Chapter 7 The Lagoon Edge
Nora
The churuata is lit with lanterns strung along the open beams, moths committing themselves to the flames in slow, suicidal arcs, and every single person at this table is talking at once, over each other, laughing too hard at things that aren't actually that funny, since the alternative is sitting in silence with how close today came to being a different kind of day entirely.
"—and then Ryan produces a second trekking pole," Erica is saying, gesturing with her wine glass, "like a magician, like he's been carrying contingency equipment for contingency equipment—"
"It's called preparation," Ryan says, with as much dignity as a man can manage while everyone at the table laughs at him affectionately. "The first pole had a structural concern."
"The first pole was fine, Ryan."
Andrew is doing a bit for Channelle, and Alex about Copérnico's general demeanor, which has evolved into a full impression of a judgmental howler monkey, complete with sound effects, while Riley laughs properly, her head tipped back.
Derrick has his arm along the back of her chair, not touching, quietly present, and the careful space of it tells me they've had a conversation today that mattered.
My plate smells like garlic and grilled fish and roasted plantains, food that under normal circumstances would have my full attention. Tonight it vanishes between sentences, chewed on autopilot, as no matter where my eyes land, they always find the same absence.
Mateo.
His seat at the end of the table is empty, chair pushed in neatly as if he stepped away for a moment.
Carmen circulates with more food than any of us can possibly eat, offering updates when she catches someone's eye—the park authority has been notified, a second search team is being assembled for first light, Mateo's mother has been contacted and is, understandably, beside herself.
The relief of us having been found doesn't erase the fact that someone still isn't.
I am warm with all of them, laughing at Andrew's monkey impression, asking Ryan real questions about his trekking pole concern, squeezing Erica's hand under the table when her face drops remembering, mid-joke, that this situation isn't actually funny.
Across the table, Santi listens, shoulders relaxed in that deceptively easy way that means he’s cataloging everything.
A cut on his cheek has darkened to a thin line.
His hair is still damp from the shower, dark curls pushed back.
His shirt is a plain dark green that makes his skin look a little warmer, his throat a little more distracting whenever his head tips back as he laughs.
He has not looked at me for more than a second at a time.
He is perfectly cordial. Perfectly polite. Perfectly involved in every conversation that is not the one he is very clearly not initiating with me.
Which is convenient, considering I am doing the exact same thing.
"Hey, you didn't lose your notebook in all the fuss," Erica comments.
My hand reflexively touches the notebook tucked between my hip and the back of the wooden bench, and my gaze flicks to Santi. He meets my stare with flared nostrils and a look so heated it's a wonder I don't catch fire right then and there.
I clear my throat. "It came in handy, actually."
Santi almost chokes on his mouthful of food.
Erica's smile is wolfish. "You'll have to tell me everything later on."
My fork clinks too hard against the plate. A smear of plantain splits under the tine.
"Everything okay?" Riley asks from my left.
"Yes." My smile engages down to the right muscles, but no further. "Sorry. Thinking about the storm."
Storm, not sex. Stop thinking about sex, Nora.
Across the table, Ryan lifts his beer high.
"To my emergency kit," he announces. "Which I was mocked for bringing."
"You were not mocked," Derrick says mildly. "You were… gently teased."
"Mocked," Ryan repeats, satisfied. "And yet here we are, alive because of my over-preparedness."
Erica raises her glass first and clinks it against his. "I'm certainly grateful!"
Ryan arches one brow at her. "You were the one mocking me the most."
"How ironic," Erica tips her drink down her throat and swallows it all in one go.
The conversation surges on. Stories. Jokes. Plans for tomorrow’s gentler activities, assuming the park authority gives the all-clear. Someone mentions Salto Hacha and running a hand through the waterfall. Another person says they’re going to sleep for fourteen hours.
The staff moves in and out, collecting plates, refilling drinks. The air smells like grilled meat, citrus, and the faint vegetal sweetness of the jungle encroaching on the lodge edges.
Relief threads through all of it like a separate current. Everyone is safe. No one fell. No one died. Mateo is missing but not forgotten; the park authority is moving, Derrick said, and Santi and Ryan are already half in operational mode at the prospect of coordinating.
The tension that kept my spine rigid all afternoon loosens, fraction by fraction.
Except when it comes to the man three seats down and across, angled far enough from me that his shoulder is to me, not his chest.
There, the tension stays.
***
The air outside is softer, cooler. Night has settled in, the sky a low dark bowl scattered with stars. The waterfalls across the lagoon glow white-gold where the lodge lights catch them, veils of water pouring endlessly off the tepuy edges.
The sound rolls over the open ground in long, constant waves. Comforting, somehow. Big enough to make the human voices behind me dissolve into a low hum.
My sandals scuff lightly over the path down from the churuata. Packed red earth, warm still from the afternoon sun, lined with low lights that guide the way but don’t try to compete with the stars.
Ahead, the lagoon opens up—black glass, shy ripples. The red tint only shows in daylight. Now it’s pure darkness holding reflected light.
My feet find the wooden boards of the small viewing platform without needing sight. The lodge was built just beyond the last cluster of palm trees, an unobtrusive rectangle jutting slightly over the sand, close enough to feel the spray on windy days.
Tonight the air is still. The waterfall roar wraps around my shoulders in place of a jacket.
My hands curl around the railing, wood smooth and faintly damp. The scent of water, wet earth, and distant flowers presses in.
My shoulders drop another inch.
Inside, the group is still laughing. I could go back. I should go back, probably. Be social. Be visible. After all, aren't company retreats evaluations in nicer clothes?
I leave the railing and make my way down to the edge, and sit in the grass that is still warm from the day's heat.
Heat has finally bled out of my skin, leaving a softer warmth. The shower scrubbed away mud and sweat and the lingering ghost of his hands.
It didn’t touch the memory of his voice, rough in my ear.
Nora, look at me.
I tremble at the memory. I do not want to be the woman who reads too much into reality snapping back after a crisis. Who mistakes adrenaline and proximity for some larger truth.
Except it didn’t feel like adrenaline, under the second blanket of firelight.
"Is this seat taken?" Santi asks from behind me.
My head turns enough to confirm what my body already knows.
He's there. A few feet behind, hands in his pockets, the glow from the lodge brushes the edges of his shoulders. Silence folds between us. Not as bad as the ridge silence. Not as open as the shelter before we touched each other.
Out on the lagoon, a small breeze shivers the surface, catching a stray light and scattering it into smaller shards.
"It's beautiful from up here," he says quietly, sitting in the grass next to me.
"Wasn't expecting something this…" Words trail off as my hand makes a vague circle in the air. "Big. Close."
"The waterfall?"
"All of it." My mouth curves in a self-deprecating way. "I read the materials. Looked at the pictures. Budgeted the costs for the trip."
"Obviously."
"But being here?" My hand presses briefly against the earth beneath us. "It's like… someone turned the volume up on reality."
He's silent for a beat. Then, softly, "That's what it feels like in meetings when you start talking."
My neck burns. "You're comparing my budget presentations to a national park."
"I'm saying the room goes from… a normal level of sound to something sharper. Clearer. And there's only you. More beautiful than those waterfalls." He exhales, and it's almost a laugh. "Sorry. That was a bit intense."
I hesitate, and then the corner of my mouth lifts despite myself. "It is... and it isn't."
He moves then, leaning closer, but holding off from touching me. As if he's worried that what we felt when we were lost together in the jungle is gone now.
"I need to tell you something," he says at last.
I turn my gaze to him, tense, gut heavy. "This is the part where you tell me you're happily married with two kids, isn't it?"
He blinks. "No. Nora... I wasn't lying when I said..." He bites his lip. "There is only you."
I breathe a long sigh of relief, not letting myself think too much about how tangled my feelings are.
"Mateo is still missing. And Cumbre Verde...
" He looks out at the water. "Eight months ago, I filed a risk report.
Routine audit work—I run pattern analysis on operator licensing and incident history for every region we operate adjacent to, even regions we don't own property in directly.
" A muscle in his jaw works. "Cumbre Verde came up in that report.
Pattern of licensing irregularities, two incident write-ups that didn't match their public safety record, a noted absence of any environmental compliance audit despite operating inside a buffer zone for a UNESCO-adjacent site. "
I gape. "You flagged them. Eight months ago."