20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Cody
Cody felt unsure about leaving two strangers in his cottage, but he didn’t really have a choice.
He was beginning to feel desperate about getting to Morgan, making sure she was okay, and explaining his new less-than-ideal situation.
He brought up his Map and saw that she was down the road at the Callahan cottage, along with Gracie, and Doug was definitely at work.
The Callahan family cottage wasn’t far from his, and Cody set off at a brisk walk.
Less than ten minutes later he was rounding a group of densely packed fir trees and laid his eyes on the yellow-paneled cottage.
He was instantly hit with a wave of nostalgia.
He had spent so much time at this cottage during his teen years with Morgan.
This was the cottage he had lost his virginity in.
The cottage where he fell in love. The cottage where he told Morgan that maybe they shouldn’t be seeing each other after the summer ended, because they were both going their own separate ways and he was too young to get married.
Stupid, stupid Teenage Cody. God, if he could punch that kid in the face…
He heard laughter, drifting from the beach behind the cottage.
He headed in that direction and found Morgan and Gracie playing in the sand.
They were both wearing one-piece swimsuits.
Gracie had a little skirt attached to hers, and Morgan was wearing some denim cutoffs.
They were making an elaborate sandcastle using various plastic pails.
“Hey,” Cody said, announcing his presence.
Gracie looked up at him and smiled. “Hey Mr. Pinecone Man!”
“Mr. Pinecone Man?” Morgan asked.
“I needed Little Itty Bitty Pinecones and he had a bunch in his pocket,” Gracie explained as she returned her focus to her sandcastle structure.
“Are you sure it was this guy?” Morgan asked.
“It was definitely me, yeah,” Cody said. “She’s not making it up. But you can call me Cody, okay kid?”
Gracie nodded and started filling a little pink pail with sand. Cody had mentioned to Morgan that he’d bumped into Gracie that day, but he never explained the whole thing with the pinecones. Or the part where he offered her candy from a stranger…
“Why did you have pinecones in your pocket?” Morgan asked.
“Not important,” Cody said dismissively. “But I need to talk to you. In private?”
“Um…Okay.” Morgan seemed to pick up on his urgent tone, her expression turning serious.
She got to her feet, brushing sand off her bare legs.
With a wave of her hand, she motioned for Cody to follow her to some pine trees.
They could still see Gracie, but there was slightly more privacy to talk.
“Why are you here, Cody? You should not be at Doug’s cottage. ”
“I was worried,” Cody said. “You're not answering my texts. Besides, Doug isn’t even here.”
Morgan gave him a questioning look. “How do you even know that?”
Fuck. He really needed to stop making stupid mistakes. “I figured he was working?”
“He is. But it’s still risky to come and visit me here. Why did you need to see me?”
“I was worried.”
“It’s been less than twenty-four hours since we last spoke, and I already told you I was going to be here with Gracie. I don’t remember you being this clingy before. I thought that was me.” She said it in a teasing way, but Cody was still annoyed by it.
“Wanting to know you are safe is not ‘being clingy’. And it’s kind of rude to ignore me. It takes two seconds to send me a thumbs up emoji so I know you’re alive.”
“Of course I’m alive!” She glanced at Gracie after her outburst. Luckily, the little girl was still immersed in her sandcastle building.
“Cody, is everything okay? I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t text back.
My phone died and it’s charging in the cottage.
I didn’t want to ask Doug to use his because he doesn’t, you know, know about us yet.
Plus, Doug has his ‘no phones around Gracie’ rule. ”
“Okay. So…you’re alive. But I do need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“I have some unexpected houseguests,” he said, keeping his voice low.
He’d gone over what he was going to say on the walk over, but now that he was here, facing Morgan, he forgot all the brilliant sentences he had come up with.
“And um…they’re girls?” he continued. “Well, I mean, they’re adult women.
Women who I have met before. Not that I’ve ever been involved with either of them or anything like that, they're just casual acquaintances. And they needed a place to stay. Look, I didn’t want you to see a random girl at my place and jump to the incorrect conclusion, get all huffy and never talk to me again, even though everything could be sorted out with one simple adult conversation, okay? ”
There. He did it. He was pretty sure that covered everything.
“Oh, so you’re like, avoiding a third act breakup?” Morgan asked thoughtfully.
“A say what now?”
“You know, in a romance book where everything is going great for the new couple, but one day you see me walking down the street with Doug, laughing and eating ice cream, and for some ridiculous reason I never told you I had a brother, so you instantly think I’m cheating on you and instead of asking me about it you ghost me.
And then we bump into each other months later and make amends, or you realize your mistake and make some grand romantic gesture or perform an epic self-deprecating grovel and then we get married and uh… cue the babylogue!”
“Um…” Cody felt…puzzled. Some of those expressions were new to him.
He’d been reading a lot of his grandfather’s novels lately, and they were definitely more than raunchy smut romps, they actually had really nice romance stories in them.
Sometimes the guy even ended up with an entire harem of loving, beautiful women.
And Cody supposed some of them had epilogues where they wrapped up the story and everyone had babies, so ‘babylogue’ certainly made sense.
But Cody had never come across this insane third act break up scenario that Morgan had explained.
It wasn’t in that other romance book he had read, Wonderfully Mr. Wrong.
But at the same time…it sounded eerily familiar to what was going on with him and Knife.
They had some bullshit argument and now Knife wasn’t talking to him.
Was he supposed to apologize and make a grand gesture for Knife?
Or grovel? Yeah, that was not happening.
Morgan shook her head and laughed. “Never mind, you clearly don’t know what I’m talking about. So, you came here to tell me you have two friends staying at your cottage and they happen to be female? I can trust you, right?”
“Of course you can trust me.”
Cody couldn’t resist reaching out and taking her hand in his. Morgan glanced over at Gracie, as if she was unsure about the PDA this close to her niece, so Cody didn’t push it any further.
“Because if anything happens, if either of those ladies try to even touch my man, I will…” Morgan lowered her voice to a whisper: “I will fuck their shit up. You are mine. Do you understand?”
“Um…yeah. I understand.”
Morgan was being kind of extra possessive and extra creepy, but it was also…kind of extra hot? It was nice to know she was this fiercely into him.
“And how long are these unexpected lady houseguest friends going to be staying at your place?” Morgan asked, turning back into her sweet, calm self. Cody nearly had personality whiplash watching her switch between the two.
“I’m not sure. Sorry. It was very unexpected, but they’re kind of in a bind with this other um…
mutual acquaintance that we have and…” He paused, feeling like there was way too much secret shit in his brain that he would love to unload on Morgan, but he knew that he couldn’t. “It’s very complicated. I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Morgan asked, and looked over at Gracie again. The little girl was still fully immersed in her sandcastle world.
Fuck yes, he wanted to talk about it. He had the sudden urge to tell her everything.
About Velasarin, about not just being away from her for ten years, but actually twenty years in his time.
About who his houseguests really were, and about Temica and the stupid Cottage Country game he was trapped in.
But he knew telling her everything would be a horrible idea.
He knew she would think he was going insane.
“No, I um…I don’t want to talk about it right now. But thanks.”
“Okay.” Morgan smiled warmly and gave his hand a squeeze.
“Aunty Morgan, can we go swimming now?” Gracie called, breaking up their little moment and Morgan let go of his hand.
“One minute!” Morgan called back.
“I think that’s my cue to leave.”
“I wish you could stay for a swim, but I don’t think it’s a good idea you hang out with me and Gracie until we talk stuff over with Doug, okay?”
“Agreed.”
They parted ways, with Cody turning to leave, but Gracie called out to him: “Hey! Mr. Pinecone Man! Do you got any Red Twirlies?”
Cody turned back to face the little girl. “Uh…maybe? What do they look like?”
“They’re red and they’re twirlie.”
Morgan silently watched the exchange.
Cody didn’t want to waste this mini fetch quest opportunity and a chance to level up Gracie, so he opened his Inventory and started scanning through it. And there they were: Red Twirlies. They were those little cog things he kept finding around his property. He had fifty of them.
“How many do you need?” Cody asked.
“Ten!” Gracie grinned. “You have them, don’t you?”
Cody reached into his pocket and pulled ten Red Twirlies from his Inventory and walked over to Gracie and handed them to her.
“Thank you, Mr. Pinecone Man!”
“What…?” Morgan looked at Cody, thoroughly confused. “What even are those? And why did you have them in your pocket?” She turned to Gracie: “Why do you need these things?”
“For my blueprint from Grandpa Sam,” Gracie said.
“Blueprint…” Morgan repeated. “Okay. Sure.”
Cody shrugged. “Kid stuff,” he suggested, even though having a blueprint with a list of required items sounded very game-ish. Or it really was just weird kid stuff. He knew nothing about eight-year-old girls and the things they were into.
“Can we go swimming now?” Gracie asked.
“Yeah, we can go swimming now,” Morgan said, but she was still giving Cody a weird look. Cody turned to leave, just as his new notification popped up:
[Congratulations! You have completed your second Friendship Level with Resident Gracie Callahan! Only three more to go until Full Friendship Achieved!]
Cody Hampshire Player Stats
Residents Met: 10/10
Friendship Moments: William: 4/5, Gracie: 2/5
Full Friendship: Doris
Romance Moments: Morgan: 3/10
Relationship Status: Romantic Misunderstanding Successfully Avoided