Chapter 2 Current and Contact #2
When everyone is ready to go and the kayaks and paddleboards are prepped, Mateo gathers us at the water's edge to pair up. He looks around at us all, reading the group to match experience level and compatibility.
He assigns boards and kayaks, calls out names, and people drift toward their equipment.
"Nora," he says. "Santi. Paddleboards. You'll take the left channel."
I look up.
Nora is already looking at me. This is different from the way she looked at me last night, when she caught me watching her. Her eyes find mine for about a second and a half. Curiosity, I think.
Then she looks back at Mateo and nods, professional and easy, and reaches for her paddle.
I take my board and say nothing, but I feel... everything. Mateo paired me with Nora. He paired me with—
"Left channel has the better tepuy approach," Mateo tells us, as the group begins to move toward the water. "The walls come in close about half a mile in. The color changes." He pauses and grins. "It is worth seeing."
On the water, everything simplifies.
The tributary channel is narrow enough that I can see the bottom, where dark stone sits, smooth from thousands of years of water moving over the same surface.
The tepuy walls rise on both sides, close enough in places that the sound changes, the falls bouncing off stone until it's everywhere at once and underneath your skin.
Nora is six feet to my left, and she keeps stopping to look at things.
I can see her brain running very fast, so fast that her eyes are having trouble keeping up.
She'll pause mid-stroke to look up at the point where the canopy closes over the channel, or at the place where the light hits the water and the color shifts, and I get the sense that she's trying to memorize every view and every sensation.
She left her pack on the bank. The notebook is in it. I know this. I watched her zip it in and then look at it for a long half-second before she picked up her paddle.
I understand the feeling.
Up ahead, the shelf appears where the channel shallows—a natural rock crossing, maybe ten feet wide, where the stone rises above the waterline and connects both banks.
Dark basalt, worn smooth over centuries, slicked with the thin green film of algae that colonizes anything the sun doesn't reach for long enough.
On the other side, the channel deepens again, and the tepuy walls open out into a spectacular vista.
Mateo flagged it in the morning briefing.
Step carefully. Help each other across. The rock is more slippery than it looks.
It is considerably more slippery than it looks.
I pull my board onto the near bank and move to the midpoint of the crossing.
The group picks its way over in ones and twos—Mateo first, then wide-eyed Ryan, who looked like he was calculating the friction coefficient of wet basalt, then Alex, moving carefully and determined not to fall in front of witnesses.
The water comes up to mid-calf at the deepest point of the crossing, cold and clear, running fast enough to feel it pulling at your ankles if you stop paying attention.
Nora steps on last.
She's careful. Weight distributed correctly, arms slightly out for balance, exactly the way you'd expect from someone who read the briefing and took notes. She makes it six feet past the deepest point, nearly to the far side, before her left foot goes.
The algae offer her no help.
She goes sideways, and I react on instinct. I have her, my hand at her waist and the other on her arm, my feet planted wide on the stone. Her fingers wrap around my forearm tightly, her other arm instinctively thrown out for balance.
The world seems to halt in that moment. We're both in the middle of the crossing, water running cold past our calves, and the tepuy wall rising twenty feet on our right. The rest of the group is already on the far bank, and no one has looked back for us yet.
Steady now, she tips her face up toward mine, eyes glittering with gratitude and curiosity.
"Okay?" I ask, searching her face, trying to memorize her up close.
"Fine." She laughs a little, breathless. "Thank you."
She's still holding my arm. I'm still holding her waist. She's gazing at me, and I can see a thought forming there, a dark shadow falling across her face. Her nostrils flare ever so slightly, and my body reacts, instinctively leaning closer to her.
"You know," she says a little gruffly. "I recently read a book just like this."
My heart stutters. I know exactly what book she's talking about. I saw her reading it one day at the office and immediately downloaded it on my Kindle. That book was... filthy.
Oh, Nora... Thinking about that book here... with me. Heat rushes through my body and pools between my legs, where I'm hardening and desperate for her. I think about lowering my hand on her waist, gripping her damp shirt, and dragging her against me. But she glances away. And the moment passes.
"The shelf is slippery past the midpoint," she says, as if she's reciting a textbook. "I actually wrote that down in my notes." A blush creeps up her cheek.
"And yet."
She laughs, carefree and sweet, and I don't want this moment to ever end. "I always see you writing in your notebook," I say without thinking.
Her gaze flicks up at me. Embarrassment, I think.
"I like to write down my... observations."
She lets go of my hand and arm and bends down to pick up her board. I feel suddenly bereft. "I bet they're fascinating."
She grins at me. "Oh, I don't know about that. We should catch up with the group."
"We should," I agree grudgingly.
But neither of us moves for another few seconds, and I find myself wondering—hoping—she had felt it too when we touched. That pull between us. The desire that threatened to consume.
Then she smiles that radiant Nora smile, turns, and picks her way across the rest of the shelf. I hesitate for a moment, and then follow close behind, watching her find every step.
She doesn't slip again. I am kind of sorry about it.
***
It's past eleven, and I know I should be asleep right now; we have another very busy and active day ahead of us tomorrow.