A smile spread across my face. “Absolutely. I’ll help you! If you’re in, of course.”
“No Hector?”
“No Hector.”
“I’m in.” He parted his lips and leveled warm blue eyes on me and, screw it, there went my resolve. I hovered over him, placing a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you for giving Neelie and Nicodemus a happy ending,” I murmured. “Knowing they’re somewhere in the Alps, alive and loved…it’s the way it should be.”
“You’re welcome.” His hands froze over my waist. “I’m happy it makes you happy.”
I kissed the other corner of his mouth. “Thank you for wanting me to be happy.”
He grunted in reply and started to move. I shook my head, kissing each of his eyelids.
“And thank you for wanting me, period,” I whispered.
His torn eyes held mine. “Don’t think I’m complaining, but you said no to this at the cookout. I’m not—I’m not sure what you want from me, Kaye.”
Crud, I didn’t know if I could answer that. “It’s probably good we’ll have some physical distance between us for a while, give us a chance to get to know each other again. That would be the right thing to do. But then we have Rule Number Two: provide emotional and physical warmth.”
“Don’t forget Rule Number Four: want what is best for each other.”
I brushed a finger along the ridge of his nose. Samuel watched as it slid away.
“What do you want?” he repeated.
“What do I want?”
“Yes.”
Don’t tell him. Don’t string him along.
But you just vowed to be honest with him, you twit.
He’s leaving. You’ll tell him and then he’ll be gone five minutes later.
But that’s just it—he’s leaving for New York. He needs to know before he leaves.
I scrunched my eyes shut and called up my reserves of courage. “I want you. A lot. And I should have told you every single day, too—that was just as much my failure as it was yours.” I opened one eye, then the other, not sure what I would find.
He sucked in a breath, his entire body rigid and intent on my next move. “Now tell me what is best for you, Firecracker. Because truthfully, I’m not sure.”
Even though every tingling nerve in my body protested, I rolled off his chest and settled into the crook of his arm. “Friends for now. I think it’s best, don’t you?”
“How so?”
I brushed the tiny white scar between his left thumb and index finger. When he was nine, he’d accidentally put his hand through a window pane after rapping it too hard, because Danita had locked him out of the house.
“I know all of these little marks,” I said wistfully. “Yet there’s so much we don’t know, as manic as we were about each other.”
His arms tightened around me, his only response.
For me, it would never be enough to simply call him “friend,” and I could now see that it wouldn’t be enough for him, either. Samuel was a part of me, as much as the veins in my arms or the muscles in my legs were a part of me. We’d waited this long to suture ourselves together. We could wait a few months for each other, couldn’t we? There was something sublime in the waiting, despite the dysfunction…a painful devotion to each other that spanned time and circumstance.
So, despite “friends for now,” there in the quiet morning of Lyons High’s baseball field, I closed the gap and pressed my lips to his. It was a gentle, careful, goodbye kiss. One that left me aching when I released his bottom lip. One that begged him to wait for me. To wait until our window returned.
As ever, he kissed me back.
Continue reading for a short preview of the upcoming sequel: Skygods
Skygods
Skydivers, arrogant in their ability to navigate the heavens,
rejects their fragile state and calls themselves gods of the sky…
Chapter 1: Blue Sky, Black Death
A skydiver’s mantra or greeting:
Enjoy the exhilaration of the open sky,
but never forget the mortal earth below.
Hydraulic Level Five [working title]
Draft 1.22
© Samuel Caulfield Cabral and Aspen Kaye Trilby
22. An Inheritance and State
THREE MILLION DOLLARS. All of it in a trust fund left behind by his dead parents which, now that he is eighteen, is at his disposal. According to the lawyer, the fortune would’ve been nine million if the estate hadn’t been obligated to pay his mother’s debts after she jumped. Not that he wants a dime of it. Caulfield scowls at the memory of the piggish man with squinty eyes and a stupid-looking bowtie that choked his fat neck. He doesn’t need a stranger to remind him his mother had preferred ski slopes, sports cars, and spending sprees in Boston’s Back Bay to her son.
“Caulfield, hit the on-deck circle!” Coach bellows from the opposite end of the dugout. Caulfield scoops up a bat and sprints to the circle for warm-up swings. He has to get his head in the game, his last ever with Bear Creek High. He’s wanted the state title for so long, and now it’s three colossal runs away—so impossible just fifteen minutes ago, yet Bear Creek managed to load the bases in a ninth inning rally.
Bright stadium lights wash the field in white, heightening the exhilaration of the night game. He pushes his hat brim down to shield his eyes from the glare.
“Straighten out that swing, you’re a little wild today.” Caulfield nods to the hitting coach and focuses on the next pitch, clobbering the imaginary ball. “That’s better.”
The odd thing is, baseball has begun to lose its sheen of magic. The University of Colorado, along with several other colleges, offered him baseball scholarships. He turned them all down. The idea of playing ball another four years seems daunting. Really, all he wants to do is plow through the next two years until Aspen graduates from high school, and he can once again see her every day.
She’s up there in the stands, like she always is—screaming his name when he’s up to bat, waving as he takes to the outfield. To her, he’s Caulfield: attentive boyfriend, hell of a ballplayer, and best friend since five. How would she feel about Caulfield: child of a disbarred lawyer and nutcase socialite? Or Caulfield: sack-of-shit millionaire who’s too scared to touch his inheritance, even to buy his girlfriend a reliable ride? Caulfield tears through another swing.
“Number Nine, you’re up!” Caulfield shoulders the barrel as the hitter before him strikes out. A thrill shoots through him every time he hears “Number Nine.” Ted Williams—the Splendid Splinter himself—wore the number nine for two decades in Boston. Someday he’d see that retired number flying high above Fenway Park. Maybe he’ll use his mother’s money to do it and hopes she burns with revulsion, wherever she is. The more he learns of her, the more he can’t stomach thinking of her as “mother.” He should just call her Rachel Caulfield. No, just Rachel.
Caulfield digs one foot into the batter’s box, then the next. Time to focus. Ninth inning, down two runs. Runner on third, runner on second, runner on first. He has to hit it deep. The crowd behind him is a roaring machine. He hears Aspen’s voice, and Maria’s and Esteban’s. Zoning them out, he studies the pitcher as he shakes his head once, twice, and wind-up. The ball’s coming in high—too high. He holds his swing. Crud, slider.
“Strike!”
Coach roars at him to watch for breaking balls, as if he doesn’t already know. He plants his feet, pure fury pulsing through his veins, his heart pounding Ra-chel…Ra-chel. Fuck her. Fuck her for distracting him during the biggest game of his life, for keeping him from Fenway Park, and for despising her only child. He hates her money. He swings hard.
Too early.
“Strike!”
“Fuck!” Caulfield growls, earning him a warning glare from the umpire.
“Come on, Caulfield! Get your head out of your ass and in this game!” “This isn’t tee-ball, this is State!” The crowd behind him jeers, and Caulfield knows t
hey will hang, draw and quarter him, then stick his head on the fence post if he screws this up. He narrows his vision to the pitcher, watching his wind-up, the angle of his arm, bracing himself. This one’s coming in low. He holds his swing.
“Ball!”
He whooshes out. There we go, Caulfield. Eye on the ball—first rule of baseball. Channel the rage. Carry it through in your swing. Wind-up…no break, coming in fast, just how you like them. Swing through…
CRACK!
Yes. Caulfield tosses the bat and sprints for first as the crowd’s untamed screams propel him forward. He rounds first as the other team’s outfielders stumble around the fence, the ball out of the park and lost to them. A manic grin claims his face as he slows to a jog, savoring the trip around the bases. One runner crosses home plate…then two…then three. Caulfield’s grand slam pushes the score to 6-4, bottom of the ninth. The game is over.
His teammates flood from the dugout and Bear Creek students and parents spill onto the field, but the only face Caulfield seeks is Aspen’s. Strong arms lift him and he can see above the hundreds of heads. He spots her, wildly waving her arms and jumping with sheer joy. Gone is the inheritance. Gone is the piggish lawyer, his father and Rachel. It’s only her. Always her.
Caulfield stiffens.
I love her.
Not some high school crush or infatuation with her hair, her eyes, her body. He loves her. Enough to forget everyone else. Enough to give her everything he can. Enough to protect her, to marry her.
He slides down from his teammates’ shoulders and whips Aspen into his arms, clinging to her.
“You were…Ack! Amazing!” she cries into his ear, heedless of the sweat dripping from his forehead, his neck, his arms. “So brilliant, so perfect!”
He laughs and set her down, plopping his soaked ball cap on her lovely blond head. Framing her face with his hands, he kisses her, hard.
“Let’s do the fairy tale. All of it.” His voice quakes with adrenaline and emotion. She can’t miss his meaning. Don’t scare her, you idiot. She’s not even sixteen. But it’s not fear in her wide eyes. Nothing but joy stares back, and it fills Caulfield’s own heart with trepidation.
He smooths her cheek, eases his agony. “That’s a long way out, though, getting married? Far, far in the future.” She nestles beneath his arm. He stoops and pecks her cheek.
“Only you, Firecracker. Don’t forget it.”
Kaye, well, here it is. One hundred plus pages of our story, told as truthfully as I can recall. I know it’s one-sided. It’s missing your thoughts, your memories. Thank you again for agreeing to share them with me.
You should know, I feel like that eighteen-year-old kid again, terrified you’ll read this memoir and lose respect for me. I’m ashamed of how I resented Sofia. How I both idolized and hated my birth mother. Or the secrets I kept from you, for years. The way I longed for a thirteen-year-old girl who was little more than a child. But this is life, and we make choices and we suffer (and grow) because of them.
Read our story. Give me your honesty. Question everything, not just the passages I’ve marked, because this is us and I want it to be right.
~Sam
Acknowledgments
To my husband and beautiful children: you will always have first claim on my hours and my love. Thank you for your ceaseless support and encouragement.
To Mom and Dad: you raised me to believe I could achieve most anything with hard work and creativity. Thank you for your guidance.
To my editor Jennifer, to Elizabeth, and the Omnific staff: thank you for your respect, time and care in making this book “shine.”
To Jenny and EBJ: You were the first to tackle these pages with the “red pen of honesty.” Thank you for helping to shape this tale.
To Tricia and Amelia: You brought this story its first readership. Many, many thanks.
To Renee, Katie, Erin, Dana, and Kelly: You were the first of my friends to read my work. Thank you for believing in me as a writer.
To my DSM dinner ladies, Team WTFISGOINGON, and the online community: Thank you for your enthusiasm and endless patience these past years. You made me want to keep writing.
About the Author
Sarah Latchaw was raised in eastern Iowa and appreciates beauty in mud-splattered gravel roads, weathered farm faces, and combine harvesters powering through cornfields. She also loves to explore the world, thanks to countless family minivan trips across the States to coastal cities, kitschy attractions, and national monuments. This passion for finding stories led to college adventures to Israel and Palestine, Jordan, Slovakia, Germany, and other European countries. Each place’s story rests in the back of her mind and in her childhood photo albums.
In 2002, Sarah received her BA from Wartburg College in public relations and media, and entered the workforce, ready to climb the ladder. However, when researching MBA applications evoked feelings of dread, she realized the last thing she wanted to do was spend the next years of her life in a passionless corporate marketing career. With the unfailing support of her loving husband, she chose to pursue a career in creative writing and received her MA from Iowa State University in 2009.
While writing more “serious” works for grad classes, Sarah dabbled with a fun online writing project, titled Hydraulic Level Five. As often happens, this particular little story evolved into something more important, more personal to her and those who read and enjoyed it. Once the story was complete, Sarah loved it enough to desire a proper place for it on bookshelves. This began her relationship with Omnific Publishing and the anticipation of Hydraulic Level Five’s official release in Fall 2013.
These days, Sarah wakes every morning thrilled to cuddle her toddler son, show him the world, then capture that world and shape it into stories on paper. She also enjoys her piano, volunteering in her community, and reading anything with a cohesive plot. She and her family reside in Des Moines, Iowa.
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Hydraulic Level Five Page 35