Skygods (Hydraulic #2) (25 page)

I also had to convince him not to buy a Bentley for Caroline and Justin. “You can take them out to a nice restaurant when we get to New York, Samuel. They don’t need cars as thank you presents.”

Whatever Dr. Gupta gave Samuel helped. After he went on his car-buying frenzy (why, oh why, hadn’t Justin gushed over a candy bar instead of a Bentley?), his moods finally began to level out. Just in time, too. I’d been two digits away from calling Alonso and Sofia, I’d been so panicked. It wouldn’t have been a polite conversation.

Over the next couple of days, the wildness left his eyes and the nervous energy drained from his body. He ventured out for meals. Finished his restless writing. Ran in the morning instead of at night. I watched him closely until I was sure he was stable enough to have the conversation chomping at our ankles.

My timing was precise—five forty a.m. I’d only sat in the hotel hallway for six minutes, clad in running shorts, tank top, and sneakers, when Samuel’s door opened and he appeared, also in shorts and sneakers.

“What are you doing on the floor, Firecracker?” He crouched next to me. His fingers, at last, were fidget-free.

“I want to join you. You’ll have to bear with me; I’m not very fast.”

He smiled—not a leer, not odd and over-bright. It was gentle, genuine. “I’d love it.”

Our soles slapped the pavement as we jogged along a quiet, low-lit Hollywood Boulevard. It was too early for morning rush hour, too late for party crowds. The sky was hazy and pink as the sun peeked between buildings. The air was already sticky—it would be hot today.

Samuel slowed his pace considerably for me, so he wasn’t even breathless. Even so, I lagged (running was not my sport). I watched Samuel’s muscular calves, tight bottom, and beautiful back move beneath his sweaty T-shirt in rhythm to his strides. He knew I was ogling, but didn’t seem to mind.

“How is your…next book chapter…coming along?” I huffed.

“Not so well. I think you know that.” His eyes darted down to me, then forward again.

“Perhaps I can help.”

Samuel said nothing for several minutes. We rounded a corner and he halted, leaning against a bus stop bench. “I deleted it.”

“All of it?” I collapsed onto the bench, stunned.

“Most of it.”

“But you’ve been writing for a week!”

He razed me with agonized blue eyes. “It was sixty pages of nonsense, Kaye—so bad, it was the first time I’ve ever deleted my work. I loathed every single word. The only thing that’s left is one flipping page.” His fingers wove into his damp hair and tugged. He looked so sad, and the destruction of his words hit me harder than anything else in this messy ordeal.

Tears pooled in my eyes and I wiped them away before they spilled over. “Can I read the page?”

He didn’t answer, only hung his head. So I whipped out the big guns. I motioned for him to sit next to me. He did, careful to leave a foot of space between us. Reaching into my zip pocket, I removed a folded sheet of paper and pressed it against his chest. Samuel opened it with trembling hands.

“Our friendship vows,” he said, air whooshing from his lungs. “I thought this might be a resignation letter.”

“I already told you, I’m in this. But I want to remind you of these vows, because it’s easy to forget them.” I insinuated myself under his sweaty arm. “First, I will make myself available when you are down, as well as happy. I will provide emotional and physical warmth.”

“Kaye, you didn’t have the whole story when we wrote those.”

“I’m not finished. I will fight for you and your reputation. Which apparently is going to be a much bigger job than I originally thought, but it’s manageable.”

“Firecracker—”

“I will always want the best for you,” I continued. “I will be honest and truthful, even when the truth is difficult. I’m going to be truthful now, Samuel.”

He buried his face in my hair, then kissed the top of my head. “Go on,” he said quietly.

“I know you’ve kept things from me—important things. I’m asking you for honesty. Because without it, this—” I motioned between us “—doesn’t stand a chance.”

His jaw shifted against my head as he weighed his options. Then, coming to a decision, he jerked me to my feet. “Let’s grab coffee to-go and walk back to the hotel, all right? We can talk there. Too many people…” Minutes later, we strode along Hollywood Boulevard, coffee cups and croissants in hand.

“Do you know why I wanted to do the Q-and-As with you?” he asked.

“Because we needed time to sort through our emotions.” I took a gulp of coffee, wincing as it burned my throat.

“Yes, but there’s more. I was buying time.”

“Why?” I studied his face as we walked, not paying attention to the sidewalk ahead. Samuel casually tugged me to his side before I plowed into a fire hydrant.

“I was afraid,” he said simply. “I wanted to put off this conversation as long as possible, but it’s past time, isn’t it? Weeks ago, you asked me why I never came back.”

“You told me it was a long story and you weren’t ready to fill me in yet. Which was kind of a cop out.”

“Well, it
is
a long story.” He shrugged, then saw the irritated set of my jaw. “Are you very angry?”

“‘Angry’ is an understatement. But I still want you to tell me.”

We made our way through the Roosevelt lobby bustling with suitcase-laden porters and people checking out, toward the elevators. On our way up, he wrapped an arm around my waist and tenderly kissed my shoulder, just once. I saw his face in the brassy reflection of the sliding doors—it was twisted with fear, as if he couldn’t bear to release me once the doors opened. But they did open, he did release me, and I did ask my question (in a bumbling sort of way).

“Why did you stay away from me, Samuel?” I asked softly. “I’m ninety-nine percent certain I know why, especially after the past week. I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Even now, I’m not entirely sure I wasn’t reading more into your…your behavior. Maybe I’m completely paranoid and Caroline was messing with my head. But, I think—”

“Kaye,” he said fervently. “You
know
me, so well. Don’t doubt yourself.” He smoothed several sweaty strands from my forehead and pressed his lips there. I tilted my face to capture his lips, but he backed away, his hand still on my face. Finally, he swiped his key and ushered me into his room.

“Wait here, please,” he murmured. I plopped onto a plush couch while he disappeared into his bedroom. When he emerged, he held three things: his laptop and two orange prescription bottles. On the laptop screen was an electronic document, and I recognized the working title for his draft novel.

“Is that the page you didn’t delete?”

“Yes. It’s the only page that had a hint of sanity, which says a lot about those other sixty pages.” He chuckled, but it sounded forced. “I wrote it for you, after…after I treated you so badly your first night in LA.” That night wasn’t all his fault, but that was a discussion for another time. “It was a half-crazed attempt to explain how much I treasure you, even when I’m slipping into lows and highs. I know it’s bizarre and convoluted—”

“It will be beautiful to read. Thank you.” I rested an open palm on his knee. “And the prescriptions?”

He cautiously put them in my hand. I turned the bottles to read the labels. “Zoloft?”

“It’s sertraline—a low-dose antidepressant,” he explained, his voice quaking. “And the other is valproic acid.”

“Depakote.” My eyes fluttered closed, the weight of reality heavy in my hand. “A mood stabilizer?”

“Yes,” he rasped. “For my bipolar disorder—Bipolar II, to be exact. Money isn’t the only thing I inherited from my mother.”

My eyes held his and I simply nodded. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t know much about Bipolar II, and “I’m sorry” wasn’t enough. Then I set the bottles down, took the laptop, and began to read the only page to survive destruction:

We try to watch for the slip. It sidles up—a warship creeching unaware over planks—and bombards our sides…

Chapter 8

Log Book

As explorers, skydivers will often journal
about their experiences and achievements
to document them for posterity.

“D
ON’T
Y
OU
T
HINK
it would be fun to be married by Elvis at a chapel?”

“We’re not driving up to Vegas, Kaye.”

“I’m not suggesting we do it. I just think it would be unique.”

“It’s not unique, it’s cliché.”

“Boo to you. Who doesn’t love Elvis?”

“Pretty sure Jaime Guzman doesn’t. She does, however, love retainer fees from quickie divorces which result from quickie marriages.”

“Too rash, right?” I bit my lip and tried not to feel rejected—we’d just been shooting the breeze with the Vegas wedding talk. But I’d also been gauging the air to see where we stood after the storms of LA, and I think Samuel understood that.

“Hey. Don’t stress about tomorrow, okay? Just focus on today.” His eyes crinkled. “Besides, Las Vegas is probably the worst place you can take someone in the throes of a manic episode,” he teased, breaking the tension. “If I didn’t go broke at the high stakes table, I’d end up hitched to a red-clawed cougar named Oona.”

I threw back my head and laughed.

We pulled off of old Route 66 for a picnic west of Flagstaff. The low rumbles of the desert wind bewitched my ears and I breathed deeply, and stretched.

We’d risen early this morning and hit the road in his new BMW convertible, journeying at a lazy pace despite the rush of summer travelers. Even though he was still tired from his episode, he’d done most of the driving while I played deejay with his iPod. After I put “The Crying Game” on loop he revoked my deejay license. I primly pointed out that he was the one with Boy George on his playlist. “Not for long,” he muttered.

Even though Samuel hatched the road trip idea during a hypomanic episode, it turned out to be exactly what we needed. What better way to get everything out in the open than being belted in a bimmer together for three solid days? Over breakfast in San Bernadino, we realized that the only recent photos we had of us together were from our skydiving excursion and Danita’s wedding. So we bought an old school camera and made up for lost time, taking pictures of ourselves, the sun-bleached terrain, rusted motel signs and wide blue sky.

Stepping out of the car, I put my hand to my forehead and scanned the horizon like a trail-weary Sacagawea. I loved spending time with Samuel, but really, I’d never seen anyone fret over a squeaky dashboard quite like him. I snapped several photos of highway, curving for miles until it vanished into an azure haze. Then I turned the camera on my fellow road warrior, catching him mid-stretch, a strip of skin and boxers exposed beneath his tee. Mmmm, Samuel. Sacagawea who?

“Are you ready for that talk?” he asked. Removing his sunglasses, he waved them in front of my glazed eyes.

“Um, sure.” I blinked rapidly. We spread a blanket and plopped down, my eyes still skimming over his muscled torso. He dug the cooler out of the trunk and placed it on the blanket.

“Ah…when did you first find out you were bipolar?”

“You mean when did I find out I
have
bipolar disorder,” he corrected. “I was diagnosed not long after our divorce. Before that, doctors believed it was clinical depression complicated by anxiety.”

“
Am
bipolar,
have
bipolar—is it that much of a difference?”

“I’m not bipolar. I’m
Samuel
.” He smirked. “Being something and having something are very different, yes. I don’t say you
are
curly hair because you
have
curly hair. Which is wonderfully soft, by the way.” He reached for one of my waves.

“Point taken.” I smeared peanut butter over a slice of bread, then dabbed a bit on Samuel’s nose.

Yesterday, after reading his few paragraphs about the ups and downs of his disorder, my first reaction was to crawl into his lap and hold him, then violently shake him for being so stupidly self-sacrificing. I cried for a solid hour, my cheek against his knees. He remained silent the entire time, allowing me my grief, sometimes stroking my hair. I choked and trembled and got snot on his shorts. And then the tears faded, leaving me spent. I rolled my shoulders in the shower, unwinding until I could go five minutes without tears. When I returned to his suite, wet hair dripping over my shoulders, he was asleep.

He slept for hours while Caroline, Justin, and I haggled with talk shows and journalists to make up for Samuel’s missed commitments. In the end, we appeased them with exclusives at an upcoming
Water Sirens
event in New York. They’d sell their mothers for a chance to cover Samuel and Indigo’s first public appearance together since their “split.”

Like cave creatures, we squinted against the sun when we emerged from the Roosevelt to wish Caroline good luck with her new author. I watched with blazing eyes as Caroline pressed her cheek to Samuel’s and whispered her good-byes. When she walked out the door, I counted each step until she rounded the corner and left our lives. Step…step…step…gone.