Hydraulic Level Five (1) (47 page)

And somehow, all of it faded to the background as my best friend’s arms circled my waist. I felt the muscles of his stomach beneath starched cotton. Smelled his sweat as it crept to the surface of his skin. His breath tickled the nape of my neck, and it reminded me of making love to him, so much. Too much. It reminded him, too. A familiar warmth pressed into my back, the space between us forgotten. My lips curled and I felt a bit of the seductress return to my bones.

The song ground to a close and another one started, slower. I turned in Samuel’s arms as the band strummed out sweet contemporary strains.

He gently pressed his fingers into my back, urging me closer…I rested my cheek on the lapel of his tuxedo vest.

“You know what I mean when I tell you I want you, right?” he murmured.

He took my hand in his and held it against his chest…I let my other hand creep up his neck, into his hair.

“It’s kind of hard to miss,” I teased, leaning into his body.

He chuckled and trailed a hand up my spine, all the way to my neck…I allowed him to play with the ringlets on my head.

For years and years, we’d spoken those three little words to each other. An innocent “I love you, I’m sorry” after playing too rough as children. A quick “love ya” as we flew past lockers on our way to class. A sad “love you so much” as he left for college, leaving me in Lyons. So many meanings, that saying “I love you” became common—like hello and goodbye.

I’d never doubted our friendship love. But Samuel telling me he wanted me…I hadn’t heard it much from him, in the past. We’d shown it, we just didn’t say it. And when our marriage ended, it left me wondering whether I’d been the only one who’d truly felt it.

But he had. He still did.

“You are glowing tonight. Lovely.”

I brought my eyes to his and returned the smile. “So are you.”

Samuel moved me around the dance floor. I knew people watched, talking about the exes. I didn’t care. My face burrowed into his neck, breasts brushing lightly against his chest. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I inhaled his faint cologne. Spicy cardamom, juniper, and cedar. He still wore the same scent, even so many years later. Despite the changes in him—clothing preferences, grown-up confidence, the ability to work a room—the recognizable little things reminded me that he was still Samuel.

Had he known I’d wanted him too, back then? How often had I told Samuel I desired him? I needed him? I bit my lip, searching my memories for one occasion when I’d shared those words, confessed how good he made me feel.

I couldn’t think of a one. For all he knew,
I’d
only loved
him
as a friend. I had begged for his last name, but never explained why. Not telling him was a costly mistake on my part, and I would have given anything to go back to the years we were together and tell him, every single day, that I wanted him too. But mulling over “woulda coulda shouldas” didn’t fix a thing. The past was just upstream driftwood, out of reach. The present, though, still sloshed against my trailing fingers.

“Welcome home.” I kissed his neck—a promise—and wiped away the trace of lipstick I’d left there.

His entire body sighed.

With a final flourish, the song ended.

As the music died away, I felt eyes on me, yanking us down from our high. Samuel held me to him a moment longer, his lips brushing my hairline so subtly, it might seem unintentional to anyone watching. And then he let me go. Disappointment surged through me as he hurriedly kissed my cheek, thanking me.

Before I could gather the courage to ask him for another dance, one of Angel’s enthusiastic teenage cousins claimed him. Samuel relented, and I made my way to the back table where I’d left my wrap and hour-old champagne. The corner was partly obscured by shadows, so I didn’t see anybody sitting there until it was too late.

Caroline Ortega glared up at me, onyx eyes two pinpoints of hate.

She was crying.

I nervously grabbed for my champagne flute, hoping to clear out as quickly as possible. But in true disastrous timing, my hand missed the glass and sent it clattering across the table, spilling sticky champagne down the front of Caroline’s designer jacquard dress.

“Frickin’ swizzle-stick.” I picked up a pink linen and stopped short of dabbing Caroline’s dress. She swiped the napkin from me and brushed the material, then her eyes. Once she finished, she tossed the thing on the table and rounded on me.

“You did that on purpose.”

I thrust out my hands. “Look here, if I’d wanted to spill champagne all over you, I would have picked the thing up and dumped it on your head.”

“No. What you are doing is worse, and you know it.”

“I haven’t a clue what you mean.” I busied myself by mopping up the table with the pink linen.

“Samuel. You’re playing with him. Instead of cutting him loose like an amicable
ex
-wife to let him live his life, you string him along.”

“Bull.”

“Is it? You’ve dangled Hector Valdez in front of him since you were kids and when he reacts to it, you berate him for it, don’t you?”

“No! Hector and Samuel are my friends—nothing more.” My fingers tightened around the cloth napkin.

“There’s no point in lying, it’s written all over your face. You can’t have it both ways, you know. ‘Friends with benefits’ never works.”

My fists dug into my hips. “Hey, let’s calm down, okay? I’m sorry you’re upset, but it’s not my fault Samuel doesn’t want to date you, Caroline. You have no right to take your bitterness out on me.”

“I have every right to despise you. It drives you insane that I know him better than you do, now, doesn’t it?”

“And yet, he still wants me.” I chucked the champagne-dampened linen on the table. The woman just could not keep her mouth shut, could she?

“So what are you going to do when he’s back in your arms? Destroy him again when you realize you don’t want the real him?”

“You don’t know the first thing about me, so back off.” Grabbing my empty champagne flute, I stalked away from the table, weaving my way toward the bar. But Caroline jumped up and stalked after me.

“Don’t I? Apparently it isn’t enough that he’s been hung up on you for
seven miserable years
. You want him to be miserable for the rest of his life. You just couldn’t stand to see him move on with someone else, could you?”

Tears stung my eyes. I jabbed a finger at her. “I can’t stand that the woman is a selfish, manipulative harpy.”

“Take a look in the mirror, you podunk piece of trash.”

“Enough.” A calm, forceful voice sounded behind me. Sofia Cabral stepped forward, her face grieved. “There will be no more fighting.”

She took the empty champagne flute from my quivering hand and set it on a nearby table. Touching a calming finger to my cheek, she turned to both of us.

“The two of you mean the world to my son. But if you must force him to choose sides, please don’t do it tonight. This is my daughter’s wedding.”

Only then did I glance around, noticing for the first time that several guests—Mrs. Jones included—stared at us, whispering about Samuel Cabral’s ex-wife and new girlfriend going toe-to-toe like a tawdry reality show. I sought Samuel’s tall frame on the dance floor and was relieved he hadn’t witnessed the ridiculously embarrassing girl-fight.

Caroline bit her tongue and carefully schooled her features into a deliberate nonchalance. I mumbled an apology to Sofia like a thoroughly-scolded thirteen-year-old. How was it that Sofia, with a single stern look, could bring me to my repentant knees?

“Come with me, Caroline. I can help you treat your dress in the laundry room.” Sofia held out a firm hand and Caroline had no choice but to follow. But as she left, she got in one final dig.

“You are just another addiction,” she hissed for my ears only. “You’re going to destroy him, Kaye. And the disgusting thing is, you can’t even comprehend you’re doing it.”

As I watched her elegant, retreating back, I chewed on her words.

I wasn’t an addiction to him, was I?

No, she was wrong. If it was the last thing I ever did in this life, I would prove Caroline wrong. Samuel Cabral would never face destruction because of me.

A destructive path…

I slapped my head at my stupidity. Samuel’s last
Water Sirens
book. The entire thing was about destructive paths. Now I had to finish it before we discussed New York after the reception.

Scanning the crowd, I spotted the person I was looking for—kind of scrawny, goofy-looking ruffled shirt, matted blond hair. Alan Murphy sat at a table, chatting away with several old Lyons High friends about some graphic novel.

“No way, dude, I’m telling you—if
WS
was illustrated, Neelie Nixie would totally have huge tits. She’d wear leather, too. Head-to-toe…”

His friends frantically waved to him, motioning “cut it.” He gave them an odd look. “Oh come on. You can’t tell me you don’t think Cabral wrote ’em bigger than in real life…”

I ground my teeth, struggling not to slap Murphy upside the head.

“And…she’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?” Alan swiveled in his chair, his face flooding crimson. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.

“Kaye, hehe. Look, I totally didn’t know—”

“Forget it. I need to borrow your book, please. The one I signed?”

“Yes! Um…you aren’t going to throw it in the dumpster, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I just want to read it. I’ll return it when I’m done, I promise.”

He just stared at me, protecting the book as if he shielded his kitten from a hungry hawk.

“Look, if anything happens to it, I’ll see if Samuel can get you a signed galley copy. How about that?”

Alan reluctantly handed over the precious first edition copy of
The Last Other
. Muttering my thanks, I scrambled for the house, the book tucked under my arm.

It was time to finish
The Last Other
. Neelie Nixie was already dead. Now I had to know, once and for all, what happened to Nicodemus.

Chapter 20: River Signals

Like baseball signals, paddlers use a series of signs
while on the river in order to communicate from a distance.

“K
AYE
, P
LEASE
!”

“Just a sec’, Alan.”

Music from the mariachis floated through the window of the Cabrals’ spare bedroom—last dance type of music.

“My friends need to leave and I need my book back,” he whined through the guest room door, where he’d finally tracked me down.

“Another fifteen minutes?”

“Fine.” I heard him tromp down the stairs and back to the party.

I bit my thumbnail, flying over paragraph after thrilling paragraph of action. This was it. Nicodemus had picked off the rest of the Others, one by one, until he’d cornered their mastermind in a deserted Alpine village somewhere in Austria…

Nicodemus righted his fossil limbs and threw himself into the dream-fray, desperately striking against the furious strength of the last Other. A defeated soldier in a battlefield of blood he swung, aimless, heedless of the carnage beneath his feet, of the stench. Scatters of stone and smoldered flesh…remnants of a final, failed stand against the overpowering evil that had taken Neelie and left his world in miserable ruin.

He had been so very sure. When the Others began to drop, mysteriously, by a hand other than his, he’d hoped. When he’d trailed bands of demons across the mountains only to come across their dead carcasses along the road, he’d been so sure…

The last Other leered down at him with glistening black teeth, hitting him with yet another vision. Neelie, grasping at loose rock, tumbling over the edge. Neelie’s body, crumpled at the bottom of a cliff. Neelie, gone, gone, gone. Nicodemus clutched his head and tried to root out the Other…

I closed my eyes, pressing the book to my chest until panic subsided. I forced my coward eyelids open and gazed out the window, down at the twinkling lights of the wedding reception. Guests had steadily left over the past hour as it crept closer to midnight.

A knock at the door yanked me out of Samuel’s fantasy world. My mother, working the beads and bell sleeves, peeked around, noticeably relieved to find me alone.

“Kaye, your father’s going to drive Hector home. He’s a little worse for wear after that open bar.”

Guilt clamped down and twisted my chest like a lug wrench. In my haste to secure time with Samuel, I’d completely forgotten about Hector. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Don’t you get into any trouble with that Cabral boy tonight.”

I groaned. “Mom, I’m not fifteen.”

“All the same, I saw you on that dance floor. Make sure he—you know. Covers up.”