Chapter 12Liem
12
Liem
The merriment of Mardi Gras surrounded me as I hurried toward the gazebo, hoping to deal with my business there before the parade started.
Last week, I donated seven paintings to the Beautify the Bay committee—or the BTB as they bravely called themselves—for a raffle fundraiser. The BTB oversaw all official town events, and once per day for the week leading up to the parade, they’d posted one of my paintings online. The chairwoman, Mrs. Debbie T. Hand of Mardi Gras Cat fame, asked me to do the honor of drawing the winners’ names before the parade began. Once drawn, they would take the slips of paper onto the BTB float and do a live announcement when their float reached the middle of the parade.
It was all very exciting, and I had almost made it to their booth when an enthusiastic reveler threw out his arm in wild gesticulation and sent me flying through the air. I threw out my own arms to break my fall, but by great misfortune, I landed right on a concrete curb. My hands had valiantly tried to save me from the brunt of it, but their attempts were for naught as stinging pain sliced my head and palms.
“Liem!” someone called just before I was turned over onto my back. Even as I groaned, my eyes couldn’t help but dance over the symphony of colors above me, so bright that they blotted the stars that’d been trying to reveal themselves in the early night sky.
I’d never thought to view the world from this point of view, but my enjoyment was cut short by a blinding white light.
I swatted my stinging hands in front of my face as that same voice said, “Hey, hey. Stop, it’s me. I’m just checking your pupils.”
Me who?
My thoughts were a jumbled mess as I crunched into a sitting position, the blooming aches and pains rapidly deflating my good spirits. Focusing took some effort, but after a long moment of concentration, I placed the voice and internally sighed.
“Jeremiah,” I mumbled, but it was so loud here in the middle of the festivities, he probably hadn’t heard.
“Let’s get you up,” he shouted, but before he could get a good grip on my elbow, I got my feet under me and set myself to rights.
I blinked rapidly against the spots in my vision, unsure if they were from the fall or from rising too quickly. Jeremiah cursed and grabbed my arm, steering me toward the gazebo.
Once there, I squinted against the sudden light. The fairy lights in the rafters were at full brightness but didn’t do much against the constantly shifting colors and shadows beyond the space. The interior had been transformed into some sort of medical bay for the event. The paintbrushes, bags, and coffee cups I was accustomed to seeing there in the predawn were replaced with first aid kits, radios, and sealed water bottles.
It felt….
I clenched my hand into a fist, then hissed at the pain. It didn’t feel good to me. None of this did.
Jeremiah pulled out a folding chair and plopped it right in the middle of the space. “Here, have a seat so I can check you over.”
I frowned at the brown metal chair. “No, thank you.”
The music that had been blasting through the speakers suddenly cut out, and the change unsteadied me further. Then an even faster, louder tune started, which apparently signaled the parade’s imminent start to the crowd, who all erupted in choruses of cheers.
I hadn’t taken much note of the thick layers of stimuli around me before, but now, with my aching head and Jeremiah here, it was all a dreadful sort of déjà vu….
In all my wandering and exploring since we’d moved here, I’d never felt like I’d strayed too far until this exact moment. And all I wanted was to get back to my people.
The air was muggy, as it always was, and I pushed a bead of sweat away with the back of my hand. But it was thick and all wrong because it wasn’t sweat. It was blood.
Not a lot to really panic about, but any amount of unanticipated blood was inherently too much.
Jeremiah grasped my shoulder, and I let him turn me around. “Please, let me check.”
I glanced at the blood on my hands and murmured my assent. There was a sharp snap as he put on his gloves and a fresh sting when he applied an alcohol swab to my brow.
Thankfully, it was the unpierced one. That could’ve been pretty gnarly otherwise.
Jeremiah asked me questions about pain levels and aches as he worked, and just as he leaned in to apply a bandage to my cut eyebrow, a shadow fell over the gazebo, and some instinct had me relaxing enough to take a long overdue breath.
My people must be here. Or one of them, at least.
But then Jeremiah squeaked and jumped backward, disturbing my newly stilled waters. I really hoped he’d use that number I gave him. I’d never met someone so prone to flight.
“ Liem .” Cody made it to the gazebo floor in one step, his wild eyes running all over me. He raised a hand toward my face but then frowned and dropped it between us. “You’re hurt?”
“Not badly at all,” I assured him with a smile. “And Jeremiah here was nearby and did an exemplary job patching me up.”
“ Who? ” Cody asked, his gaze flitting around the gazebo, his frown and gaze deepening, darkening.
The man in question did himself no favors by stepping tentatively out of the shadows and offering his gloved hand to Cody. “It’s Jeremy, actually.”
Cody eyed his hand briefly before dropping his head back and saying to the roof, or perhaps the heavens, “ Jesus fuck, not this again.”
Confusion at that statement lost out to my amusement, which smoothed my remaining jagged nerves as I watched Cody collect himself.
Except… he didn’t.
Those sharp peaks reformed when his chest visibly filled with breath, and he swayed.
“Dezi?” I asked in alarm, rushing toward him, but Jeremiah beat me to it, grasping Cody’s shoulders to steady him.
Jeremiah eyed him sharply. “Have you been drinking?”
I knew he hadn’t been, and if Jeremiah were thinking clearly, he’d realize that no drunk person could have scaled the gazebo steps like he had. And even if he were drinking… we were in the middle of a Mardi Gras parade in Southern Mississippi. It wouldn’t exactly be a scandal.
“No,” Cody said at the same time I said, “He hasn’t.”
Jeremiah huffed, “Well, you smell like you have.”
Cody glared daggers at him. “Go ahead and sniff me again, dude. See what happens.”
Jeremiah took a step backward when he beheld Cody’s scowl.
Cody narrowed his eyes and then swung his gaze toward me, his expression softening as he took me in. “You’re really okay?”
I smiled tightly. “I am.” Now that I could see him better, I let out a laugh and said, “I do have questions, though.”
He cocked an eyebrow, but the effect was slightly manic, given his pupils were still blown and he’d started twisting his bracelets. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” I smiled in amusement, holding his gaze and taking an unconscious step toward him. “When did you have time to collect so many beads?”
He scoffed. “This ain’t Nola, Ti Bet.”
I hummed in response, his answer raising more questions than it answered, but this was neither the time nor place to ask them.
He took a step forward so that our shoes were touching, and we stayed facing each other like that for a long moment. Then I reached out with my cleaner hand and lightly took his hand that was fiddling with the bracelets. Careful to not draw attention to my scrapes, I pressed my thumb onto the top of his hand. “Are you ready to go back?”
His hazel eyes contracted in something almost like fear before he forced them away from mine and over to life happening outside of the gazebo.
“No.” He took in the scattered medical supplies and Jeremiah, who was presumably still nearby, then added in a whisper, “Don’t really want to stay here either.”
I smoothed my thumb across his hand. “Me either.”
I tugged him toward the stairs, but he halted our progress right as I stepped down onto the first step and ran his gaze over me from head to toe. His demeanor became dark and intense again before he dropped my hand and turned back around. He strode up to Jeremiah, who was sitting on the bench and meticulously reorganizing his medical bag with the care one would take defusing a bomb.
Or creating one.
Cody leaned over the bag, glaring at the contents, and clapped Jeremiah on the back before plucking out a few supplies from the bag and pocketing them. He picked up a few more and held them up to Jeremiah. “These?”
Jeremiah’s gaze flitted between the bandages, Cody, and me before he dropped his gaze back down to his bag. He must’ve communicated some sort of affirmative, because Cody nodded before clapping him on the back one more time. “Thanks, dude.”
He returned to my side, took my hand again, grasping it the exact way I’d held his before—loosely, with his thumb pressed on top—and pulled us out of the gazebo and away from the chaos.
The parade had already started, the sounds of the marching band seeming to chase us as we went. We weaved through the crowd, but when it got tighter, Cody’s shoulders tensed, his back muscles rippling through his tight black shirt. Without looking back, he slackened his grip on my hand just enough to slide his fingers up the outside of my hand to my wrist, where he encircled it firmly and doubled his speed through the crowd.
My soul shivered at the touch, so possessive and sure.
He cut us a path down 7th Street and rounded the main drag of businesses, only slowing when we reached the alley that ran behind them. Cody climbed the brick stairs that led to the back entrance of Bay Hall. He tugged my wrist gently, encouraging me to take two more steps in front of him.
“Here is good,” he rumbled, then released me before collapsing onto the hard brick steps. He removed his thick stack of beaded necklaces and reached up to hang them over the tall spike at the beginning of the wrought iron handrail.
I followed suit, perching on the opposite side a step above him, and angled my body toward him.
We sat like that for a while, the building doing a decent job of muffling everything that was happening on the other side.
Cody’s eyes were on me for a long moment before he straightened and lifted his hips, fishing the supplies out of the pocket of his jeans. He examined the crumpled items for a long moment, the creases in his forehead becoming more pronounced as his tense shoulders deflated—but not in a good way. It had the same look of relaxation but was all wrong. It broadcasted defeat.
I didn’t like that.
I knocked his knee with mine gently. “Are you okay?”
Carefully not meeting my eyes, he glanced at my face before his gaze fixed on my eyebrow. “Let me help you.”
I nodded easily. “Okay.”
He rose to his knees and brought a waft of coconut and cherries with him. And now that I could focus, I could smell beer there too. But mostly it was just Cody . Sunscreen and lip balm. Vulnerable and reticent. Loyal and exacting. Intense.
Keen, but somehow utterly unaware.
He reached out and, with so much care, moved my hair behind my shoulder. I kept watching him like a moth surveilled a grumpy flame. His defined cheekbones, his furrowed brow, his darkening irises—I searched anywhere I could look for clues to what was happening in his mind as he smoothed not one butterfly bandage over the cut, but three. He sat back, one stair higher than me this time, and balled his fist tightly, making the plastic crackle. His face remained fixed in a perfect brood and seemed content to stay that way.
That wouldn’t do, but before I could lodge anything against it, he made a demand.
“Show me your hands, Liem.”
I cocked my head to the side and tried to catch his gaze, but he was lasered in on my thighs, where I’d unconsciously been resting my hands in a position that wasn’t entirely natural. I flexed my fingers experimentally before I stilled at the pain. Lifting them slowly between us, the black flowers danced with spears of shadows as I reached toward him.
He took in the partially dried blood and did the impossible by brooding even harder. His voice was strained and nearly an octave lower, his register a deep bass as he instructed, “The other side.”
I rotated my hands and lifted my palms in offering.
Of what, I wasn’t sure.
But it didn’t matter.
He could have it.