomore at CU. Togsy and I were in the same major classes and became what you would call casual friends.”

“You mean drug buddies?”

“Yeah, eventually,” he admitted. “Caroline would fly out to Colorado a couple times a semester to visit…”

Samuel explained that Caroline was also a writer, but her real desire had been to be a senior editor with Berkshire House Publishing where she’d been interning. Togsy had shared one of Samuel’s workshop pieces with her and she’d seen his potential. For months, she’d pestered him for his work-in-progress book, but he’d refused, insisting he didn’t want anyone to read it until it was completed. But Samuel did send her his short stories, none of which had been picked up by publishers. It wasn’t until he moved to New York, broken by drugs and disappointments, that he had folded and allowed her to read
Water Sirens
.

“She agreed the story was rough,” he said, “but saw the marketability of the book—especially if I intended to make it a series. We spent hours poring over the manuscript when I wasn’t high and she wasn’t cleaning up Togsy’s messes. It was a hard time for all of us. She wanted her fiancé sober and I wanted to get so high I wouldn’t remember your name.”

Then I visited and subsequently slapped him with divorce papers, setting the wheels in motion for Samuel’s long battles in rehab. Though Samuel didn’t say it, I got the impression Caroline expressed her disapproval of my actions quite frequently.

Once Alonso and Sofia talked their son into therapy and detox, it only highlighted Togsy’s failures. Lyle grew to resent Samuel. Then Samuel’s book deal came through and it was the last straw for Lyle Togsender. Just after Christmas, he broke his engagement to Caroline and moved out of the brownstone.

“Caroline was devastated. I think, more than anything, that’s why she fought so hard to help me. My mother told you about my trouble in Raleigh and the court-ordered rehab?”

“Yes.” Samuel politely refrained from mentioning that I had his arrest record. My oven timer buzzed and I set my guitar aside to pull out the tray. He talked while I laid warm cookies on a cooling rack.

“I spent six months in a rehab center while Caroline worked tirelessly to edit my book for publication. She was adamant, and it was good to have her in my corner, though I didn’t really appreciate it at the time. In a way, she was vicariously helping Togsy through me. He wouldn’t accept her love and support, so I was the next best thing. My achievements are inextricably tied to hers. It’s caused problems in the past. The men she’s dated usually end up upset over the time she spends promoting the
Water Sirens
series. And the women I’ve dated think she’s a controlling shrew—not that those relationships went anywhere, anyway.”

So it wasn’t only me—Samuel’s other love interests had also thought he was monopolized by Caroline. I knew she’d ruthlessly protected Samuel for years. Which would be wonderful, except she didn’t see me as a friend; she saw me as a threat.

It dawned on me that, save for vague references, neither of us had broached the taboo subject of past partners. Though curiosity and, admittedly, jealously, simmered in my gut, I couldn’t ask about them just now, not after what he’d told me.

I heard soft strumming on the line and I smiled. Samuel had his guitar, too. He continued. “It wasn’t until after Thanksgiving two years ago, when I told Caro you’d rejected my attempts at reconciliation, that she even broached the idea of being more than friends. I said no. I knew if we ever went down that path, it would ruin our friendship. But she pushed and pushed. And before you ask, I never slept with her,” he quickly added. “We never even rounded second base, for that matter.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” I replied, glad for that little bit of information. I grabbed one of the warm cookies and headed back to my heating pad.

“I wanted more than a dark apartment waiting for me at night. I wanted someone to spoil, and hold, and give myself to. I knew it was wrong to say yes to Caro when I still had strong feelings for you. But loneliness is a powerful motivator, Kaye. I’m thankful you’ve never had to experience it.”

But I had felt loneliness, too. Going to sleep alone, longing for the warmth of another body next to mine. Freezing leftovers because no one was there to share my meals.
Complete
loneliness, though…no, I’d never felt that. In the aftermath of our divorce, Samuel never once tried to turn our friends against me, the way so many exes do. Companionship was only a half hour’s drive away.

I wanted to fall asleep with him again. I wanted to hold him and rub his back, assure him he’d never be lonely. I wanted to tell him to quit this insane self-imposed isolation and come home to Colorado, but I knew pity would only embarrass him. So I strummed a few chords, the opening to an Elvis song—“Lonesome Tonight.” He laughed. He always laughed at my disparate love for Elvis Presley.

“You remember this one?” I heard the harmonies of his guitar almost immediately.

“Just see if you can keep up, Trilby.”

“Hey now, I was the first to learn Elvis and don’t you forget it.”

After an hour of playing, I heard Samuel yawn and noticed it was after midnight in New York. We reluctantly called it a night.

“So you’ll be home mid-July,” I confirmed. “Are you renting a car in Denver or should I pick you up?”

“No, I’ll rent a car. Are you sure you don’t mind my tagging along on your caving trip?”

My heart twisted. “I wouldn’t have invited you, otherwise. Samuel, I want you along, believe me. You have no idea.”

I wanted him here, now.

It was roughly two weeks after Samuel departed Lyons that I received a package from him.

I was ready to flee the office following a long, blah Monday. Samuel had an all-day event—a press junket for the new
Water Sirens
trailer (I didn’t even know they had press junkets for movie trailers)—so we postponed his Q-and-A. He’d already given me fair warning that we’d be discussing Hector Valdez. I cringed. Throughout our history, my friendship with Hector had been a relentless argument between us.

My mail alert bleeped and a message from Samuel with the subject header “My New Tattoo” caught my eye. Oh no. Wincing, I flew through the email:

I thought I’d get some ink, too. A tribute to our friendship vows, if you will. Tell me what you think.

I opened the attachment, praying that Samuel didn’t do anything ridiculously cheesy and permanent. Then the image popped open, and I laughed aloud. It was a picture of him, his T-shirt bunched up around his neck to expose his tan, trim back. Between his shoulder blades was an intricate tattoo, red and puffy—four grinning geriatrics positioned on a mountainside like Rushmore. Beneath the monument in bold letters was the phrase:
Thank you for being a friend.

Ha. I fired off a response:

I see someone’s been playing with photo-editing software. Don’t you have a publicity tour that’s keeping you insanely busy? P.S.—Want to see the
Three’s Company
tat on my tush? It’s next to the infamous heart freckle.

Smug, I turned back to my work, only to be interrupted two minutes later by Samuel’s reply:

If you send me a picture, would that be considered an improper use of company email?

I typed:

Not when you’re the boss. But I’m afraid sending you a picture of my pert tush would fall under the “friends with benefits” category.

There was a knock on my office door and I minimized my email, embarrassed to be caught e-flirting. My underling smiled and dropped the mail on my desk, including a FedEx priority package. Almost immediately, a new email arrived:

Kaye, you’ve ruined me and I need to return to this junket. Behave. Yours, Samuel

I blathered over the “Yours” sign-off, then tore into the priority package. Anticipation hopped in my gut when out slid a rough-bound, incomplete manuscript. Dozens of colorful Post-it flags stuck out of the sides:

Hydraulic Level Five [working title]

A Novel

© Samuel Caulfield Cabral & Aspen Kaye Trilby

I flipped through the pages, seeing Samuel’s scribbles everywhere—questions, comments, highlighted passages. Curious, I tucked into the first chapter. Warm nostalgia flowed over me as “Aspen” tackled “Caulfield” in the creek. I’d forgotten how runty he’d been as a child, before he shot up like a beanstalk.

A picture fell out of the envelope, a recent shot of Samuel leaning against a moss-covered stone wall. His hands were tucked in his pants pockets and he squinted against the sun. A river and rolling bluffs stretched behind him. Wind whipped his hair around his face, and my fingers ached to tug at that fabulous mop of messy hair. I looked at the label on the back:
Fort Tryon Park. June 23.

I missed him.

Settling into my chair, I lost myself in Caulfield and Aspen and a long night of seeing our story, for the first time, through Samuel’s eyes.

Chapter 2

Bounce Crash

A diver who lands
without the aid of a parachute
“bounces.” Generally not advised.

I
T
W
OULD
H
AVE
B
EEN
P
AINLESS
to dip my toes in that frigid river and test the cold, the power of the current curling around my ankles. Or even to stay in that metaphorical boat, experiencing the wild ride that was Samuel’s manuscript, from the false security of a piece of plastic between me and the water. But if we were going to find each other again, I had to dive in and risk getting hurt. I had no trouble taking risks in every other facet of my life. So why was it so difficult with Samuel?

In Samuel’s description of Caulfiend and Aspen, I could see how he’d thought I’d guarded my heart from him long before he ever gave me real cause. He’d told me a month ago at Button Rock Reservoir that getting into my head was like breaking into Fort Knox. I’d only reaffirmed that when I barricaded his questions regarding Hector until he let out a frustrated growl and informed me that the only way this reconciliation would
ever
work was if we were honest with each other.

“What do you want me to say, Samuel? That I’m in love with Hector? Because I’m not. He is, and always has been, my friend.”

“At least acknowledge that whenever you are upset with me, you use him to make yourself feel better.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I fired back. “I would never, ever use a friend like that.”

“When we were dating and we got into a fight, who was the first person you always went to?”

“Hector,” I begrudgingly replied.

“And when I was away at college, who took you out on dates?”

“They weren’t dates. Just two friends having fun!”

“Kaye,” he said in a patronizing tone that made me want to smack him, “Hector Valdez has harbored a crush on you for years, and I think you know it. You may not have considered your time together as ‘dating,’ but when people back home started warning me that my girlfriend was seeing someone else, it was a problem.”

“I don’t care what the Lyons gossips say and neither should you.”

“But can you see how it would’ve stung? I’m not above feeling jealous.”

Yes, I could see that. I tried to calm my voice. “For the last time, I chose
you
. And I’m
still
choosing you. In the seven years we were apart, I never once had a romantic relationship with him. Don’t you think if I had any desire to snack on Hector, it would have happened already?”