Chapter 1Cody
1
Cody
“Cher, I don’t want to talk about it.”
I rolled down the window and stuck my arm out, hoping to never step foot on a boat again as we prepared to leave Mobile, Alabama, behind.
Along with my ex-boyfriend.
With one last look at the port and its lone, giant, godforsaken cruise ship, I nodded to Bree that I was ready for the drive back to Bay Springs, Mississippi.
“Well, that’s fine. You know we don’t have to,” she halfway yelled as she merged onto the highway, speaking over the noise I’d just let in from the open window. “No matter how we got here or what happened, I’m just happy to have you back.” She took her hand off the wheel briefly to push her red hair behind her ear, the lightness in her eye at odds with the downturned shape of her mouth. She had been through even more shit than I had over the past year, but a lot of good too. And it looked like the good was winning.
“I was surprised when I saw you were alone,” I fully yelled. “Vinh busy at Ari’s?”
I watched in fascination as the mere mention of her boyfriend brought a smile brighter than the summer sun over her face.
“Want the full truth or the vague truth?”
I glared in her direction. “I am not so fragile that you suddenly have to ask me something like that.” As long as she didn’t ask me to give her the truth right now. Scheduling our fights instead of ever trading words in the heat of the moment was a form of care for our friendship and something of a ritual now. We’d resolved our big issues from the last year by agreeing to meet up for the sole purpose of fighting a few months ago when I had some time off from the ship.
She kept her eyes on the road, rolling her lips together before she blurted, “You smell like a decades-old bus cushion, and your hair is outrageous. In a bad way.”
Ah, the reverse buttering of buns. There must be something vulnerable coming my way.
“Vinh thought you’d prefer it if it were just me,” she hedged. “Honestly, we all kind of thought you’d done a runner on your contract and were hiding out somewhere. There was communal surprise when you went back to the ship after Thanksgiving.”
I grunted. “It crossed my mind, but I was reminded of the consequences of breaking contract with the agency, so I had no choice but to fall on the sword of my own making.”
And it would have reflected poorly on Austin, who had vouched for me to get the job. No matter how badly we’d fallen apart, I wouldn’t do that to him.
We shared a brief, knowing look before she murmured, “We really do somehow end up in the same shit storms, don’t we?”
I extracted my limb from the humid air currents of the Gulf and cranked the window back up, the quiet of the old RAV4’s cab—Vinh’s car—a prelude to the seriousness of the moment.
“You could say that, Cher, maybe, if you’d like….” I grappled for a comparison and went with my first thought. “I dunno, followed AJ to his new job at Titan Casino and immediately signed a mortgage with him or something.”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust, and rightfully so.
During the fight, Bree confirmed some things that I’d suspected as well as other things I already knew about what happened between her and AJ. He was no longer my friend or Bree’s anything, and there wasn’t any reason to say more about that situation right now, so I swerved us elsewhere.
“Didn’t wanna bring my truck?”
The corner of Bree’s mouth lifted in a small smile. “Vinh was giving it an oil change and replacing two of its tires when I left.”
I threw my head back and groaned. “God, I leave for a few months and come back to a kept woman. Why are you living my dreams?”
She tossed her head back and laughed, not a great choice for someone operating a vehicle, but perfection for my spirit. “You’re so full of shit.”
I really was. A graceful receiver of gifts, help, or affection I was not. I would’ve made a terrible trophy wife, thanks to those hang-ups.
And my bad table manners.
And my dick.
My eyes traveled down Bree’s outfit, surprised she wasn’t wearing her emotional-support cardigan. “New shirt?”
She glanced down fondly at her sleeveless black tank top. If I weren’t used to her showing such affection for inanimate objects, clothes specifically, I’d probably be worried about that look. “Liem made me one of his modified Ari’s shirts. I bet he’d make one for you, too, if you’re that jealous.”
The front of the tank had the bubblegum-pink-and-teal Dawn’s Diner logo splashed across the chest but with a hand-drawn logo for the Lott family restaurant—Ari’s, which had no affiliation with Dawn’s—superimposed on it. Even if Bree hadn’t told me that it was his design, I’d have known LL’s signature art style anywhere.
Decisive. Layered. Unapologetic.
Cute.
“It is cute,” I admitted, going with the simplest of those descriptors.
She nodded. “It is.”
“Too bad about your face, though.”
“Too bad about your personality.”
I cocked a brow. “Which one?”
We shared a smile.
“Okay, Cher, you win this one. Wanna make a date to go to Willows and hash it all out this weekend?”
The arena for that fight several months back had been Fortuna’s arcade, which was a nostalgic location for us but was now firmly blacklisted ever since Bree epically quit her job at Fortuna. But Willows hadn’t wronged us, and its arcade was better, anyway, even if that casino happened to have the worst buffet on the Coast. Like, god-awful. But that just meant we’d have to make plans to eat somewhere else beforehand.
“Or we could be spontaneous and hash this out now. We still have about thirty minutes left until we make it back to Bay Springs. Which reminds me.” Her gray eyes flicked to me. “Where am I taking you? Last we spoke, you hadn’t decided if you were going to stay with your dad or not. You know our couch is available to you. I’ll even let you borrow a blankie.”
I was eleven and still lived with my mom in Louisiana when I first met Bree. Mom was a surgeon and had been called in for an emergency surgery and didn’t have anywhere to send me. It was a holiday week, and I guess she felt bad enough to call my dad instead of leaving me at home. Which was how I’d ended up carted across the state line to stay with him.
Dad also had nowhere to send me.
I was too old for the casino’s daycare, and of course, he didn’t think to take any days off for my visit. Even though it was last minute, considering I hadn’t seen him in months, I thought he might’ve at least taken one sick day.
Instead, he set me up for a play date with the granddaughter of one of Fortuna’s most prolific gamblers, Miss Barb.
Young Bree had taken one look at me with my forlorn attitude, puka shell necklace, and flippy hair, and had decided to keep me. Even at such a young age, she’d been more nurturing than either of my parents had ever been. And still was, which was why she was offering me the couch of the cottage she rented with both Lott brothers, both of whom had become close with Bree during my absence.
In Vinh’s case, very close. Grossly close.
“I don’t wanna crowd y’all.”
Bree took the next exit and pulled into a fast-food drive-thru. “You’re getting hangry. Do you want Coke or sweet tea?”
My stomach growled at the mention of sustenance. “Sweet tea, please.”
It took years of painful conditioning for me to accept things from my best friend without making a fuss, and she was smug as shit about it.
She ordered—and paid for— a snack and drink for us both, and we were back on the road within minutes, the small space smelling strongly of French fries.
“So…,” she prompted, flashing me a coaxing look.
I sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
Her brow furrowed as she drove with her knee and drew a line of mustard along a cluster of fries, then shoved them into her mouth. “ Never tell Vinh I did that. And if you want to put off seeing your dad, I can drop you at the cottage for a shower and a nap. How does that sound?”
“Better than anything I’ve heard in a long time. Thanks, Mom.”
She gave me a motherly smile again—something neither of us knew much about, but she still pulled it off—pleased to have me fed and with a plan in place for rest.
“Hey, if I do stay with y’all, do you think I can start calling Vinh ‘Daddy’?”
I grabbed the handle above the door as the car briefly left the roadway, but she corrected it quickly before glaring at me. “Redo the last ten seconds. Take two.”
“I got you presents.”
She nodded. “Approved. Use take two.”
I reached into the backseat and pulled a box out of my second duffel.
“Cody… is this going to make me cry?”
I shrugged even though she wasn’t looking. “Maybe. Want me to leave it on your bed at the cottage so you can weep in private, like a lady?”
She sniffed. “You know me so well.”
I sat the box at my feet, which was full of small treasures from all the ports I’d visited over the past six months. “What’ll you be doing during my nap?”
She took a big sip of her sweet tea and grimaced. “That’s too fucking sweet, even for me. Anyway, Ari’s is closed today, so Vinh and I won’t go in to do prep until the morning. I’ll probably see if I can catch Liem at the gazebo. It has become a sort of Monday ritual. Vinh will probably meet us there if he doesn’t get caught up with work. He texted while we were in the drive-thru and said he was almost done with truck maintenance.”
Liem.
I’d barely gotten more than glimpses of him on those rare occasions I’d been able to get off the boat, though on one occasion he did pick me up from Mobile, just as Bree had done today. But that had been a particularly bad day, and I had not been in the space to really comprehend the way I responded to him as a whole-ass person. I cleared my throat and stayed on subject, despite the adrenaline of realizing I was about to be back in Liem’s orbit for good. “Tell Vinh to send me the bill, please.”
She snorted. “Tell him yourself.”
We fell into comfortable silence for the rest of the drive, and before I knew it, we were pulling into the cottage. I tucked the box under my arm before hopping out to get my luggage. Bree had already opened the trunk door and slung a bag over her shoulder before I got there, rolling her eyes at me when I mumbled something at her about it. I grabbed my other duffel, then followed her to the front door, my eyes automatically falling on the new scars on the back of her thigh.
As anxious as I’d been to get off that ship and away from the personal disaster I’d created there, I’d been even more on edge to get back here. If it hadn’t been for the entire Lott family looking after Bree so well, I’d have broken my work contract, consequences and bad blood be damned, and come back immediately after hearing about the fire at her grandmother’s house.
She let us into the house, and I slipped off my flip-flops as I glanced around for other occupants even though I knew they weren’t here.
Bree pulled a key off a row of hooks and held it out to me. “You’re always welcome here. But if you want a third option for a place to stay, you should talk to Vinh. He might have something else for you to consider in the works. Either way, this is yours to keep.”
I put the key in my pocket and then took the duffel from her shoulder before pulling her in for a hug. Her familiar citrus-vanilla scent hit me, and a tidal wave of emotions threatened to flood every corner of my existence.
She let me hug her for a long time before she pulled back, keeping her hands on my upper arms as she studied my face. “It’s going to be okay. And why is that?”
I forced a smile and parroted the next part of our well-used mantra. “Because it has to.”
She drew her brows together in concern, recognizing how much I was phoning it in. But even so, she affirmed, “Because it has to.”