At Last by Ella Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

snapped them wide open and made her jaw drop in shock.
    “It’s so...” Susan just shook her head. The sight was too beautiful; she could not find a word worthy of it.
    Kevin slid his arms from around Susan and gently grasped her wrists, pulling them out until they were fully extended from her body. It was like she had wings, was flying like a bird and was as free as one too.
    Susan started to laugh, her voice curling staccato from her lips. Her cheeks ached from the width of her smile. She screamed with joy every time the parachute dipped and went back up in the air. When the boat began to slow, and the line started to pull the parachute back to the boat, Susan groaned unhappily. She could’ve stayed up there all day.
     
    ~*~
     
    As the cool night air wafted in through the sliding glass doors of the hotel suite, tickling Susan’s toes, she felt a ripple of immense pleasure roll over and through her. A cool glass filled with a frozen margarita--no salt--was perched in her hand. She’d forgotten how much she loved them. How the sweet-sour taste made her taste buds stand at attention, how the slushy cold texture always made her feel like a kid eating a snow cone. But most of all, she missed the way they made her forget all her problems--that was the alcohol, pure and simple.
    Though it was only a temporary cure for what ailed her, she took that cure with both hands and gulped it down until she had a terrific brain freeze.
    “Oww!” She slapped her palm against her forehead and gritted her teeth.
    Kevin chuckled. “You always do that. You’d think that would be the one thing from college you would’ve retained.”
    “Very...oww...funny.” She held out her glass to Kevin. “Another.”
    “The magic word, please.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
    Susan opened her eyes and shot him a peeved look, and then, seeing the smirk on his face, smiled too. “Now.”
    “That’s my girl,” he crooned as he poured another glass and handed it to her with a raised eyebrow. “So, is this going to be one of those nights when I have to drag you to your bed, or one of those nights when you get us arrested?”
    Susan pursed her lips haughtily. She didn’t really remember the nights he’d carried her to bed--though she had an idea he rather enjoyed it. But she did remember getting them arrested. Nothing like too much tequila, a wet t-shirt contest and a “borrowed burro.” That farmer didn’t appreciate the borrowing part. She’d won a hundred bucks riding into the cantina on the back of the burro, dousing herself with a pitcher of water as she humped energetically to the wacked-out Mexi-rock band that was playing that night. Yet when she and Kevin had taken the borrowed burro back, they found a police cruiser waiting for them.
    Thank God they’d been in New Mexico for Spring Break instead of Mexico, or they might still be in jail down there. With the hundred bucks they won, and the five hundred they had left for the rest of the week, they only needed to call their parents for the other thousand to pay the fine. “Night’s young.” Susan arched her eyebrow to match Kevin’s.
    “Mmm, fun.” Kevin sat back on the other couch and gulped some of his margarita. By the look on his face, Susan could tell Kevin drank about as much as she did, which was a couple glasses of wine on Saturday night. Maybe less in his case, with how fitness conscious he seemed to be.
    “We used to drink three pitchers all by ourselves!” she groaned, feeling too old.
    “We were younger, our bodies could take it.” Kevin patted his belly, making it stand up in a fake mound.
    “Beer belly fraud!” Susan laughed and said, without thinking, “I could have Mark sue you!”
    And with that she felt the smile slide right from her lips. Her eyes burned, and her breath caught in her throat, sour and stinging. She saw the look on Kevin’s face. He’d gone from happy and joking to miserable. Obviously her sudden change of mood was easy to see.
    As