Rebound by Michael Cain Read Free Book Online Page A

She
opened her eyes slowly, apprehensive until the dazzling blue of the
ocean 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