CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sam
“At the moment of commitment
the entire universe conspires to assist you.”
-Goethe
Danny and I sit on the beach, watching the sunset, the story he’s just finished hovering in the air around us.
I feel it settling on my skin, sinking into my bones, washing away the last of my doubt. Finally, my conscience relaxes back into the shadowy corners it has inhabited for the past year with a wave of its hand, giving its blessing to murder.
“We need to decide how to do it,” I say, stretching my legs out on the warm, powdery sand. “His suite is on the edge of the property. There’s a chance no one would hear a gunshot.”
“But there’s a chance they would,” Danny says. “What about poison? I could make sure he’s alone and bribe a maid to deliver a bottle laced with something to his room.”
“What if he calls for help?”
“I force my way into the suite after the maid is gone and make sure he doesn’t,” he says. “I don’t mind sitting on his chest and making sure he stays put until he’s dead.”
I shiver though the wind is warmer tonight than last night. “I know this is right, but…it’s still hard. Hearing you talk like that.”
He takes my hand, curling his fingers around mine. “You know what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately?”
“What?” I ask, leaning my head on his shoulder.
“Destiny. Fate. Whatever you want to call it. Things that are meant to be.” He pauses, stretching his legs out beside mine, the coarse hairs on his calves brushing against my smooth ones. “But I think destiny is just the word people give to a decision that couldn’t be made any other way. You know, those moments when the choice you’re making feels so big, so true, that it’s almost like it’s coming from outside of you.
“But it’s not. It’s just you. Making the right choice, the only choice. So you never have to regret what happens next, no matter how things shake out.”
I squeeze his hand. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he says. “And as long as we’re acting from that place, I choose to believe that everything is going to be okay.”
I tilt my chin, glancing up to see him glowing in the setting sun, his long lashes and the hint of stubble on his chin shining white gold, making him look more like an angel come to spread the good news than a man who’s planning a murder. But that’s because he’s telling the truth, we are acting from a place of love.
Love for each other and for people whose goodness and innocence make them easy targets for the predators of the world.
“You know what I’ve been thinking?” I whisper, still soaking in the beauty of him, wanting to remember the way he looks right now for the rest of my life.
“What?” His gaze is still fixed on the horizon, where the day is rapidly slipping away. The sun is running toward the other side of the world where other people are sitting on other beaches waiting for it to rise, waiting for that eternal sign that there is light at the end of the darkness.
“Maybe we’re all monsters.” I turn my gaze back to the sea. “But we can choose what kind of monster we want to be. The kind that tears other people apart or the kind that fights to protect the things we love.”
He grunts. “I don’t think we’re all monsters. Only the best and the worst of us. The rest are too lazy to care this much.”
I smile. “You’re pretty smart for a guy who graduated with a C average.”
“I do my best,” he says with a soft laugh. “Have to at least try to keep up with you.”
“You do more than keep up with me. You make me better.”
“Ditto.” He brings our joined hands to his mouth, pressing his lips to the back of my hand.
We sit in silence as the wavy red yolk of the sun slithers into the sea. The sand begins to cool and the pink light fades to a moody blue, but still we sit side by side, saying goodbye to who we were.
But it’s not a sad goodbye.
The past is full of beautiful ghosts, but it’s haunted by uglier things, too. I’m ready to move forward, to make this choice and never look back.
Danny
On Sunday, we finalize our plans, gather materials and get everything in place for Tuesday night. On Monday, we hike into the jungle with the rest of the guides and the friends they’ve brought along as guinea pigs for their last training exercise, an overnight trip we’ll spend camping on a sheer rock face.
Tonight was the night I’d planned to take care of the Sigma Beta Epsilon brothers when I thought I would be taking on all four of them alone. Instead, I’m here with Sam, and in roughly thirty-six hours we’ll be back on track to the life we almost lost.
We reach the entrance to the canyon by noon and by two o’clock we’ve reached the base of the three hundred meter cliff where we’ll be spending the night. Paola and the other guides take point on getting their friends ready for the climb. I shadow them, making sure they remember everything we worked on and then head back to Sam, who greets me with that new, serene smile of hers.
As I check her harness, making sure to cop a feel while I do, she laughs and swats me on the ass.
Ever since our talk on the beach, we’ve both been strangely calm.
Or maybe not so strangely.
Sometimes, the build up to a hard decision is the worst part. Once you’ve made up your mind, the stress fades away. I’m sure it will return tomorrow night when our decisions become actions, but for now, we’re at peace.
The climb is intense, but amazing, granting ever more magnificent views as we creep above the tree line and the jungle stretches out beneath us. By five o’clock, we’re two hundred meters in the air, setting up our ledges and tents and preparing to cook the stew we brought over tiny propane stoves.
Sam and I set up the tent we’ll share on my ledge, but we leave hers bare. After our dinner is warmed, we sit on the edge of the clear platform with our legs hanging over the vast emptiness, watching the birds darting in and out of the canopy below like dolphins jumping out of ocean waves.
From our right and left come the soft conversations of friends, Ram and his brother arguing over what kind of meat is in the stew, Paola and her girlfriend laughing about their last camping trip and the monkeys who stole their breakfast, forcing them to hike home hungry the next day.
When we’re finished with our stew, I toss around the bag of chocolate covered coffee beans I brought as a treat. We laugh as we chuck the paper bag from platform to platform, cussing Ram’s brother when he nearly drops it over the edge. While the chocolate melts on our tongues, we talk about all the places we’ve worked, where we’d like to go next, and our adventure bucket lists. Paola wants to go to Iceland, Ram has a ticket to Fiji and will be leaving next August, and Sam tells them we’re on our way to Thailand for a non-working vacation before we head home.
It’s a beautiful night shared with good people and when Sam and I crawl into our tent not long after nightfall, I feel grateful. If, God forbid, something goes horribly wrong tomorrow, we couldn’t have asked for a better last night of freedom.
We tie back the flaps to the tent so we can see the stars from our sleeping bag and hold hands in the dark, listening to the getting-ready-for-sleep sounds coming from the other tents. And when the teeth brushing is finished and the call of nature answered—a discreet whizz over the edge of the ledge for the men and bottles filled in the tent and dumped over the side for the women—and everyone else is finally asleep, it’s so quiet it feels like there’s no one else alive in the world.
No one but Sam and me, happily marooned on this tent pitched at the edge of nowhere.
“Where is home now, do you think?” she whispers, her voice husky in the darkness.
“Wherever we are. Together.” I swear I can hear her smile.
“Where are we going to be together? I haven’t wanted to think about it until this was finished, but after hearing everyone’s plans I started wondering where we’ll end up. And what I’ll do when we get there.”
“I could hire you on as my business manager in Croatia.” I curl my arm around her waist. “I can’t pay much, but benefits include housing, food, and unlimited oral sex privileges.”
She laughs softly. “Giving or receiving?”
“Both. I’m a generous employer.”
“Very generous,” she says, fingers trailing back and forth across my chest, making me wish I’d taken my tee shirt off so I could feel her touch on my bare skin. “I’m sure my stepmom would help me find a job on Maui, but I don’t know if I’m ready to go back there. I don’t know what I’m going to say to them after disappearing for so long.”
My smile fades. “I think you were right before. Let’s cross those bridges when we come to them. No point in borrowing worries from the future when there are plenty here to go around.”
“Are you worried?” she asks, her palm coming to rest above my heart, which beats slow and steady.
“No. Just…focused. The future isn’t pushing on me the way it does sometimes. I guess it feels like it will take care of itself.”
“Or it’s already taken care of itself,” she says. “You know Einstein said the separation between the past, present, and future is an illusion. Although a very convincing one.”
I think on that for a moment, staring up at the night sky, seeing the light that left those stars thousands of years ago. Some of the lights twinkling in the darkness, seeming so set in their place in the sky, might be dead already. I’m not seeing what is but what was, a long, long time ago. It’s all a matter of perception.
So maybe the future is the same way.
Maybe it’s already there, written out on a page I can’t see from where I am now. Or maybe it’s waiting on what I’ll do next, the letters trembling as they prepare for the present to mold the story they will tell.
“So if the separation is an illusion and they’re all existing at once,” I ask, brow furrowing. “Does that mean that the past could be as changeable as the future?”
“That’s a nice idea,” she says, her fingers resuming their hypnotic brush back and forth across my chest. “Or a scary one, I guess. Depending on how you look at it. What if I changed the past and never met you?”
The possibility bounces off of my mind without making an impression. Maybe before I spotted Sam in the airport, it would have scared me, but now I know better than to think anything can keep us apart. “Would never happen. I’ve seen my past, present, and future. You’re in all of them. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that.”
She leans in, kissing my cheek. “Romantic.”
“Guilty.” I turn, finding her lips in the dark and giving her a proper kiss, the kind of kiss a woman deserves on a night like tonight.
My hand drifts from her waist to her breast, my thumb brushing over her nipple through the fabric of her sports bra.
“We shouldn’t,” she whispers even as she shifts, granting me better access.
“We should,” I say. “We will.”
It isn’t easy getting out of our clothes with the harnesses still in place, but we manage, hands quiet and clever because they know our future holds pleasure. Not being able to see her makes her skin feel even softer, making me hyper-aware of each dip and hollow, each lovely curve and irresistible inch of slick, wet flesh.
So sweet. She is so sweet.
I bury my tongue inside her and taste eternity. Time stands still and there is only this, only us. Only her fingers tangled in my hair and her thighs trembling on either side of my face and her breath whispering in the dark. It comes faster, deeper, and then she comes with a tiny whimper, careful not to make a sound the others can hear. But I know she’s tumbling over, I can taste it in the clean, salty rush of wetness on my tongue, feel it in the way her pussy plumps beneath my mouth, like fruit, full and heavy, ready to fall from the tree.
I move over her, kissing her with the taste of her still in my mouth, wanting her to know how sweet she is. Our tongues dance as her legs wrap around my waist, drawing me in to her.
This time, there is no fumbling in the dark. My body knows where to go. It has always known because I was born to make love to this woman.
I sink into her with one long stroke, her body pulsing around my cock as I bury myself inside her heat, her love. I hold her closer and rock into her, every thrust a promise that this is unshakable, this is what she can count on when everything else is chaos and insanity.
This is past, present, and future. This is truth. This is everything.
The climb is slow, steady, spiraling higher and higher until the air feels too thin and there’s nothing to breathe but Sam. But she is enough, more than enough. We keep climbing, clinging to each other, grinding closer, deeper, until the pleasure is painful and my entire body screams with the need for release.
And then Sam lifts into me, her orgasm demanding my own, and takes the pain away and there is only pleasure so pure and perfect there is no room for anything else.
I come without a sound, not wanting to share this with anyone who might still be awake and listening.
This is only for us, for me and Sam.
“Let’s get married,” I whisper as we lie fused together, catching our breath.
“I thought you didn’t want to think about the future.” She wraps her legs around my waist, holding me inside of her.
“That’s not the future,” I say. “That’s here and now. You’re mine and I’m yours. We just need to make it official.”
“I am yours,” she says with a happy sigh. “That was…so perfect. I love making love to you. I want to do it every day for the rest of my life.” She sighs again. “Except on the first day of my period, when I’m not in the mood.”
I laugh, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes.” She hugs me closer. “But I don’t want a big deal. I just want it to be you and me in some place pretty. Maybe on a portaledge on a cliff somewhere and then the person who marries us can climb back down and we’ll spend the night just like this.”
“Sounds perfect.”
We talk a little longer, daydreaming out loud the way we used to when we were younger, imagining all the things we’d do when we were grown up and could finally be together all the time. I never imagined our lives would end up the way they have, but I can’t regret any of it right now, with Sam in my arms and her “yes” still ringing in my ears.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I wake up the stars are fading from the sky and the pale pink dawn is creeping up from the other side of the world.
I lie watching the light consume the last of the night sky, holding Sam in my arms, hoping that, by this time tomorrow, all the darkness will be gone.