At Last (5 page)

Susan stopped and sat up, disentangling herself from Kevin’s body.

“You okay?” Kevin said, afraid she’d felt his woody growing between them.

“No, I’m not okay! I just caught my reflection in the mirror!”

Susan dashed to the back of the suite, to the bathroom, and slammed the door shut behind her. The hiss of the shower kicked on just as the last chords of Sheryl’s song played. Kevin reached down and turned the music off.

~*~

The water felt good as it sprayed down on Susan’s skin. Not the standard shower--it was large enough to fit a dining room suite in, with room to spare--the shower nozzle was suspended so it poured like a waterfall straight down on top of her. The shower head was big enough it drenched her from head to toe immediately. She saw Kevin had unpacked her shower supplies. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash. But Susan had no interest in smelling like the woman she used to be. Not the woman that got stood up on her wedding day. Instead she used the tiny hotel bottles of soap and shampoo and conditioner, reveling in the exotic scent of tropical fruits and flowers.

Luckily the conditioner made her hair marvelously easy to comb, so she didn’t have to suffer through the knots and tangles. When she was done she looked at her reflection in the mirror, again. This time she just looked tired and wet, except for around her eyes. She still looked like someone had punched her in both eyes.

The bed had fresh linens on it when she walked out of the bathroom. Maid service there was great. She opened up her drawers to find all the clothes she’d packed for her honeymoon. She grabbed some shorts, underwear, and a tank top. She cringed when she reached for a bra.

They were all the bras she’d bought for the honeymoon. All of them were lace or satin, and pushed her breasts up in the most seductive manner. To add insult to injury, right beside those was the extensive collection of lingerie she’d purchased just for this trip.

She couldn’t handle lace, so she picked up one of the satin bras. She didn’t realize how much that bra accentuated her breasts until she had the tank top on, and her eyes almost popped out of her skull.

“Cripes!”

She pulled off the tank top and contemplated putting back on the three day soiled bra. But the thought was too repugnant, so she searched through the drawers until she found a very plain, not at all revealing, pink t-shirt. The color was a little too cheery for her current disposition, but it was that or walking around for the rest of the day looking like a waitress at Hooters.

She walked out into the living room of the hotel suite and crashed on the couch, lying back into the soft cushions and staring heedlessly into the tropical oasis right outside her window. In a way, she wanted to go out there and feel the sun on her skin, to let the wind blow away all her cares, to let the ocean waters lap at her feet, and surrender to all the sensory delights this place had to offer.

But she was afraid the tropical breeze would grab her up and whisk her off to someplace where her memories would swirl around her like a hurricane, that they would smother her if left to the movements of the wind.

If she were honest with herself, she realized, she was afraid to leave the goddamn room. If she left the sanctuary it provided, or Kevin’s protective presence, what would happen when the memories came flooding back to her? She closed her eyes.

A moment later, she felt Kevin flop down on the couch beside her. He smelled good, and the feel of his strong arm as it encircled her shoulders, the solid heat and comfort, it made her sigh just a little too wantonly.

“So, black-eyed girl, what do you wanna do now?”

Susan shot him what she hoped was a scathing look, and angled away from him on the couch. “That’s not funny.”

Kevin leaned back into the couch, his smile smug. “Kinda is. I mean, looks like you took up boxing while you were in your post-wedding coma.”

Susan lunged for him, but he was off the couch and jogging across the room before she laid a finger on him.

“Not fair!” she complained. “When did you get all agile?”

“Um...er...”

“Tough question?” Susan straightened up and locked Kevin in her sights.

He stood there for about thirty seconds looking absolutely miserable. He turned and walked toward the kitchen. “About the time you met Mark.”

His voice was fading as he walked away, so Susan stood and followed him to the kitchen area. “So you got bitten by a radioactive spider, and now you’re Spiderman?”

He smiled as he turned back and gave her a quick glance. But the smile seemed to take effort.

“You know I’m an X-Men fan. If I was a superhero, I’d be Wolverine.”

“How could I forget? You had that half-naked poster in your room until you graduated. I thought...well, I thought...”

Kevin had pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and was chugging a few gulps, giving her a weird look as Susan lost use of all her words. How could she tell him she’d actually thought he was gay? She couldn’t. Not in a million years could she say that to him. She wasn’t Liz, she didn’t go around hurting people’s feelings--especially people she loved--for the hell of it. If she told him what she’d believed about him all those years ago, she might lose him. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. She couldn’t imagine life without him.

Susan’s face burned with embarrassment. The pit of her stomach felt like it was ready to fall out. She gasped at the pain she caused herself as she bit her bottom lip. Now if she could just look into his eyes and lie well enough to keep him from leaving her.

“You thought what?”

She shrugged her shoulders lamely. Her face may be hot, but the rest of her was stone cold and stiff as a board. She felt like she was ready to crack apart into a million pieces.

“You thought I was gay, didn’t you?” He smiled.

“Well...yeah.” Relief flooded through her just seeing him smiling about it. She sighed. “Until you started asking me out every day for a week straight.”

Kevin cringed, his eyes going all puppy-dog cute. “I asked for a whole… I…” He shook his head. “I only remember asking once.”

“Liz would say you repressed it. Or maybe you’ve just got a selective memory. I’d say repressed.” Susan laid her hand on his face. “You okay? I didn’t mean to...” She had to stop. She suddenly felt very warm. Just touching his cheek, the unshaven scruff, the firm line of his jaw, the feel of him--he felt quite alarmingly like a man. She shuddered as her body responded to that new realization.

Immediately Kevin flashed his million-watt smile and shook his head, abruptly ending that brief moment of physical contact. “Thought I was supposed to cheer
you
up, not the other way around.” Suddenly Kevin grasped Susan’s wrist and started pulling her to the front door. “I just thought of something that will cheer both of us up.”

“What?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Yeah, but what is it?” Susan hated the whininess in her voice.

Kevin stopped pulling and shot her a wickedly arched eyebrow. “You do know the meaning of the word, don’t you?”

“Funny.” Susan growled, but Kevin continued, sliding the French glass door open and pulling her through. “But where are we going?”

“To risk our lives!” Kevin crooned as he slammed the door shut behind them.

~*~

Susan had to jog to keep pace with Kevin’s gait. She would’ve let him go off alone, but he had a death grip on her wrist. Keeping up with him, barefoot, wasn’t that hard on the smooth granite walkway leading from the hotel down to the beach. But once on that soft, hot sand, her feet started to slip and slide, digging too deep and causing her to momentarily get stuck in the sand. Kevin jerked her free, dragging her along, tripping, until she got her feet back under her again.

She tried yanking back, but it didn’t even slow him down. She considered biting him, but she’d have to catch up to him first. Susan thought of a movie,
The Quiet Man,
where John Wayne hauls Maureen O’Hara across the beautiful Irish countryside, against her will, dragging her behind him like a caveman whenever she lost her footing.

That’s it.
She wasn’t Maureen O’Hara, and no matter how unexpectedly macho Kevin seemed, he was no John Wayne. She put on the brakes. Or tried to, digging both feet into the sand and pulling back against Kevin’s forward march.

It didn’t even slow Kevin’s progress. So she tried yelling. “Kevin! Stop! Now!”

He turned to look at her, bewildered. “What?”

“You’re dragging me like I’m a dog...or a two-year-old!”

“So?” His face was sober, not a hint of a smile.

“So stop it!”

“Can’t,” he said turning to start walking again. Susan could feel her bare feet plowing through the hot sand. “If I leave you to your own devices, we’ll be cooped up in the room the entire two weeks, and you’ll just lie in that damn bed all day.” He stopped and turned to face her. “Now what kinda friend would that make me if I let that happen?”

“The kind of friend I ever call back again,” Susan said, waving that off. “The kind who understands sometimes that’s exactly what a woman needs. To just lie around and mope for a while.”

Kevin stared into Susan’s eyes for a still, thoughtful moment, then smiled. “Nah, nobody’d wanna do that!” And he turned again to charge across the beach, dragging her once more.

“At least tell me where you’re taking me.” Susan gave up with putting on the brakes--it wasn’t doing a bit of good. And between the jogging and trying to pull back on Kevin’s procession, she was getting winded.

Kevin stopped, and Susan fell against his shoulder, staggering to gain her balance after the abrupt stop.

“We’re here.”

Susan leaned over, gasping for breath, looking around her and not registering the significance of where they were. All she saw was more beach. It was nice, but nothing special, certainly not surprising. . “So...where is ‘here’?”

He didn’t answer her, so she looked up to him from her stooped position and saw he was staring at the sky. She stood up straight and followed his gaze, searching for what Kevin was looking at, and with a jolt, she found it. High in the flawless tropical sky floated a bright red paraglider, a cable running from it down to a gleaming white speedboat cutting through the ocean froth.

It looked pretty, like a kite--but then it hit Susan what Kevin was planning.

“No way!” she bellowed as she turned and tried to bolt back up the beach to the safety of the hotel.

But Kevin still had hold of her wrist, and even though he wasn’t squeezing very hard, it was enough to keep her right where he stood.

“This isn’t fair!” she whined, pulling hard, crouching down and pulling to get herself free with every ounce of her strength. “You outweigh me by a hundred pounds!”

“Ninety pounds, maybe...you’ve gained some the last five years.”

What an asshole! Didn’t he know how paranoid she’d been the whole last year about her weight? Some best friend he was, not even listening to her as she groused about all the dieting she’d had to do just to fit into her wedding dress. Just the thought of that dress made her see red, a volcano of molten anger surged up through her veins. She flopped on the sand and shoved her feet against the side of Kevin’s leg, pulling wildly to get free.

“Let go of me, you muscle-bound troglodyte!”

The look on Kevin’s face as he looked down on Susan was bemused, which made her all the more enraged. He shrugged and released her wrist, sending her crashing back into the soft, hot, white sand with a sudden huff of expelled air.

Susan lay there, looking at the big blue sky, the blissful looking paraglider sailing through the silky air currents with such ease. Kevin dropped down beside her, stretching out and gazing up with her.

“I’m afraid of heights,” Susan said in a flat, trembling voice.

“I remember.”

Susan turned her head. “Then, what the hell?”

Kevin’s face was serene, still, and he started smiling that irritating smile again. “What better way to take your mind off your troubles than to face your greatest fear?”

It sounded like it should be a line in a movie. One of those life-affirming movies, starring Jack Nicholson or Meryl Streep. It was so outrageous, yet made such instant, inscrutable sense. Susan turned back to the sky and watched as the paraglider dipped for an instant, and then rose back up, even higher than it had been before.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, more to herself than to Kevin. She wanted to know what it was like up there, flying through the air, the entire world stretching out below her.

“And so dangerous,” he said. “I mentioned the risking our lives part, right?”

Susan groaned and shook her head. “Yeah, you mentioned that.”

SUSAN FELT PEACEFUL,
if not a little amused, as the guys running the paragliding outfit strapped her into a harness and lashed her to Kevin so her shoulders were firm against his chest. She marveled at how the thick pull line seemed to make sounds like it was made out of metal, which comforted her quite a bit.