Mel raised an eyebrow. “Arenal, huh? It’s so beautiful up there.”
A memory snagged in her brain of Pete pitching a story about one of the towns on Arenal’s flank, the one that had been destroyed again and again by the lava flows, but rebuilt every time. Pete was planning to meet up with Cassidy after one of her fieldwork cycles and visit the area for research. If he were still alive, it could have been on this very trip, a thought that filled her with sudden frustration. He won’t ever go on a trip with me again.
Cassidy realized that Mel had taken her plate, and when he returned, held out his hand. “May I have this dance?” he asked.
Grateful, Cassidy let him pull her to her feet, and the painful road she had been walking dissolved into the night.
Their bodies came close, the heat from his melting into hers. They moved together to the music in a slow dance, their bare feet shuffling on the smooth wood floor and their hips swaying gently as one. It was just like before, and Cassidy knew where they were heading, knew that she had wanted this all along. Cassidy looked up at him, and there was a moment’s pause, her breath rising fast and high in her chest. Then he kissed her, his lips soft and tender. She closed her eyes and kissed him back.
They danced for a long time, as if time was theirs to stretch into as long as they needed, sharing a kiss, a caress, and it was nice to just move together and enjoy the beautiful night and the surroundings. It gave her time to put all of her thoughts to rest, to shift gears, to relax in Mel’s embrace. There was one kiss that went on longer than the others, and without thinking, she slid her hands under his shirt to caress his warm skin. And then he was leading her by the hand up the stairs to a round-shaped bedroom with a simple, low bed, a ceiling fan overhead, and a huge window open to the jungle. The music from below wafted up the stairs; they danced to it as Mel pulled off her shirt and everything else, and they were dancing skin to skin. Mel’s hands caressed her back; Cassidy put her arms around his neck, her breasts brushing up against his muscular chest. They kissed again, and her fingers tangled in his hair. She pressed her hips close to his. He lowered her to the bed, and she let herself surrender into his eager kisses, his expert touch.
Cassidy woke the way she usually did, from a haze of a dream in the middle of the night. Facing away from her, Mel was curled on his side, the sheet drawn up over his hip, his left shoulder arching up in the darkness. The room was pitch black and the insects had quieted somewhat; though a breeze—coming from the land now—stirred the branches of the giant tree that the house was built around, making a soft sound, like water moving over stones. The tree also seemed to be swaying ever so slightly. Maybe this movement was responsible for waking her.
She curled into Mel’s back, wrapping an arm around his waist, and tried to go back to sleep. Mel stirred but didn’t wake. Her mind turned to the day ahead: catching her shuttle to the airport, boarding her plane, and the many connections after that. It would take the entire day to travel back to Eugene, but she would use her time to jump back into her projects. With a start, she remembered that her laptop battery was dead. Her phone was dead, too. Groaning, she realized that sleep would elude her until this chore was accomplished, so she rose from the bed and tiptoed down the stairs, feeling her way along the trunk of the tree to the main floor.
Even after she gave her eyes—gummy from sleeping in her contacts—a minute to adjust, it was still too dark to see. She shuffled her feet slowly, hands outstretched to catch herself if she stumbled, until her toe hit the soft nylon of her backpack. Methodically, she felt inside the main pouch for the neoprene laptop case, and removed it. She then searched for her phone and finally found it in the lid inside a special zippered pocket, along with her passport and wallet. Unfortunately, her charging cord was back at the Pelican Hotel in Nicaragua. She remembered Mel’s phone mounted to the dash of the jeep—wasn’t it a Samsung like hers? Maybe he had a spare cord.
Cassidy checked the kitchen, her eyes squinting in the dark for outlets and anything looking like a phone or device attached, but she found only one outlet, both sockets with cords plugged in. She found no outlets under the counter or around the corner, so she shuffled to the other side of the room to the roll-top desk and matching stool. Not wanting to wake Mel with the light from the gooseneck lamp, she felt around in the darkness and found an outlet in the floor, with two plugs already in the sockets.
Relieved, she traced the cords up through a hole in the back of the desk. Cassidy paused, unsure of the etiquette. Would Mel mind her opening his desk and unplugging his devices? She stood there in the dark, unable to predict his reaction. If she were in his place, how would she feel about it? The thought of someone in the house she and Pete had shared gave her gut a lurch, but she pushed past it when the answer became clear: of course, she wouldn’t mind. All documents autosaved, so there was no risk of losing any important work.
Carefully, she rolled back the lid of the desk. The thick wood squeaked once but then tucked back inside itself without further protest. A phone was plugged in but a separate cord lay vacant—probably
