Chapter 8Liem
8
Liem
I woke before the church bells.
Parking close to the church with the most pleasant hourly chimes seemed a good precaution to oversleeping, but apparently, I hadn’t needed it today.
With my eyes still closed, I scrunched my eyebrows to feel out the unexpected warmth underneath them.
Soft, thin fabric and a warm body.
I inhaled.
Coconut sunscreen. Unmistakable when you lived on the Coast.
That was all the evidence I needed to conclude that I’d found a comfortable perch against Cody’s back in my sleep.
Unfolding myself from the cart as quietly as possible, I rubbed the warmth from my forehead and took stock of our surroundings. Not much time had passed, but enough that sunlight was now speared directly across Cody’s face, making his tan skin practically glow.
I wasn’t sure how long ago he’d applied the sunscreen, so I rounded the cart and eased my body in front of the stream of sunlight. I glanced over my shoulder at him long enough to confirm that he was fully cast in shadow before turning back and giving him privacy in his sleep.
Meditation and mindful breathing had done me a huge favor in dealing with the physical reality of Cody Desmond.
I didn’t think he had a clue that his mere existence made my heart race.
That I had to deploy techniques to not freeze around him anymore.
The first time I’d encountered all that he was in person, I’d found myself at the intersection of dismay and misfortune.
I’d expected a lot just from knowing him online, and he exceeded… everything. All of it. It wasn’t that I ever thought that Cody wouldn’t be as spectacular as my online friend Dezi was. It was that I’d found out that someone else had thought he was too.
Spectacular, that is.
An intense guy a few years older than us with curly hair and a broody demeanor. A guy who pulled Cody away before we’d exchanged more than brief hellos, our first mutual glimpses in the flesh happening in a dimly lit casino bar I was too young to legally patronize.
Then came Dad’s sudden collision of unexpected health problems, which had forced me into a decision to let any wild notions I had go.
And I had let it go. At that point. For reasons that were still valid.
Friendship with both Bree and Cody was a precious thing not meant to be treated with anything but the highest regard.
And based on him seeking my help to relax, that protocol was working. He was allowing himself to trust me, and that was such an honor.
And I was so, so glad I’d found time to talk to Bree about what’d happened with the EMT. I wasn’t sure I actually would have suggested therapy to Cody, but if she hadn’t helped me realize the error in that, I might have. I now understood that people didn’t take kindly to such. She’d also poked me in the arm as she explained—with a good amount of mirth—that the EMT likely had a crush on me.
“Liem… imagine that you finally work up the courage to talk to the guy you like, and he responds by suggesting you seek therapy.”
Heavens. I couldn’t see how Jeremiah could associate me with anything but stress, and the idea that he harbored some sort of crush had never crossed my mind.
I checked on Cody again and smiled at his sleeping form. I learned from my mistakes, and sharing what helped me with him seemed to have helped.
Life was good.
My phone buzzed against my thigh, and I snaked my hand down the seemingly mile-long pocket of these sweats to extricate it. My lips twitched upward at the background—a selfie of me in the Ari’s kitchen with Dad and Bree in the background, working some biscuit dough.
It was a photo I would’ve never had on easy display just a few months ago, when a glimpse of it might have sent my brother into a panic attack. Unfortunately, Dad’s amputation last year wasn’t our first large-scale family emergency. When I was ten, Vinh—who was nearly ten years older than me—had been involved in a terrible kitchen fire in culinary school. And once he was out of the hospital, he didn’t go back, but he did move away from us. Besides the burn scars along his arm, it had left him with intense triggers, too, especially regarding his loved ones working in kitchens. So when Bree accepted my parents’ offer to start working at Ari’s full time, my brother took it upon himself to embark on more intensive trauma therapy to deal with it.
He was my hero and always had been. And… he was probably why I felt such confidence in speaking about therapy to anyone. That, paired with Dad’s history of alcohol abuse and years spent talking openly about AA.
I smiled big at my phone, the unpleasant memories not coming even close to overshadowing the good ones. It unlocked, uncovering a string of missed texts from a few different parties.
Aunt Ari
Call me before or after the sunrise tomorrow? I have a proposition *sunrise emoji* Love ya bunches
Vinh
Where are you?
Princess Bree
Text us when you’re free! We got back to The Cottage?? and couldn’t find you!
I caught a snort before it sounded at Bree’s trademark symbol, then glanced over my shoulder to make sure Cody was still asleep and blanketed in shadow before replying to Bree.
Me
Moi? You were looking for me? This brings me joy. Please let my brother know that I am safe and sufficiently clothed for a good many things. But perhaps not for others.
I knew the first was his biggest concern for me, but I couldn’t help but stir the ever-present overprotective pot on occasion.
She responded within moments, and I imagined them standing side by side, Vinh looking over Bree’s shoulder and smiling. Or grimacing.
Princess Bree
He says that was almost worse than not replying, but I don’t agree. Anyway... See you tonight? Vinh’s cookinggggg
Me
Sounds good, Princess?
The church bells punched through town, and Cody bolted upright in his seat, adding his dissonant harmony. “Mother fuck! ” His wide-eyed gaze found mine, and it seemed to take several blinks before he was able to make sense of reality.
I smiled and pocketed my phone as I waited for the chimes to end. “Good afternoon, Dezi.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face and gave me a rueful smile. “Sorry about the hollerin’. I don’t usually sleep that deeply. What time is it?”
“Those were the five o’clock chimes.”
He squinted across the green space, and I followed his line of sight as he asked, “Is five still considered afternoon?”
“It is,” I answered as I swept my gaze over him. “Technically, ‘good afternoon’ lasts until sunset.” I clasped my hands behind my back, the feeling of my forearms grazing my bare sides reminding me that I should probably go back to the cottage for a shirt before scandalizing the al fresco dinner crowd.
“How’d I know you’d know that?” he groaned. “You’re so fucking smart.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t finish last year’s spring semester with a 4.0. Even with those higher-level business classes. Because I know you did.”
His skin brushed mine as he exited the cart and stood beside me, several inches taller than my not quite five-foot-ten, and stretched his arms above his head. “It’s not the same,” he said slowly through a yawn. “That was a struggle from start to finish.”
So eager to bury his own accomplishments, this one. But so quick to lift up those he cared for.
I considered volleying a response about the merits of his work ethic, but with how expertly he maintained his signature flat, uninviting expression when I glanced at him, I packed it away for later.
Bree once offhandedly described Cody as a stray cat who secretly lived for pets but bolted if approached head-on. And I was nothing if not a believer in everything Princess had to say, so I swerved.
“I have the cart for a few more hours. Would you like to cruise?” I rounded the vehicle and sat in the driver’s seat, giving him space to answer.
“Bad word choice, LL,” he said tonelessly. “And I dunno.” He scrubbed his hand over his head again but contradicted his words by sitting back in the cart and quite pointedly looking at his feet instead of me. “I think I’m mad.”
“Oh.” I leaned forward and turned the golf cart back on. “That’s not a nap side effect I’m familiar with.”
His gaze moved to the town square again, and he pressed his lips together, making his already slightly fuller bottom lip appear even more so.
“I’d wager those feelings are related to why you’re glaring at Bay Hall?”
If he didn’t break that intensity soon, I was going to have to burn some sage around the gazebo in the morning. Between the force of his stare and the demons I’d been purging there, the energy of my little haven was quite volatile.
“Yes.”
“Would you like to tell me what happened?”
His leg bounced, and his gaze flicked to me before returning to its angry post. “I tried to order a frappe.”
I kept my gaze on the steering wheel, rubbing my thumbs along the clip that was meant to hold the score-keeping card. “And… it didn’t go as expected?”
He fussed with the myriad of bracelets on his wrist, rotating them as he thought and eventually responded, “No.”
More twists of his bracelet, faster leg bouncing.
“Would you like to drive?”
The cart stilled as his leg stopped, and there was a beat before he nodded. Then he tapped my bare hip. “Switch.”
Following his lead and gentle direction, I lifted my hips before he slid into the space I vacated as I maneuvered into his. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I acknowledged, then politely dismissed, the way my breath hitched when our bodies briefly fitted together and the severe swoop of my stomach at his body heat.
He rested his arm across the back of the seat and checked both ways for traffic even though it was a one-way street—a true hallmark of a pessimist if I ever knew one—before backing up and making his way to the golf cart path.
We both sighed at the new breeze as we picked up speed on the empty path to nowhere in particular.
Silence stretched, and that urge to stir the pot visited me again.
“Wanna go over to Bay Hall and get empanadas?”
He white-knuckled the steering wheel. “ Fuck no. I’m not returning to the scene of the crime.”
Well, that kind of statement needed to breathe, so I swallowed my lingering curiosity and just let Cody drive.
We made—in silence—several circuits around the square, drove through a golf cart path around a public park, and then looped back to the path that led to my parents’ house, though I didn’t think he knew that.
He abruptly pulled onto the grassy shoulder beside a field of bright yellow daffodils, engaged the parking brake, and collapsed onto the steering wheel, resting his forehead on his hands.
It started small with a few choked hiccupping sounds. Then his shoulder blades jerked with the movement as he gripped the wheel so tightly that the plastic steering wheel groaned.
And then there was a pause, an intake of breath, and the shape of it changed.
Cody threw back his head, making me jump, then covered his face with his hands and descended into full belly laughter.
All I could do was watch in wonder.
Finally, he pulled himself together and massaged his eyes as he spoke.
“There was an incident after I ordered the frappe.”
“A… criminal one? Are we on the run?”
He dropped his hands, glanced around before releasing the foot brake, and then made a U-turn. “Socially criminal. I’m not sure about legally.”
“Hmm. Tell me more. I can usually spot the line between illegal and frowned upon.”
“And then what?”
“Flirt with disrespecting it.”
He lifted a cheeky eyebrow at me in question.
I straightened in my seat. “I have a record, Dezi.”
He glanced at me as we breezed back into town. “Ah yes, your ban from the docks. I’ve been told there was a bad boy in you. One that matched the outside.”
My heart skipped, and then it skipped again as I grabbed the handle beside the seat when he made a sharp turn into the tiny alley that ran behind Bay Hall. We cruised by the shops and businesses for a half-mile stretch in silence, which was good, since I’d found myself at a loss.
A social situation I didn’t normally tango with.
Cody suddenly pressed the pedal all the way down, and the golf cart picked up speed. “Illegal or frowned upon?”
I reached out to assess how much clearance we had between us and the brick columns covered in honeysuckle vines that ran beside us, but before I could get too far, I was yanked back into the cart. Cody’s hand remained on my bicep as he scowled at me.
“Hands and feet inside the cart at all times, Ti Bet .”
His grip was tight, and the warmth of it caressed my bare skin. Then, with a quick squeeze, he released me and took the next turn to the main street.
I hadn’t a clue what “Ti Bet” meant, but the way he’d said it and that Cajun accent thickened, like it did when he called Bree “Cher,” made it almost sound like an endearment.
I studied the tattooed fingers of my right hand and stretched my fingers into scale patterns—something I’d observed Vinh doing so many times that I adopted it into my own habit. As had Bree.
Cohabitation had led to a lot meshing and mingling of habits.
My mentor at the tattoo shop in Eufaula thought I was crazy to not only do my first real tattoo on myself, but also on my fingers, which was a notoriously painful spot. But they were all the simplest of line work, and the pain had been the perfect outlet for my feelings at the time, all those years ago.
Vinh had just announced that he’d bought a condo in Gulf Shores and was moving there to work. Four-and-a-half hours away from our home in Eufaula, without traffic.
Warmth engulfed my hand as I tucked my thumb under my middle finger for the imagined “G” in a D Major scale, and my itching thoughts paused.
It was distracting enough that I remembered the air around me and breathed it in until my heart rate slowed. I took in more and more until clarity reigned.
Cody glanced between the road ahead and his hand on mine several times before sighing as he said, “I’m terrible at recognizing plants or remembering their names.” He ran his thumb lightly over the flowers on my fingers. “It never ceases to horrify Jeanne. You’ve met Jeanne, right?”
“I have.” Jeanne rivaled my own mother in fierceness and worked as the head gardener at Fortuna, though she was still on maternity leave right now. I quite liked her the few times our paths crossed.
“Ahh. So this will make sense to you, then. I went to see her and her new baby a couple of days ago, and I speculated out loud that her fiddly snake looked thirsty and needed more water.”
I gasped. “And you lived to tell the tale?”
He smiled at me wryly and returned his errant, beautiful hand to the wheel. “She was probably too tired to muster up her usual wrath, but she did let me hold little Maggie.”
“Hmm. Maggie is a cute name.” I made a mental note to drop her some biscuits from Ari’s tomorrow as I clasped my hands together. “Do you like kids?”
His nose scrunched. “I liked her. She held onto my finger so tight and made these adorable little sounds.”
I needed to ask Bree if she’d gotten a picture.
Cody chuckled as we rounded the swampy-looking pond. “I wonder how old she’ll be when she finds out she was named after a tree.”
“What do you mean?”
He flashed a small smile at me before returning his attention to the path, some of his natural sparkle returning to him. “Jeanne named that sweet little baby after one of the magnolia trees inside Fortuna. All the bigger trees in the lobby have names, but Margaret is the biggest of them.”
A natural lull in conversation arose, broken a few minutes later when Cody asked, “You like plants?” He frowned deeply as if he regretted the question, but I tried to put him at ease quickly.
“I do. My parents aren’t much for gardening, but my Uncle Gil is, and by extension, so is Aunt Ari. Gardening seems to be a team sport for them.”
He nodded along as I spoke, and then we looped the small pond twice before I asked, “What’s got plants on your mind?”
There was a pause before he said hesitantly, “Your, uh, hands.”
“Oh. You could just ask, you know.”
He blew out a breath. “I dunno. It seems rude somehow.”
“How’s that?”
He scowled, but it was a baby one, nowhere even near the potency of the one he used in general public. “I don’t know. It’s just one of those things.”
I smiled. “You can ask me about them anytime, and I’ll tell you.”
He gave a sort of vague nod and then eyed the darkening sky before asking me if it was time to return the cart.
And unfortunately, it was, so I directed him back to the rental stand, and in silence we walked back to the cottage, where he declined the invitation to stay for dinner.
It seemed the truths Dezi and LL shared with each other last year were separate from the ones we were ready to share now.
But I’d tell Cody the naked truth about anything he asked, just as I would Bree and Vinh.
Maybe he just needed time to understand that.
Melancholy tried to creep in, but I pushed it aside and instead tried to lean into the evening’s simple pleasures.
The breeze in my hair, Vinh’s home-cooked meal that meant so much more now, Bree’s excitement for the week ahead.
It was all precious, even dimmed by the memory of Cody’s retreating taillights.