Chapter 26Cody
26
Cody
With Bree at the nursing home, Vinh working his regular job, whatever that was, and Liem back in Gulf Shores, I was….
I was restless. I was not having a wonderful day.
That solid night of sleep had caught up to me, and now I had a full day ahead that I’d have to endure well-rested and woefully alert.
For several minutes after this morning’s phone call with Liem, I’d just sat at the gazebo and stared at the town of Bay Springs, wondering what the hell to do with myself.
Last night had been a breakthrough on more than one front, though, so there was that. Vinh had helped me by unwittingly acting as my anti-anxiety wingman when we left Liem and Bree to their secret business and boldly entered 7th Street Coffee together.
I still hadn’t seen that damn tattoo, but frappes and the ordering of frappes could now consider themselves conquered. I’d just ignore the fact that I hadn’t asked for whipped cream on any of them.
The awkward pain was still too near for that and might be for years to come.
I’d left the gazebo eventually and, like the brave little anxiety soldier I was, got myself a hot coffee, then backtracked to the cottage for muffins, pointedly not looking into Liem’s room on the way in and out. As I got back into my truck, I wondered if Liem saw the notification that I’d been back and then left again but put it out of my mind as I stuffed muffins in my face one after another on the way back to the houseboat.
They were divine, but the coffee with sugar and the muffins made with yet more coffee and sugar did not help my vibrating brain.
I only lingered on the boat for a few minutes, as the sole joy to be found there was in the lingering smell of the cookies I’d baked with Vinh last night. He’d taken time to explain the steps to me and never once seemed put out by doing so.
Grabbing my new hat from Bree from the bedside drawer, I put it on and went right back out to my truck and drove to Dad’s, where, thankfully, there were no kids screaming or signs of a party to crash this time.
“Dad?” I yelled as I let myself in with the key that I’d added to my Liem key chain.
Four keys dangled on it now, and still not one of them was for home. The truck key might’ve come closest.
“In here,” he called back, and when I made my way to the kitchen, he looked up with a tired smile. “Hey, son.”
“Hey,” I responded hesitantly, frowning at his athletic gear. “Those don’t seem like rest day clothes.”
He scooped a dollop of protein powder into his top-of-the-line blender. “I know. I was just going to do a short circuit. I’m feeling a little…,” he trailed off and his brow furrowed as he flicked his gaze to me, as if wondering if he should go on.
I waited, keeping my expression neutral.
He avoided an immediate decision by turning the blender on, the annoying sound of it filling the space before he turned it off and glanced at me. “Nice hat.”
“Nice subject change,” I countered.
Chuckling, he relaxed just a bit as he started talking. “I was feeling edgy. Yesterday was, well.” He paused again, meeting my gaze seriously. “It was awful. Just… truly awful.”
I leaned forward on the kitchen bar between us, folding my arms. “At the casino side or the resort side?”
He pulled out two cups and divided the blender’s mixture between them, then set them both on the counter in front of me. “Yes,” he answered simply. “Maybe the worst Mardi Gras week I’ve worked.” He slid a shake across the bar to me, and I took it without fuss as sympathy warred with something else inside me. Something that was almost like euphoria at the way he was opening up.
I took a sip of the god-awful shake and held back my grimace just as he did the same, but he hummed in pleasure as though he actually enjoyed the taste.
So strange.
“Have you ever thought of trying something else? Doing something else?” I asked, genuinely curious about my dad’s aspirations. Ones I’d never considered before.
He sighed and leaned against the counter, mirroring me. “More and more every day.”
I laughed loudly, and he cocked an eyebrow in silent question even as he smiled in bemused, shared amusement.
“Neither of us knows what we want to be when we grow up,” I explained as my humor petered out. “I mean, I don’t even know what to do today.”
A short laugh escaped him too. “Maybe it’s a sign.”
“Of what?” I forced another sip of shake into my mouth.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But why don’t we go and take out some energy on the weights, and maybe it’ll become clearer to us.”
I almost asked if we could run this energy off instead but didn’t want to rock the newfound harmony we’d achieved, so I put my hat on the bar and kept my mouth shut as I grabbed my shake and followed him to the home gym that he’d outfitted in one of the spare rooms.
Half an hour later, I collapsed dramatically across the weight bench and threw a towel over my face, groaning loudly.
I was not in harmony with my dad, whose definition of a short circuit was clearly not in line with my own.
I thought I was dying.
He was barely sweating.
“That all you got, son?” he yelled over the classic rock blasting through a set of wall-mounted speakers.
I sat up and yanked the towel off so I could glare at him. “Are you shit-talking me right now?”
He grinned broadly, undisturbed, as he started a series of lunges. “I don’t know, am I?”
My knees screamed as I rose from the bench, grabbed a kettlebell, and copied his movements.
Dad smiled smugly over his shoulder as we lunged around the room, and I grimaced back.
“I’ve had a thought,” he said eventually.
“Me too,” I huffed, feeling like my chest was going to explode. “A murderous one.”
He chuckled again as he walked to the storage racks. I followed his lead, returning the equipment before wiping everything down.
“I’ve been thinking about real estate,” he announced, handing me a water bottle.
“Really?”
“Commercial, I think,” he elaborated as I took the water and drowned myself with it. “Yesterday, when you ditched me after our run, I went exploring.”
“I told you bye!” I retorted. “What do you mean I ditched you?”
He shrugged, taking a long swig from his own bottle. “I dunno, son. We were finishing up a nice jog, and then suddenly you were all ‘gotta go’ and ran off toward that old gazebo. I felt kind of abandoned, honestly.”
Ho-ly shit. Frank Desmond was sassy.
Why didn’t I know that?
I fidgeted with the weight rack as I tried to shake off the guilt that insisted on creeping up at every turn. “I had business.”
Liem had been so into his notebook that he hadn’t even seen me and Dad running circuits around him, but I knew he was there.
And even better, I now knew what he looked like when he was deep in concentration. That had been my business.
What beautiful business it had been too.
Dad didn’t reply except to usher us out of the room, and I followed him all the way into the backyard, enjoying a deep inhale of fresh air the moment we stepped outside. We situated ourselves on the patio furniture and relaxed for a few moments before Dad spoke up again.
“You’re doing more business courses this summer?”
“A few.”
This was the one subject we’d semi-easily talked about over the past couple of years. He’d always taken a keen interest in my education, maybe because he never finished law school as he had planned. Because of me.
And I’d rewarded that by signing up for things like Art History and other courses I had no interest in whatsoever.
I was such a dick.
His brows furrowed as he angled toward me. “You worked a lot of jobs at Fortuna, developing a wealth of experience in a lot of areas.”
I wrinkled my nose at the pseudo compliment. “I don’t know if I’d put it that way. At all.”
“Why not?” he asked bluntly, crossing one of his legs over the other and raising a brow at me.
“Because.” I gesticulated vaguely as I spoke. “I was just, I dunno, passing the time or whatever.” Nerves gathered at the blunt confession that I was about to lodge his way, but I pushed through. “I didn’t take anything seriously.”
He immediately dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “You excelled in your business classes. No matter how you viewed your work ethic or mindset, you did it.”
I shifted in my seat, finding no comfort in how his words echoed Liem’s.
“You know people,” Dad said confidently, plugging forward.
“I hate people,” I countered.
His smile was wry. “But you know them.”
I huffed and threw my hands up. “What are you getting at?”
Casting his gaze over the yard, he took a long swig of his water before answering, “I’m not sure yet, son. It might just be a dream. Or maybe just a notion. But either way, it’s nice to have one for a change.”
The way he said it, like it would be easily dismissed, caused a physical pain in my chest. He was obviously giving me an out to not continue the conversation, but I didn’t want to be a dick anymore. I didn’t want to blow it off.
“Don’t do that,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Tell me more.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise, but he did as I asked. “I just think I want a change.”
“Like what?” I’d never pictured my dad anywhere but here or at the casino.
“There’s a business suite for sale in Bay Springs,” he continued. “I’ve made some good investments over the years, and, well—” He stopped abruptly and frowned before he went on. “I’m not sure what, exactly, but the start of an idea is there and won’t leave me alone.”
“Which is?”
“Stepping away from it all,” he said as if it were a confession. “Doing something completely different.”
“Like what?”
“Like investing in small businesses, or even buying the entire building. Management. I’d even thought that maybe, uh”—cautious excitement lit his eyes— “we might do something together. Go into business.”
I sat straighter. “With me? Why?”
“Why not?” he countered.
I would fail.
I would disappoint you.
The thoughts came easily but weren’t quite as confident in themselves as I expected, and when I met my dad’s fierce, hopeful gaze, a new one tagged itself in.
But maybe I wouldn’t.
This was actionable. If I buckled down on my courses and actually invested in the coursework with a goal in mind.
This could be it. The direction I’d been hoping for.
I stood up abruptly, my now-bare feet carving indents in the grass as I paced the yard and thought it through.
Dad seemed happy to leave me to it, and once ideas started to take shape, we fell into a game of what about this and wouldn’t it be cool if .
It felt like a lifeline. Like relief.
By the time we’d started retreading the same idea circles, it was well past lunchtime, and Dad had to get to work at Fortuna. I had nowhere I had to be, but with a phone call with Liem to look forward to later and a gulf of ideas to research, that knowledge wasn’t so anxiety edged.
When I got back to the houseboat, I made myself a formidable sandwich and grabbed my laptop, taking both to the booth. By the time I’d finished the sandwich, I still hadn’t opened it. I stroked a finger over the cool, closed lid of the device, unsure what was stopping me from digging into the ideas.
A breeze drifted in from the open deck door, and I glanced at the empty space, bereft of furniture.
Shopping would be a good way to kill time until the evening.
My muscles were already feeling the workout with Dad, but I was thankful for them as they stretched and screamed as I stood up. Every pain-filled step around the boat to lock up was evidence that I’d done something with my day. Something to make myself stronger.
I called Bree on the way out of the small lot to see if she wanted to join me. She agreed, and when I pulled up to the cottage just a few minutes later, I jumped out of the truck with a grunt the moment she stepped through the front door.
“Show me your damn leg right this instant, Cher.”
She froze in front of the door, and I did the same on the walkway. The wind chime that hung on the porch tinkled merrily as we stared at each other.
“Nice hat,” she commented after a beat, smoothing over the moment.
I groaned dramatically and yanked the cap off my head as I muttered, “This is what I fucking get.”
Seeming amused, Bree ignored my outburst and turned around. “Go on,” she said over her shoulder. “Tell me how glorious it is.”
I closed the distance between us in a few strides, like a moth to the flame that was Liem’s art. I hadn’t allowed myself to snoop at Liem’s paintings, but I was being given permission to see this.
And it was….
I wasn’t even sure words existed to properly describe it. The intricate lines, shades, and colors shone clearly in the afternoon sun, and whatever cream or oil she’d lathered on top of it had the design gleaming.
“Bree,” I breathed. “This is incredible.”
The falling magnolia leaves danced around Bree’s burn scars as if they were part of them. A couple of the leaves nearer the soft pink scars were singed at the edges, with wisps of black smoke crawling off them. Dark greens were shaded outside the lines of the leaves, and the faintest of golds and pinks, too, but the tattoo was mostly done in shades of black and gray.
Though calling it a tattoo was wrong. It was a masterpiece.
A single magnolia blossom bloomed from the middle of the design, with jagged, broken leaves falling from it, all the way to the crease of the back of her knee.
There was a sudden tightness in my throat and a buzzing in my nose that I tried to wipe away with the back of my hand. Bree, sensing my distress as always, turned and met my gaze with her storm-gray eyes, and I reached out and yanked her to me in a fierce hug.
“Don’t ever run toward a burning building again,” I begged into her ear. “Or just don’t do it without me, if you do.”
She squeezed me tightly in return for a long moment, then pulled back and locked eyes with me before she replied, “I won’t. If you promise never to be in one.”
“I promise,” I vowed, a shadow of guilt shading my conscience.
I didn’t think she’d count buildings that had already burned.
“Okay, enough of that.” She grabbed the hat and plopped it back on my head, then looped her arm through mine. “What are we shopping for?”
I escorted her to my truck like the princess Liem said she was and opened the door for her. “Boat deck furniture to start with.”
She got into the truck, and I closed her in before quickly rounding the front end to the other side and gracelessly heaving myself in.
“Why do you sound like that?” Bree asked, her eyes wide at the dying animal sound I’d just made.
I cranked the truck and backed out of the short driveway. “Ask me if I even lift.”
“Do you even lift?” she asked, without missing a beat, her lips pressed together in amusement as she waited for my answer.
“I do now. I squat and lunge too.”
Bree hummed. “For the buns.”
I nodded solemnly. “For the buns.”
We passed through downtown Bay Springs, and I let myself peek wistfully at the gazebo as we went past it, wondering what Liem was up to. Instead of asking if Bree knew, I went with: “How was Miss Barb this morning?”
Bree looked up from where she’d been messing with her phone and sighed. “About the same, I guess. They used the word ‘hospice’ for the first time today. None of it is as clear-cut as I imagined.” She glanced at me with a grim frown. “Not that I ever imagined I’d have to care for her in this way—or this soon.”
My heart hurt at the tiredness I recognized in her. The kind that wasn’t just physical but emotional. Spiritual.
“That sucks, Cher.”
“Thank you,” she said simply. “It does.”
The rest of the afternoon passed by easily, both of us enjoying a couple of hours skirting around any and all heavy subjects as we shopped. We loaded my new outdoor furniture onto my truck like a pair of badass bitches and then unloaded it just as smoothly when we got back to the boat.
When I dropped into my new lounge chair on the boat’s deck, Bree followed suit in the one beside me, her gaze wistful as she inspected the boat.
“Please,” I said around a groan. “Please tell me you didn’t fornicate on this deck.”
The witch just cut me a quick glance before pulling out her phone and ignoring me.
“The hell are you doing?” I asked with a glare.
“Googling ‘fornicate,’” she answered without looking up. “Wouldn’t wanna lie to you on accident.”
“Oh God, I take it back,” I groaned. “Please do not tell me either way.”
She hummed and shimmied her shoulders as she settled back into the chair and put her phone down. “Vinh and I aren’t married, so….”
“Ugh, Cher.”
She totally had. I needed to move.
She sighed dramatically. “Cody, I may not be Lady Luck anymore, but I am still a lady, and I won’t be entertaining the subject any further.”
I sat forward in my chair as an exasperated noise left my throat. “I told you to not tell me, so don’t be Mrs. Prim and Proper all of the sudden.”
Cackling like the witch she was, she picked up her phone again as it buzzed with a new message. “Vinh’s picking me up for dinner at his parents’. Do you want to come?”
I considered it for exactly two seconds before declining. “No, thanks. I have some stuff to do, and I’m pretty wiped.”
“Suit yourself, but please make sure you eat something,” she instructed as she leaned over and gave me a hug before adding in a teasing tone, “Especially now that you lift.”
Vinh picked up Bree shortly after, and once the fornicators were gone, I went to my bedroom to deal with my other new purchase.
The black fireproof chest that was about the size of my pillow and was a touch ominous sitting there in the middle of my bed.
I scratched my nails lightly across its hard shell and reached under my bed for a much humbler box, set it beside the larger one, and stared at them side by side for a moment. Determining that I wasn’t quite up to transferring the contents from one to the other, I grabbed my notebook instead and, leaving the rest to deal with later, went back out to the deck.
But seeing as I was the same person I’d always been at my core, I had to double back to the cabin in search of a pencil. Once it was found, I was back in the slowly dying light of the day and jotting down the things I needed to research inside the notebook, as well as some answers I’d recently discovered to a few of the questions already written inside.
Eventually, the notes turned to doodles, and the light dimmed enough that when I started squinting, I went back inside to the comfort of my bed. I shuttled both boxes underneath it before collapsing onto my back and typing out a text.
Me
You free for that call, LL?
Three dots appeared on my screen, and the sudden buzz in my body had me sitting up and scooching back against the wall—there was no headboard.
LL
Almost, Dezi.
My heart thumped wildly in my chest but then settled, soothed by the photo that followed the text.
Liem’s sandy bare feet were just visible in the bottom of the frame, the lapping tide of the Gulf just beyond them.
I typed back the unfiltered question at the forefront of my mind.
Me
Can I see you too?
My grip on the phone tightened as I brought it closer to my face, but I didn’t have to wait long. A photo of a serene Liem filled my screen, his hair blowing in the breeze with a single strand across his face. A sand dune stood tall behind him like a white wall, and the entire picture had a hazy quality from the dusky light.
I saved and set it as his contact photo immediately, but something was bothering me enough that it kept me from total satisfaction. A video call came through in the next moment, so I rolled onto my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows as I accepted it.
Whipping wind clipped my speakers before the video loaded, and I scanned the screen greedily as the problem clicked.
“LL. Tell me you’re not at the beach after dark by yourself.” I couldn’t even let myself enjoy him in his windswept glory until I had an answer.
He tucked his hair behind his ear and shrugged. “I’m with you now, am I not?”
Fuck.
“And good evening, Dezi,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad to see your face.”
Double fuck.
I bit my lip and groaned deep in my throat as my hips unsubtly pressed into the mattress beneath me.
He had no idea of the power of his words.
“All right, there, Dezi?” Liem asked with a wicked smirk, pulling another deep sound from the depths of my being.
Okay, maybe he did , the devilish angel.
“LL,” I said huskily, a warning in my voice. “I’m not fucking okay.” I pushed into the mattress again, the borderline pain of it clearing the fog enough for me to grit out, “Now tell me about your day.”