Chapter 25Cody
25
Cody
I woke to warm pressure on my shoulder and the nostalgic strains of canned laughter.
My hand reflexively tightened around bare skin as I cracked open an eye, a sense of inherent safety and calm blanketing me. Vinh was crouched in front of me, backlit by the laptop that seemed to be the only light in the room now.
“What time is it?” I whispered, my voice deeper with sleep, at which he shrugged. Frowning, I supposed it didn’t matter, especially as the warmth pressed against my side and the vague memories of the night took center stage.
My hand flexed again, and my heart jump-started as the hazy memory of Liem joining me on the floor danced in my mind as I took in the firm, bare thigh I’d been gripping in my sleep.
Liem’s thigh.
I trailed my gaze up his body to where his shirt was ridden up just enough to show a sliver of hip, then to his right hand splayed open on the floor beside him, and finally to his face, peaceful in sleep.
An angel.
“He finished Bree’s tattoo,” I surmised as I caught up to the present. “I missed it.”
“He did. You did,” Vinh confirmed.
The urge to sit up and see it hit me, but it was far outpaced by my desire to never leave this spot on the floor where Liem Lott was asleep on my shoulder.
But Vinh decided for me, and it was a good offer, too, when he said, “Let’s get these two to bed. You’re welcome to stay on the couch tonight.”
I looked from Liem to his brother and stupidly repeated, “The couch.”
Vinh smirked. “The couch. Anywhere else you might stay isn’t within my permission to give.”
I met his dark gaze for a breath and then spoke true, my contentment lending itself to candidness. “You’re a good brother.”
His answering smile was immediate and genuine. “So are you, Cody.”
I broke his intense stare, swallowing thickly as I looked at Bree where she had fallen asleep on the bench, her back rising and falling steadily. “Thank you,” I whispered so quietly, I wasn’t even sure he’d heard me. Those words didn’t ring as true as I’d like, but I vowed to prove him right. To prove myself worthy of this.
Of all of this.
Vinh rose to his feet and slowly decreased the volume of the laptop, keeping his eye on Bree the entire time. He smiled slightly to himself when she didn’t wake and then closed it before scooping her up gently. There was a wrap around her thigh, protecting the tattoo. Vinh met my gaze and nodded goodbye before carrying her from the room.
My ass was numb from sitting on the hard floor, and my lower back was close to screaming, but every other part of me, inside and out, sang in drowsy joy at my current circumstances.
The last two days had been a test. For myself.
To plan, to dream, to do the thing I hated and examine my thoughts and instincts.
To follow through.
I’d run with Dad each morning, taking us on a broader circuit around downtown Bay Springs so I could still catch glimpses of Liem at the gazebo. So I could watch the same sunrise with him from the same place.
Liem’s thigh muscle flexed under my hand as if he’d heard my thoughts and then relaxed. He’d spoken true that day on the golf cart; he really could get comfortable anywhere.
Even in total darkness, leaned against my thorns.
I was trying to find peace with those thorns, too, but they always sharpened when I was alone at night and tended to turn inward. Poking and slicing away as I lay awake on that bed on the houseboat, replaying my failures instead of sleeping.
Relying solely on touch, I took my sweet-ass time wrapping my arm around Liem’s waist. Then, by the power of leg day and the slightness of Liem Lott, I snaked my other arm under his knees and lifted him into my arms as I rose from the floor.
He sighed contentedly and burrowed into my chest, and I froze.
Any existence where I could simply hold Liem Lott in my arms with the scent of cookies and charcoal, sea salt and perfect — everything that was him—surrounding us couldn’t be all bad.
I turned toward the moonlight coming through the windows just enough to illuminate his hands resting loosely against my chest, his loose hair swaying as we breathed. The same hair that tickled my arm as I carefully—and so, so slowly—made my way to his bedroom.
The door I’d peeked through earlier was still ajar, so I walked right through it, wishing so badly I could make out the details of his space. To see what I’d only glimpsed a few times before. The large bay window to my right was east facing, immediately conjuring fantasies of Liem in his bed and bathed in morning sunlight.
It was a potent cocktail of hope and fear, and I was nearly drunk on it.
“Dezi?” he asked sleepily against my chest, breaking me from my reverie and grounding me as he traced a line over my heart. I shivered almost violently, an intrusive, sudden urge to dump him onto his bed and make a fucking run for it brushing over me.
Curbing that fight-and-flight notion, I carried him to his bed, placed a knee on its edge for leverage, and laid him down in the middle.
But then I hesitated. He was right there, inches away, perfectly caged below me.
His eyes met mine in the dim light, and he propped himself on his elbows. His chest rose and fell with rapid breaths as I hovered over him, the riot in my head turning to white noise as so many wants warred with one another.
Take.
That was the loudest.
His breaths seemed to pause, my heart doing the same as he slowly reached toward me and ran the back of his tattooed hand over my cheekbone.
Make him yours.
The idea screamed at me. It rattled my body like a hurricane, but even as I leaned into his touch, my hands fisted against the soft quilt on his bed.
I didn’t want to take. I wanted to give.
I wanted to have something worth giving.
“Do you want to stay?” he asked, his voice somehow even more angelic in the dead of night.
“Yes,” I answered instantly. Truthfully.
Desperately.
My eyes had adjusted enough now that the gleam in his dark-brown ones was clear, the passion and kindness there as vivid as the feel of his hand as he cupped my cheek and asked, “Will you?”
Another night of waking nightmare or actual nightmare mere miles from this man, or his bed? I tracked my gaze over his face, taking in his eyebrow ring, the small cut, his cheekbones. And then I answered.
“Yes.”
The weight of decision lifted from me, and my long-delayed exhaustion made landfall.
I fought it off for as long as it took me to quietly close his door, pull my shirt over my head, and let it fall where it may. Liem shifted to the top of the bed and pulled back the covers in an invitation that shook and solidified the foundations of my world, and I accepted, crawling in beside him.
As soon as the scent of him mingled with the soft texture of his sheets caressing my skin, I sank into the bed completely, all of my muscles done for.
There was hesitation, though whether it was mine or his was unclear as the sounds of our breathing and unspoken questions filled the room.
“LL?” I whispered into the dark as I reached out my hand to find his under the covers.
He grasped it. “Yes, Dezi?”
“Are you….” I hesitated, hearing the unjustified neediness in the question, then abandoned it and asked another instead. “Can I just hold you?”
I was not a natural cuddler, but when Liem turned immediately in answer and pressed against me before laying his head on my bare chest, I had to rethink that.
Wrapping my arms around his body, I gathered him close, indulging in the feel of his skin against mine. His hair brushed against my hand, and I only hesitated for a moment before I combed my fingers through his hair slowly, careful to not pull on any knots as I found the answer to one of my questions. One of dozens I’d written in my new notebook over the past two days without him.
Liem Lott’s hair was indeed soft as silk.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d wanted to do that—to feel Liem’s hair—but it sure as fuck was longer than a few weeks.
He sighed against me before the slightest shiver had him burrowing harder into my chest. I loved the weight of him against me.
I’d waited a lifetime to feel such serenity.
“Sleep, Dezi,” Liem breathed against my chest.
Current circumstances made it seem like it should have been my line to give, but no.
He’d always been my teacher. This was him.
So, after a few more passes through his hair as I memorized the texture of each strand and a luxurious flex of my legs to map exactly where he was, I took a deep inhale of the man in my arms, and I succumbed. I submitted.
I slept.
The soft caress of morning light tried to wake me gently, bless her, but I still full-body twitched like a horror movie extra upon waking.
On some level, I must have understood the most important facts—I was alone and there was no Liem Lott in my arms—because before I even knew what I was doing, I shot out of bed and hurried to the window. My eyes watered against the light as I searched the front yard of the cottage as if there would be an obvious sign to his whereabouts.
There wasn’t.
Releasing a breath, I ran a hand down my face and turned to the room for clues, my heart still galloping from my unnecessarily violent start.
Had he already gone back to Gulf Shores?
My bracelets had ridden up my arm, and I shoved them down as I glanced around, trying to wake enough to function.
Liem’s room.
I was in Liem’s room without adult supervision, the thing I’d wished for just last night. And now that I had it, I just wanted him to come back. Pressing my hand into my chest and willing my heart to calm the fuck down, I looked around the room, from the custom cabinets and shelves to the dresser in the corner.
There was a place for everything, but everything also had an edge of the unexpected.
Like the mobile of preserved flowers that hung above his desk and all the blankets, no two alike with varying textures and patterns, that were folded in stacks as well as draped across nearly every surface.
There were dozens of sketch pads stored in the shelves under the window, and a bunch of canvases situated against the wall.
A song danced across my mind as I stared at them.
Some of these things are not like the others.
My gaze was stuck on those canvases. They were ominous—the ones with their backs turned to me. They were arranged too neatly.
Their aura was thick and fucked up.
I took a hesitant step toward them just as a car door slammed somewhere in the neighborhood, and my body jolted as my soul fled to somewhere near the ozone.
I didn’t even know what the ozone was. I may have made that up.
Taking the interruption as divine intervention, I walked closer to the unmade bed, intending to tidy it up for some reason, but once I had my hand on the sheets, I froze.
I didn’t want to erase the evidence of what had happened. I didn’t want to cover up the obvious indent of where I’d been. Where Liem had been.
I eyed the spray can of sealant among Liem’s craft supplies, but then a dog barked, and I blinked back to sanity, the mania clearing.
Instead of doing something insane, I grabbed my phone from Liem’s desk and took a photo of the bed, like a normal person.
Normal-ish.
And then some of the room. From a few angles.
Satisfied, I eyed his chest of drawers for a long moment before scooping up my discarded shirt and slipping it over my head. Then I headed to the bathroom to answer the call of nature, noting along the way that the house seemed to be vacant.
Once I’d washed my hands, I peeked in the shower and spotted Cher’s fancy face soap. With a smirk, I helped myself to some and washed my face at the sink, feeling more alive with each minty bubble.
After I patted my face dry, I slipped on my slides and followed my instincts, heading toward the gazebo.
It wasn’t until I was on the sidewalk and had to move aside for a runner that I realized I’d accidentally blown off this morning’s run with my dad. Feeling guilty as fuck, I took my phone out and pulled myself over. Leaning against a speed limit sign, I saw what I’d missed when I’d opened my phone earlier.
The first was a text from Dad saying he’d had an extra late night at Fortuna and was moving his rest day to today, but I was welcome to come for breakfast. My guilt eased some then, but it did prompt me to set a daily alarm so it wouldn’t happen again after I sent him a quick response.
With that done, I started on the other messages.
Cher
At the nursing home this morning. I thought about waking you, but you were dead to the world. So glad you got some sleep.
Cher
And no, this is not me treating you like a toddler
I snorted as I read Vinh’s text next.
Vinh
There are coffee cake muffins on the kitchen island. Help yourself.
That made me…. Well. Frankly, it made me want to cry. Instead, I forced myself to smile. Smiling was a normal reaction to such a kindness. A family on a morning walk paraded by then, all of them waving at me in a neighborly way.
I kept my smile in place and forced myself to wave back.
This was the price of letting your scowl slip, I supposed.
It returned, though, when I realized there wasn’t a text from Liem, but as if the thought summoned him, my phone buzzed in my hand.
It was a picture of the sunrise from the gazebo. The one that had already happened.
I’d missed it.
When my phone started ringing in my hands, I was almost overtaken by my distress enough to decline it immediately, but then I saw his name.
Then I almost declined it anyway in my haste to answer.
“LL?” I said hopefully, pushing the phone against my ear as if it would bring him closer.
He breathed a sweet laugh, and my body immediately relaxed enough for me to take my first full breath of the day.
“Good morning, Dezi.”
He was in a car, that much was obvious. Even though I knew he wouldn’t be there, I pushed off the sign and continued toward the town square as I responded, “Good morning. Are you driving?”
“No, Aunt Ari is. We’re about an hour from Gulf Shores now. Where are you headed?”
That answered my question, and I hated it. Yesterday, he’d offhandedly mentioned going back to Gulf Shores today at some point. I just didn’t think I’d be so tired that I’d miss him leaving my arms.
“Downtown,” I answered vaguely.
There was silence between us until I made it to the empty gazebo, and I hated that too. I walked up the steps and sat down but immediately stood back up and started pacing.
“How’d you know I was going somewhere?”
Liem hummed. “I saw the security system notification when you left. That’s why I waited to message you.”
I vaguely recalled the sensors in the house and the app they all used to control the system as I walked figure eights on the worn boards.
I wasn’t sure what to say and definitely wasn’t enjoying this sudden almost awkwardness between us with him in a car with his aunt and me here without him.
Not after a night like last night.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said quietly.
My steps faltered, and I raised my gaze to the gazebo’s rafters as I took in his words, absorbing the apologetic tone he’d said them in. “Wake me next time. Please.”
“I will, Dezi,” he assured me, his words like a vow. “Next time.”
I collapsed onto the bench seat again, the weight of the promise keeping me there this time. “When will you be back?”
“I’m not sure yet, but you’ll be the first to know.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Can I call you tonight?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding again. “Okay.”
“I’m looking forward to then, but I’m going to go now, as Aunt Ari is jealous that she can’t speak to you too.” He said it in a teasing way, and I could almost imagine the look he gave his aunt as he said it.
“Tell her goodbye for me,” I added, not keeping the edge of melancholy from my voice.
There was a murmur, and then he replied, “She returns the sentiments warmly. And I hope you have a wonderful day. I look forward to tonight.”
There is not a single thing I could do that would be better than holding you.
That’s what I wanted to say, but instead went with different truths.
“You, too, LL. And same here.”