Category Five Read online

  With a flip phone.

  Gotta love old people.

  Lupe took a deep breath. She loved her uncle like crazy, but she was just not used to his patriarchal ways. Her father had sobered up in the last year, but he still let her do whatever she wanted. He’d kind of lost the right to parent when she’d had to take care of his drunken grumpy ass for most of her life.

  She pulled out her own cell phone but, unlike her uncle’s, her smartphone didn’t seem to have any service in this part of the island. So much for texting Javier. He’d said something in their last chat about laying stones on a patio, so she started to walk around the building to find something that looked like a patio with a handsome teenage boy.

  Her heart raced at the idea of seeing him again in person, finally. It was too bad he had to work all summer, but maybe she could talk her uncle into bringing her out here more often during the week. But minus the dead bodies next time.

  But then, there always seemed to be dead bodies involved. What was up with that?

  As she walked around to the back corner of what appeared to be the main building, she looked up and stopped short. The vista that spread out before her literally took her breath away. A half carpet of transplanted and overly perfect grass led up to a sugar-sand beach and a huge expanse of crystal-clear turquoise water, its gentle waves glistening at the crests like they were topped in diamonds. She’d been coming to Puerto Rico every summer of her life and she’d seen beautiful spots, but never anything like this. It was totally untouched. That is, if you ignored the pounding of hammers and whine of saws in the background.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Lupe jumped; she’d been so lost in the view she hadn’t noticed the boy who had come up beside her. She looked over and saw that he was blond and blue-eyed, tanned but in that “I have leisure time to spend at the Hamptons” entitled white guy kind of way. To top it off, he had donned a clichéd ensemble: tennis whites. Christ, did anyone even wear tennis whites anymore? Especially people who appeared to be not all that much older than her? When he smiled with his bright white and perfectly shaped teeth, she realized he looked like he’d walked off a page of a magazine.

  “Yeah, it sure is.” She examined him with a look that she realized was probably just like her uncle’s. “Um, this place isn’t really set up for tourists yet, is it?”

  His eyes crinkled in question, then he smiled, realizing she meant him. “Is it that obvious I’m not local?”

  “You might say that.” Lord, he even held himself in an entitled way, his shoulders back, his head tossing here and there.

  “Ah, but you haven’t seen me salsa yet.” He put one hand flat against his stomach and the other up in the classic salsa pose and began to shuffle around in a not-totally-shabby salsa step. Very white boy could move his hips.

  She couldn’t help it, she chuckled.

  “Besides, who are you to talk?”

  Just a bit of her guard went up. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you sure look like a tourist.”

  The heat flamed behind her eyes, and she was about to rip him a new one when she heard her name.

  “Lupe?”

  And then Javier was walking up to her in all his brown-eyed glory, his dark curls held at bay under a faded baseball cap. As she expected, he had gotten even more handsome. The outside work had warmed his skin to a golden brown, and highlights of copper glistened in his hair. He might well have attained godlike status since she’d seen him last. He stepped close and went to hug her, his gaze grabbing hers in that way that made her skin feel hot and shivery all at once. But then he noticed tennis-whites guy and stopped.

  Javier looked over at him with a smile that was tight in a way probably only she would notice. He nodded at the boy. “Sam.”

  And Sam Tennis Whites nodded back, his smile also slightly tight. “Javier.”

  Lupe just grinned. Oh, she was totally going to have to get the scoop on this playground tension. Boys were such a trip.

  Sam put his hands up as if in a truce. “Well, guess I better go. Nice to meet you—” He waited for her name like someone who got an answer to every question.

  Lupe never had been the kind of person who obliged people like that. She just kept smiling and nodded. “Yeah, nice to meet you too, Sam.”

  He paused for a second, his toothpaste-ad smile wider when he realized she hadn’t given him her name, and then walked away, hands in the pockets of his tiny white shorts.

  “What a pendejo,” Javier said under his breath.

  Lupe’s cousin taught her all the necessary swear words, so even she knew what that meant. “Who is that guy?”

  “Nobody of importance. He’s the developer’s son.”

  “Developer?”

  “The man who bought this part of the island and is building the resort.”

  “Ahh, I see.” Now Lupe understood the slight sneer on Javier’s lips, the distaste he had for this Sam guy. Javier took her hand and started walking toward the trees. “C’mon, it’s too public here, I feel like we’re in a fishbowl.”

  As she followed, she looked back at the expanse of tropical-calendar beach. “Yes, but what a fishbowl.”

  They walked through a break in the trees and over a path of long gray marble stones. She looked up and into the deepening jungle, and asked, “What are these stones here for? The lagartos?” She imagined a line of the bright green lizards marching up and down the marble.

  “They lead to a storage building.” He pointed to a large concrete box on the left, no windows, just double red doors.

  “Is that where you’re bringing me? How romantic!” But then he was pulling her to him, kissing her hard, as if trying to combine all the kisses they’d missed after being separated those long months. Lupe pulled off his baseball cap and threw it to the side, digging her fingers into his thick, dark curls. His tongue slipped in and out of her mouth as if searching for something. When they separated, she had to catch her breath, the whole island spinning as she stared into his deep brown eyes. “Well, it is pretty damn romantic after all.”

  He answered with a soft, slow kiss, their lips sticking slightly as they separated as if wanting to hang on longer. “God, I missed you, Lupe.”

  She ran her fingers over his sharp cheekbones. They’d gotten sharper since she’d last seen him. “I missed you too, Javi.” Looking into his eyes, she said, “I’m sorry about all you’ve been through; sorry I couldn’t be here with you.”

  “No, I’m glad you weren’t here! I felt better knowing you were safe.”

  She smiled. “You sound like my uncle.”

  Javier didn’t let go of her, but he looked away. “I don’t know what I would have done without your uncle through all that. Taking me and my mom in like that? He’s, like, a saint or something.”

  She laughed, “He thinks so, anyway.” But then she got serious, taking his face in her hands. “That’s what we do for people we love.” And then she kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him as close as she could.

  Lupe wished they could stay there, standing with their bodies pressed against each other, leaves and branches and wildlife rustling all around them. The way he looked at her, like he wanted to crawl inside and inhabit the same space, made her knees shake. She’d dreamed of this moment for months and months. Forever, it felt like. But then in the distance, back toward the resort, someone dropped something big, the sound echoing through the clearing, and reality was back.

  Damn reality.

  He pulled his body away, slowly, reluctantly, took her hand, and they started to walk back to the worksite.

  “When can I see you?”

  She smiled. “You’re seeing me now.”

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, his lips soft and gentle. A feeling traveled along her skin like electricity.

  “I need to see you alone.”

  There it was, the island was spinning again.

  He stopped, held on to her
upper arms, and looked at her from the top of her head to the turquoise of her fresh pedicure, in that way he had where she felt his gaze like heat. “I’m so happy you’re here.” He carefully put his fingers under her chin and leaned in, his lips gently pressing against hers, his smell of warmth and salt and boy sweat making her head swim.

  He pulled away and looked around.

  She felt the blush at her hairline when it hit her. “Oh right. You’re at work.”

  He smiled at her with that one-side-higher-than-the-other grin she’d grown to know so well and she had to shake her head to clear the fog Javier tended to put her in. Maybe she just imagined there was something wrong.

  “I have to get back to work.”

  “Right.” She hated that he had to work all summer, but he needed money to live on while he went to college in the fall and she supported his wanting to pay his own way.

  He took her hand again and started walking back toward the hotel’s main building as the percussion of construction came back into focus. When she was with him it really was as if everything else faded away. She wasn’t sure that was entirely good, but it sure felt good.

  “Do you need a ride to meet your tío?”

  Lupe was about to answer when a car engine roared in the small partially finished parking lot up ahead. She didn’t know about cars, but even she could tell this was a nice one. Convertible, white and shiny, rounded lines like a cat stretching. And then she noticed Sam’s blond head above the steering wheel, his eyes masked by large, dark sunglasses.

  “No, I can get a ride,” she said absently, distracted by the ridiculous shininess of the boy and his car. Lupe realized Javier was staring at her and she looked up at him. He was giving her the look. “What?”

  “Stay away from him, Lupe.”

  “What? Who?” She really was confused, mainly because she’d never seen his face like this, the lines on either side of his mouth like angry slashes.

  He tossed his head in the direction of the car. “Sam. Stay away from him.”

  Then it finally hit her what he was saying. She dropped his hands and put hers on her hips. “Excuse me?”

  The flame in her own eyes must have flared because then he tried to backpedal. “He’s not to be trusted. He thinks because his father is the owner, he can do what he wants—”

  “Uh-uh, Javier, I was talking about getting a ride from one of my uncle’s officers, but more to the point, you don’t get to tell me who I can and can’t hang out with.” She didn’t know this guy Sam and couldn’t care less about him, but she was damned if she was going to tell Javier that now.

  “What, you like him?” He started waving his arms like he was directing traffic or something. “Of course you do, he’s rich and flashy—”

  What was wrong with him? “Oh no, you clearly have learned nothing about me in the last year if you think either of those things mean shit to me.”

  “How do I know what you’ve been doing for the past year? We’ve been in two different worlds.” He was pacing now like a caged tiger.

  “I don’t know, maybe because we FaceTimed every freaking night?” He was really pissing her off now. Hadn’t they just been kissing in the trees? How had this gotten so out of control?

  “It’s just … Lupe, that guy is yet another colonizer taking this island for all it’s worth!”

  “What? He’s, like, eighteen years old! He’s not colonizing shit!”

  He scoffed. “You just don’t get it.”

  “I know I don’t, but focusing your anger on that kid is a waste of time. I don’t care for this big, ugly McResort either, but there are more effective ways to fight this, to find an outlet for all this understandable anger. Marisol is—”

  He put up his hand. “I know what Marisol is doing.” He looked like he was about to say something else, but seemed to change his mind. “Bueno, forget it.” He grabbed her hand again, but not in the gentle laid-back way he normally did, and started pulling her toward the front of the property.

  Lupe pulled her hand free, a heat beginning to rage in her chest, behind her face. Ever since September it was as if a piece of the hurricane had parked itself around Javier’s head, the storm raging and thrashing behind his dark eyes. “Look, I understand you’re pissed, but don’t be trying to drag me around like your pet poodle.” She started marching away, thoughts sparking in her head like lightning. The tears that were threatening only made her angrier. What had she done to deserve being treated like this? Nothing, that’s what. But that didn’t make her feel any better. As she walked, she was aware of every stone that skittered away at the thump of each step over the sparkling new gravel.

  “Lupe! Wait!”

  She stalked by a pair of men balancing a flowering tree, roots and all, over a neat hole in the ground. They froze as she passed, tree still in hand, probably stunned by the electricity shooting off her skin. She should have stayed in Vermont. No. She loved it on the island, loved seeing her aunt and uncle and her best friend Marisol. She would not let Javier’s cranky ass take that away from her.

  When she reached the beginning of the empty road that led away from the resort, the tears finally broke free, and she felt them run down her hot cheeks. How could she have been so wrong about him? She walked with her head down and wondered if she could take an earlier ferry and wait for her uncle at the other side, in Ceiba. She had to at least get off this island and back to the main island. She wanted water between her and Javier. She couldn’t think straight.

  Lupe became aware of a vehicle coming up behind her, and she moved closer to the trees on the side of the road. Hopefully they’d just pass on by.

  No such luck. A beat-up blue truck with a landscaper’s logo on the door pulled up beside her and slowed.

  “Lupe, I’m sorry.”

  At the sound of Javier’s voice her heart and her feet started moving faster.

  The truck kept pace with her. Javier put his arm along the back of the passenger seat, leaning over toward the open window. “Lupe, please get in. I’m sorry.”

  No. She would not be swayed by the softening of his voice, by the way his eyes were lit by the sun peeking into the truck.

  “Listen, three guys were murdered here yesterday. It’s not safe—”

  “Oh, I’ve faced worse,” she snapped.

  Javier nodded. “Yes, I know you—”

  She stopped and crossed her arms. “No, clearly you don’t!” She waved back toward the parking lot. “What the hell was that back there about Sam? I don’t even know that guy!”

  Javier pulled his arm back and slumped in his seat, his body deflating like the air had been let out. “I know,” he said finally. “It’s me, not you. I’m just not the same since Maria. It’s like that storm … it chewed us up and spat us out.”

  The truck slowed and Lupe found herself slowing with it, listening. There had been those few terrible days when she couldn’t reach him, when she imagined the worst. Later, when she asked him about it, he didn’t want to talk. She learned more from her uncle, and he used words like they were being rationed.

  “El Cuco … I thought that was the worst thing that would ever happen to me. I thought if I could survive that, I could survive anything.” He stopped the truck and stared straight ahead.

  The air slowly released from Lupe’s anger like a long-held breath. Silently, she opened the passenger door and slid into the seat.

  He started driving, slowly, talking as he looked straight ahead. “I don’t like feeling so angry. It’s just, this is the only work I could get this summer.” He gestured back at the hotel as if it were listening. “I hate working for these vultures.”

  “The developers?”

  He nodded, his mouth a straight line, his eyes still in the distance. He looked over at her. “What kind of people take advantage of a natural disaster? To make money?”

  Lupe looked right back at him. “Monsters.”

  Monsters were something they both knew a lot about.

  Chapter Four
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  Javier

  JAVIER DROVE SLOWLY, trying to drag out the time with Lupe despite the strained silence between them. Their reunion had started out so well. He’d tried to hold back, to play it cool, but holding her, kissing her after all these months had been so good. Then he’d screwed it up.

  Sam. What an asshole. For a month Javier had seen him parading around, flaunting his wealth and his overpriced sports car. But truth was, he was only really pissed at himself. His thoughts were so dark these days, since Maria, that it took every ounce of energy he had to stay clean and sober. He worked, went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and dropped into bed at the end of the day. This routine was the only way to quell the storm inside of him. It was like the hurricane never left, like it was still raging inside his skull, the sharp edges of debris smashing against the sides. His priest mentor, Father Sebastian, told him it was like Javier was boxing against a shadow on a brick wall: the only person left hurt and bleeding was him.

  He snuck a glance at Lupe beside him, the bright sun lighting her just at the knees, her pale skin beneath her shorts shimmering like a pearl. She looked over, catching him gaping at her legs, and he snapped his head back to the front.

  God, she scrambled his brains.

  He hoped that looking wasn’t all she’d let him do after the way he’d acted. The absolute last thing you do with Lupe is try to control her, he knew that better than anyone.

  “Idiota,” he snarled to himself.

  “Did you say something?” Lupe asked.

  He shook his head. His phone ringing jolted him from the console. He didn’t have to look at it to know who it was: Carlos. His friend had changed the ringtone on Javier’s phone to one of his own Papi Gringo hits. Classic.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?”

  “Huh?”

  “The phone. It’s Carlos, isn’t it?”

  “Nah, I’ll catch him later.” Truth was, he’d been calling several times a day all week, but Javier just did not have the patience to talk to him. Probably some television host asked a difficult question, or they didn’t have the right color M&M’s in his dressing room. Nah, he wasn’t like that, but having a best friend who was a celebrity was not nearly as entertaining as everyone thought it was. Besides, there were so many real-life horrible things going on for the island, for their people right now, how could he deal with Carlos’s celebrity life?