Chapter 7Cody
7
Cody
I stood in line at 7th Street Coffee and scowled at the foggy glass prison of pastries.
There were many things I didn’t understand, but two were really bothering me in this moment.
The first was how Bree and I had managed to completely overlook this town during our handful of adult years spent trying to make a life for ourselves on the casino drag that lit the coast just a few miles away.
The second was why preparing to order this frappe was giving me the nervous sweats.
Pulling my ratty tank top away from my body and hoping some forced circulation would help the situation, I stepped up and placed my order with the teenaged girl behind the counter.
Without looking away from her ordering screen, she asked, “Want whipped cream?”
I lost my breath.
My feet were buried in sand, and my head was somehow underwater.
Sunlight blinded my vision.
Muzak played on cue and lingered in the background.
“Do you want a frappe?” the strange, happy redheaded girl asked me.
Her drink was almost empty, and I stared at it, feeling like I was hungrier than I had ever been, though I knew that wasn’t true.
“Do they have whipped cream?” I asked her, stepping closer. I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted that drink, even if it meant spending the day with a stranger in a strange place.
“Sir?”
My head snapped up abruptly, and the fog of memory cleared as I met a startled blue-eyed gaze.
She reared back slightly with a muttered “ Oh shit.”
I moved my gaze to the antique mirror that lined the wall behind the counter, and… yeah.
Anyone would recoil from that expression. I looked fucking deranged.
My new haircut made my features more severe, especially with my dark, furrowed eyebrows and the deep frown lines etched around my mouth.
Scaring a young barista with a flyby anxiety attack wasn’t on my new leaf bingo card, so I cleared my throat and forced my face to slacken.
“Sorry,” I said, shakily. “I would prefer it if you held the whip.”
That seemed to disturb her even more, her eyes bulging as she glanced behind the counter as if she might need to seek help.
I needed to seek help.
But for now, a hasty exit would have to do.
My brain produced nothing that would fix this situation, so I muttered something unintelligible, waved my hand in the air for reasons unknown, and fled.
I made it out the heavy door just in time to see a half-naked Liem Lott cruise by on a fucking golf cart of all things, his long, dark hair blowing in the wind and the tattoos on his arm lit by the late afternoon sun.
Was this all… a dream?
My God, that would be such a relief.
Alas, the swampy air of Mississippi filled my lungs and the heavy door of Bay Hall slammed behind me just as Liem completed his circuit of the town square and parked his cart in a spot just across the way. My legs seemed to move of their own volition, shockingly similar to how my mind had just moved without permission to one of the most complicated memories of my adolescence.
I cut across the green space that surrounded the aging gazebo, hardly breathing until I stood beside a pierced, tattooed guy who had his head resting back against the top of the seat and his eyes closed, wearing something that really did not suit him—a deep, troubled frown.
That wasn’t an expression I associated with either Liem or LL.
I rounded the cart quietly and eased into the seat beside him, jostling it just enough that I thought he would open his eyes.
But, as usual with both Liem and LL, he didn’t react as anticipated.
Instead, his expression smoothed as he spoke with a tired, drawn-out cadence. “I hope you aren’t here to burgle me. I’m afraid I haven’t anything worthwhile on my person.”
The tension I’d been unwittingly holding in my shoulders loosened as I investigated that.
Wind-tousled hair, flushed cheeks, bare chest.
Sweatpants.
Then a brief detour over the small, intricate tattoos on his arms.
A glint.
Two glints.
I zeroed in on those.
The new piercings.
In his nipples.
Staring at me.
Those must be the other ones he was referring to when I asked about the one in his eyebrow. Forcing my gaze away from them took the two nerves I had left, but I succeeded as I slumped down in the seat and mirrored his position.
“I didn’t even know our virtual school had apparel.” I directed the statement toward the cart’s roof in a hushed tone that matched the current atmosphere.
He rolled his head toward me, and I did the same, an automatic smile parting my lips as he cracked one eye open, studying me before he answered.
“They don’t, which was a point of extreme disappointment for me.” He opened his other eye, and the full force of his quiet, intense attention washed over me. “I was tired of feeling that way, so I made my own.”
His dark-brown stare held me, and I swallowed hard. This was not so much a staring contest as it was a siege.
My mind was simultaneously quiet and agitated, like a hummingbird forced to idle.
A breath later, I surrendered and dropped my gaze to his pants, then gestured to them, or specifically, to the dried paint splatters on them. “And now they’re your crafty pants?” I asked stupidly.
I chanced a look back at him and found his attention still on me as he answered with a small, secretive smirk. “Sure.”
My eyes narrowed, but then I decided it would be better for me and my deserted and destroyed nerves if I didn’t prod.
Liem unfurled himself from his slumped position and angled his body toward me. “Something happened.”
I blew out a breath and pointedly eyed his pants again—specifically the grass stains on his knees. Then I raised my eyebrows at him in a silent “ You too? ”
He cocked his head to the side, but then a yawn overtook him. He folded back into his lounging position as he rode it out, smiling softly to himself. “Let’s relax, Dezi. Indulge in some quiet time with me.”
I sighed. “I don’t know that I know how.”
Another beat of silence. Then two. Then ten. A fucking million.
I’d never met anyone so comfortable with unfilled space.
While Bree tended to do anything she could to smooth them out and build bridges between everyone surrounding such a space, Liem seemed content to simply sink into them and let others do the same.
My lovely brain, on the other hand, was typically repulsed by such things and would fill the space with incessant mental chatter and intrusive thoughts.
And after this morning’s coffee-and-whip fiasco, I was afraid?—
Liem’s serene voice cut in. “Would you like for me to try to help with that?”
I frowned. “With being quiet? Are we playing the quiet game?” I squeezed my eyes shut, almost seasick from the shortened mental spiral.
When I found my bearings and I looked at Liem again, everything about him broadcasted serenity.
It was the opposite of how he’d looked when I’d first approached, so he must’ve known what he was doing.
“Tell me how I can help you best, Dezi.”
Today was for memories, it seemed.
“Tell me what to do. Please,” I answered.
He smiled again, but the rise and fall of his chest stayed constant. The longer I took it in—his skin, those piercings, his Liem-ness—the more my breathing became as erratic as my thoughts.
Thankfully, his eyes remained shut as he gave his first instruction.
“Let’s start with your body.”
My heart jumped out of the cart. I was no longer thankful, especially as other things jumped, too, but I pretended not to notice as Liem continued.
“Can you drop your shoulders for me? They’re lovely, but I think you’d like them more if they weren’t trying to touch your ears.”
I did as he asked, and a long exhale was forced from my lungs with the downward movement. “How did you know?”
His eyebrows lifted even as his eyes remained closed. “Just a hunch. Now, can you get into a comfortable position? Let me know if I need to move. I can relax anywhere.”
I snorted. “I know. Remember when Bree found you having a siesta in the motion theater pod?”
His smile grew. “I do. I was just glad she woke me before the next show started. I think my brother would have left me to that fright as a lesson on the dangers of public repose.”
“And you’re not worried he’ll find you here, doing the same? Why not nap at the cottage?”
“No, I’m not. And let’s not get into that right now. If we do, my shoulders will become earrings, too, and I’d rather not undo our hard work.”
My gaze snagged on the grass stains and his bare feet. Something or someone had bothered Liem before I arrived, and that bothered me.
Was I going to have to punch someone again?
I wasn’t opposed to it.
“Dezi . ”
He said it so quietly, which was somehow more effective than shouting, and it was enough to get me back on track. I propped my feet on the front of the cart and scooched to the edge of the seat, then turned on my side to face the sidewalk, giving Liem my back.
This seemed the safest position, considering I didn’t know this town or its inhabitants yet.
Though I was kidding myself if I thought that knowing them would’ve also meant trusting them.
“Good. Now, can you unclench your jaw?”
The crack that followed pierced the air, and I let out a startled laugh. “ Holy shit .”
“How do you feel?” he asked with amusement.
I took stock of my lowered shoulders and jaw. “I don’t really know, but keep going?”
“Very well. Tell me about your toes.”
I automatically scrunched both my nose and all ten of my toes. “Uh… I think I do better with directions. Can you just tell me what to do?”
A couple of cars whizzed past, and the birdsong in one of the many Florida maple trees that dotted downtown painted the air.
When he finally answered, his voice was hushed. “Yes. I can do that. Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Uncurl your toes.”
I did.
“And your fingers.”
I splayed them against my stomach.
“Straighten your wrists.”
I adjusted my elbows and did as he asked, immediately feeling the relief in my joints.
“Let your muscles take a break.”
I sank further into the seat.
“You’re safe, Dezi.”
And then I melted all the way into the seat and into the silence that followed.
Eventually, I asked, “Should I close my eyes?”
“Do you want to?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then don’t. Just let them be. Let everything be.”
I watched the shadows cast by the oak tree in the middle of the town square dance as a deep well of tiredness rose to the surface of my consciousness.
And then I fell asleep with no memory of shutting my eyes.