Chapter 16Cody
16
Cody
There was no amount of reflection or retracing of steps that helped me understand how I’d found myself living on another fucking boat.
Making a beeline for the bedroom, I bypassed checking out the rest of the space, trusting it to be much the same as when I’d been inside a few times several lifetimes ago, when Bree was shacked up here with Vinh.
My feet dragged as I dumped the blanket that I’d low-key stolen and my pillow onto the freshly made bed and then set my box on the small nightstand along with my keys.
The light sway beneath my feet was not a welcome sensation, but it was what it was.
I lived here now.
Maybe I deserved this kind of reminder of the last six months.
I eventually mustered the courage to take in the bedroom and had to choke back a sob almost immediately. Thank God no one was here to see it, especially Bree. I’d probably have to do something truly horrible to offset such a display.
I swallowed thickly against the boulder in my throat. My best friend had done more than put sheets on the bed.
A lot more.
The sleek black futuristic-looking lamp on the bedside table nearly did me in. I clenched my fists tightly, glaring at it even as I held back a sob.
I was not going to cry over a fucking lamp.
Even if it was the exact same touch lamp that fourteen-year-old me had secretly coveted for weeks, making extra trips to Fortuna’s arcade to save up for it. There had only been one of them behind the arcade’s prize counter at the time, but before I’d won enough tickets to get it, Bree had announced one day after school that she was getting it.
I’d hidden my disappointment well—or so I’d thought—but then a week later, with the goofiest, most satisfied smile that showed off all the neon-colored rubber bands of her braces, she gave me the lamp for my fifteenth birthday with a bright red Christmas bow on top.
Shaking my head, I walked over to flick off the overhead light and then hesitantly returned to the wretched lamp and pressed a finger to its base. Warm light filled the small bedroom, and I deflated.
With a dignified sniffle, I sat on the bed and rubbed my hands over my eyes before I opened my oldest, most battered shoebox. I was a nostalgic, sentimental asshole, so when Liem sent me that text that said to get what I needed to feel comfortable, this box, my pillow, and the soft knit blanket that smelled like sea, charcoal, and sunshine were what my sleep-deprived mind deemed necessary.
I slipped a hand inside the box and rooted around, pushing aside beads and a pen until I found the faded yellow arcade ticket from the day I’d met Bree. Once I situated it under the lamp’s base, I cautiously explored the rest of the room, keeping my movements slow and methodical, as if that would save me from any more emotional jump scares.
Sliding open the shallow drawer of the bedside table, I found a six-pack of my favorite cherry lip balm, a new thing of sunscreen, and a dark-blue baseball cap with the local minor league team’s logo embroidered on the front. There was a neon yellow sticky note attached that read:
Wear this outside until your hair on the side of your head grows back out, for the love of God
Chuckling, I removed one of the lip balms and applied some before tossing it on top of the nightstand. With one more glance at the lamp, I fell back on the bed and surrendered. I’d reached my limit. I shimmied out of my shorts and shucked off my T-shirt, which left me in just my silk boxers, before I rolled myself into a burrito with the knit blanket and let Liem’s words in his soothing voice lull me to the edge of sleep.
“You have a new home here in a safe harbor.”
“Rest until sunrise.”
“Everything will be okay.”
The last images in my mind before I drifted into a dreamless sleep were the palms of his scraped hands and his deep, dark eyes.
I violently startled awake after what felt like both seconds and eternity later, feeling wild and untethered. I shot my gaze around the room and tried to make sense of my surroundings, relaxing infinitesimally at what I found.
Or didn’t find.
No bunk bed beneath me, no buzzing, battered mini fridge in the corner, no work uniforms strewn on the floor.
No resentful looks or deep, sorrowful sighs.
Not the hundred-square-foot room I’d shared with Austin.
Not the middle of the Gulf of Mexico without escape.
I kicked my legs out of the blanket and rubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes until stars dotted my vision. Leaning over the edge of the bed, I blindly swept the floor for my abandoned shorts and fished my phone out of the pocket, realizing that the buzz of it restarting was what must’ve woken me.
I squinted blearily at the screen to unlock it and swiped to answer without reading the caller ID. “Yeah?”
A short, choked laugh I would have recognized from the grave sounded. “Good morning, sunshine. Did I wake you?”
I grunted in response. “You on the way over, Cher?” Stretching, I swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“Ugh, I’m so sorry, but I’m gonna have to postpone to later today or maybe tomorrow.” Her voice was strained, and that woke me up more than anything could. “The nursing home called and said I needed to come in as soon as possible for a meeting about Grandmother.”
I stood up. “Do you want to pick me up on the way? I can go with you.”
“I appreciate that, but Mrs. Lott is already here to take me, and Vinh will pick me up when he gets back from dropping Liem off in Gulf Shores. The nurse didn’t say what it was exactly on the phone, but who knows with them. Sometimes they ask me to come in just to say she’s refusing to eat, and other times she’ll run a fever for two days and I won’t find out until my next visit.”
My stomach dropped at every part of that. It was still difficult to imagine Miss Barb in a nursing home.
And Liem not here.
But as I didn’t currently have the balls to ask if she knew when he’d be back, I instead said the only thing I could. “I’m sorry, Cher.”
“No,” she sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. But I’ll text you with any updates later. Hopefully it’ll be quick, and I can come help you get moved in after that? If that’s the case, I’ll call you to come pick me up?”
She and I both knew I didn’t have enough possessions to warrant needing her help. It was really just one bag and getting some stuff from Dad’s. This was more about her not wanting to change a plan she’d made with me, and the last thing I wanted was for her to be stressed about it. To become an extra burden to her.
“Hey,” I replied lightly. “Don’t worry about anything today on my end. I actually think I’m going to go visit Mom.”
There was a short pause, and then she said, “Oh?”
I scratched the back of my head, wondering if there was any way to spin this that she wouldn’t smell as bullshit. “Yeah, it’s, uh, about that time. You know, for my annual trek to Cajun Country. Might as well go today, it being a nice day and all.”
Another short pause was followed by “You know it’s raining outside right now, right?”
Easing out the bedroom door, I looked through the sliding glass doors at the rain pelting the deck. “Barely.”
“And you know that I know that you’re not actually from Cajun Country, but as much as I’d like to unpack whatever is going on here, Mrs. Lott is waiting for me. Whatever you do, keep me updated, too, and please be careful driving. And give your mother my—” She stopped mid-sentence, huffed audibly, and then shocked me with quite the sassy swerve. “Tell your mother nothing from me and get back here as soon as possible. Please.”
My smile was so big, my jaw popped. “You’ve come so far.”
“Your butt’s so far.”
I hummed. “Not your best.”
“I know. I’m hanging up now.”
“That would’ve been a better way to—” I stopped and looked at the screen to see that she’d followed through and hung up on me.
Nice.
This was what I got for not calling ahead.
This right fucking here.
Perhaps if I’d called my mother—Dr. Alexandra Cormier, as she was known to both colleagues and friends—then maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here like the dumbest son of a bitch in all of Louisiana.
Or, at least, I could have pushed this new information to the back of my mind, where it could fester with many a toxic compatriot, who were all committed to weighing me down until I could deal with them. Until I could find steady enough ground to start creating a new feelings plate, or whatever Cher called it.
This was not steady ground.
This was… fucked up.
This being me, sitting here for going on an hour as the rain beat steadily against my truck, watching a family of strangers through a bay window like a fucking creeper.
They bustled about quite comfortably in the house I’d lived in for the first thirteen years of my life.
The one where my mother obviously no longer lived.
I rested my forehead against the steering wheel, careful not to bump the horn. The family had somehow remained unaware of my lurking, but honking my horn at them would have truly been the end of the world.
Honk your horn if you’re in crisis.
Just as I had probably a dozen times in the last hour, I scooped up my phone and pulled up Liem’s contact info.
“LL” was only a touch away, but as it did before, my thumb merely hovered over his name instead of clicking it.
I knew he’d answer, just as I knew his sweet voice would either say the exact right thing or distract me from my circumstances enough to allow me to cope.
The problem was that I wasn’t ready to feel better. Some part of me insisted that I sit with this, that I wallow in it.
Unlike the other times when I’d dramatically tossed my phone away as if it’d burned me, I swiped over to a different contact and made a call.
“Son,” my dad answered on the third ring. “Give me juuuust a second.”
I slumped back into my seat.
A moment later, there was children’s laughter in the background.
“ The hell ,” I muttered, knowing that unless he was walking by the casino daycare or maybe at Dawn’s Diner, there was no reason he’d be around kids, especially happy ones. It was Saturday. Dad always worked on Saturdays, but when I pressed the phone closer to my ear, I didn’t detect the usual din of slot machines either.
“Okay, sorry about that,” Dad said, chuckling to himself. “Jaxon found the linen closet and built a fort that was not what I’d consider structurally sound.”
I frowned, tracking a droplet of rain as it cascaded down my truck’s window. “The hell is Jaxon?”
He cleared his throat. “Sorry, uh, Jeanne’s oldest. I’m, ah…. I’m watching them while she, uh…. Yeah.” He kept pausing and restarting, sounding shadier by the moment. “Um, anyway, what’s up?”
What world had I woken to today? I didn’t know where my mother lived, and my dad—who had no experience to speak of with children—was babysitting.
But maybe this insanity wasn’t new. Yesterday I’d pulled Liem Lott into my lap in a dark stairwell and then embarrassed myself by breaking down on him. And then I’d partially moved onto a houseboat after swearing off boats only weeks ago.
This new leaf I’d been so determined to turn was fucking rotten.
A soft cry sounded. “Baby Maggie’s there too?” I couldn’t remember exactly how old Jeanne’s other kids were, but Maggie was an actual baby, and I had to wonder if Dad had taken more on than he could handle.
As if on cue, the soft cry turned into a wail, and there was some shuffling before my dad started cooing.
I mean, I understood it. I’d just held her a few days ago, and she was so cute that it made me want to punch a wall, but still. That was not a sound I knew my dad was capable of making.
“I’m going to guess this isn’t a good time,” I offered.
There were more muffled sounds before Dad replied, “Sorry, son. My hands are kind of full right now. Do you want to come by later on for dinner?”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll let you know. I was just, um….” I hesitated, feeling slightly guilty for the subtle testing of my dad I was about to do. “I was calling to see if you could send me Mom’s new address.”
“Hey!” Dad’s shout was loud in my ear. “Let’s take off our cleats if we’re going to jump on the couch…. Yes, both of them. Good job, dude. Ugh, sorry, son, I’m back, and yeah, sure, I’ll text you the address. Sorry, it’s a little crazy.” There was a loud clatter, like something falling, before Dad said, “I’ve gotta go. See you tonight, I hope?”
“Hmmph,” I sort of grunted to keep the crack that would’ve surely sounded in my voice if I’d spoken at bay, wishing I could’ve kept it from everywhere else too.
The ground beneath me wasn’t just uneven—it was open and threatening to swallow me whole.
“Oka—” I started, briefly trying for a real response before realizing he’d already hung up, making me two for two today.
Nice.
My phone pinged with a text a few moments later, so at least he hadn’t forgotten that, though as soon as I opened it, I almost wished he had.
Then maybe I would’ve just driven back to Bay Springs.
This address wasn’t all that far away, but it was in an entirely different zip code that you had to cross the fucking river to reach. Starting the truck, I pulled enough pieces of myself together to follow my phone’s directions out of the quiet Baton Rouge, Louisiana, suburbs and into the city itself.
The rain finally let up as I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River. It should have felt like coming home, or at least vaguely familiar. Instead, I was assaulted by memories that hadn’t come to the forefront of my mind in a long-ass time.
For the first several years of my formal education, I’d attended a prestigious private school in Baton Rouge. I’d hated just about every second of it, but I used to at least enjoy the ride into town. Mom would always have to go into the hospital really early, so she drove me each morning and would spend the entire car ride on the phone, issuing commands to her staff and making all kinds of appointments for herself, leaving me to my own devices.
Then she’d drop me off at the front steps and would try to make a big scene of telling me goodbye—always with someone important listening on the other end of the phone or watching from the school—and telling me to try my best and to not be foolish. I’d rush off and find a quiet step to sit on, almost always arriving more than two hours before the first class.
If I were lucky, the groundskeeper would have left a side door unlocked, and I could sneak inside and scavenge for food in the cafeteria.
Sooner than I’d have liked, I reached my destination and paid twenty-five dollars for parking—as if I needed more insult to my long-standing mommy-issues injuries—and was standing in front of a supremely unimpressed lobby doorman.
“I’m here for Alexandra Cormier.”
He eyed me with suspicion. “Is Dr. Cormier expecting you?”
I chuckled, but there was no real amusement in it. “Unlikely.”
The modern elevators that didn’t really fit the aesthetic of the historic building dinged before opening, and a man in a nice suit with salt-and-pepper hair stepped out, followed by my mother. The pair chatted animatedly as they breezed right to the exit without sparing a glance at the doorman’s stand.
This was awkward as fuck.
I was the kitten left on the street in Oliver & Company , just less cute and more feral. In my heart of hearts, I didn’t really want to be picked up, to be sheltered by this woman.
Yet I continued to beg for scraps.
The doorman smiled at me as if he’d won something and then cleared his throat loudly before calling out, “Dr. Cormier, ma’am!”
Mom was halfway out the door that the man she was with was holding open when she turned our way briefly. “Hmmm? Yes, Richard?” She glanced back at her companion and gave him a placid smile, her gaze having darted right over me.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am, but this young man says he’s here to see you,” he announced with a wave of his hand toward me.
An excruciatingly long silence followed, and for whatever reason, I kept my gaze fixed on Dick the doorman and his impressive mustache as he waited for my mother’s response.
Heels clicked across the floor, and the doorman broke his marble facade and frowned, puffing out his chest as he asked, “Do you know this young man, Dr. Cormier?”
Bless all our hearts. Truly.
With a grip of my bicep, she turned me toward her and gasped. “ What are you doing here ?” she said quickly, quietly. There was a split second of hesitation and calculation before she pulled me in for a brief hug. The subtle scent of her jasmine perfume conjured the same amount of nostalgia as crossing the Mississippi River had.
Minimal.
Unfortunately, it was just as likely to pull me under and drown me.
Putting me at arm’s length, she dragged her dark-blue gaze over me and frowned deeply. I scrutinized her right back.
She was a striking, beautiful woman. Always had been. Apple cheekbones, pin-straight blonde hair, a smirk that stopped men in their tracks, and enough charm to tame a rabid alligator.
My father had fallen for that charm for precisely one night while out on the town in New Orleans roughly twenty-three years ago, and who knew how many more had fallen since.
In any other world, she would have been my hero.
But when she glanced over her shoulder at the man watching us with a quizzical expression and then turned back to me with a tiny sigh that mostly read as resignation, I was reminded of why she wasn’t.
Why she never would be.
She did not want to introduce me to this dude.
Or, at least, she didn’t want me to be introduced looking the way I did now and in circumstances that weren’t easy to explain away.
She was a smart woman, though. She’d find a way.
“Dr. Abbott!” she exclaimed, pulling me toward the man, who had stepped fully back into the lobby by this point. “Wasn’t I just telling you about my son the other day? About how he has been traveling! And look, he’s decided to surprise me! ?a va, mon fils? ”
“ ?a va ,” I answered automatically. Mindlessly.
Traveling was an interesting spin to working on a cruise ship, which was what she probably thought I was still doing, given that the last time we’d communicated was December 23.
When I’d called her on our birthday.
And now that I thought about it, that call had gone to voicemail, so actually… I didn’t know when we’d last spoken.
Huh.
While I’d been having this realization, she was gripping my upper arm, her short but polished nails—sensible for a plastic surgeon—digging into the skin as she chattered on and on about her darling son and his adventurous streak.
“When did you move?” I asked suddenly, unwilling and unable to engage in this song and dance with her.
“Oh, I know,” she said emphatically, deploying her best smile at both of—no. She was including Dick—who was listening raptly, so I supposed it was meant for all three of us—in this too.
I steeled myself and tuned back in to her bullshit at random.
“—this place lovely? I got so incredibly lucky with finding somewhere so close to the hospital! I’d been working myself to the absolute bone this past year. C’est la vie ,” she added with a little shrug, then nudged the guy standing beside her, who was giving her sympathetic, love-stricken eyes.
“Remember when I told you about the time that I nearly fell asleep crossing the bridge after those four back-to-back cleft-lip repairs on those precious babies?” She turned her gaze to Dick, who nodded, also love stricken, and then continued, “The hospital does an amazing job of scheduling those pro bono cases on the same day, but my staff were all so worried and fussing at me to take better care. It felt like a sign when this space became available so close to the hospital.” She sighed deeply, as if lost in the splendor of their (her) generosity.
She was truly a master.
If I were to push again, the line could be easily drawn that I hate babies or don’t care for my mother’s welfare. Or both.
Probably both.
“Anyway, enough about that. Cody, dear, I am so glad to see you. Let me properly introduce you!” She nodded to the man beside her. “Dr. Gerard Abbott, please meet my son, Cody Cormier.”
He reached out to shake my hand, and I took it but couldn’t stop my gaze from marking the exits. There were the glass doors that led to the street and then the ones to my left that entered a breezeway to the parking garage, and I could make it back to my truck using either.
My wandering gaze probably made me look shifty as hell, but I didn’t care. I also didn’t care that she’d used my old last name. I’d legally been Cody Desmond since I turned eighteen and had used it as my last name since I was fifteen.
And if the dude said anything before or after dropping my hand, I hadn’t heard a word of it.
A thick silence that could very quickly have snowballed into unbearably uncomfortable threatened, but Mom curtailed it by deploying another sympathetic gaze, this one aimed at me.
“Honey, you must be so tired. Why don’t you take my key up to the penthouse and have a lie down?”
“You have a new home here in a safe harbor. Rest until sunrise.”
Her words were so similar to Liem’s but nowhere near the same.
He wanted me well.
She wanted me out of sight.
I glanced at her adoring fans. I had no allies here.
I folded and took the keys.
She made a show of digging around in her little purse and pulled out a couple of hundred-dollar bills. “Here you go, sweetie.” She tucked them into my hand. “I know I already sent you your check for this quarter, but here is a little something in case you want to go out later.” She leaned over and air-kissed my cheek in farewell. “You always did love spending in the downtown shops. Enjoy yourself.”
Without ever fully meeting my eyes, she gave the room at large a smile full of grace, took Dr. Abbott’s offered arm, and breezed right out of the lobby without a backward glance.
I watched the door for a long time, well after she disappeared from sight.
Yes, I spent her money as a preteen, always blowing it on dumb, useless things, hoping she’d notice and take an interest.
She hadn’t.
But she continued to send me checks, usually one at the beginning of each quarter. I’d never touched the money. I didn’t have a clue how much was in the account I deposited them into or what strings would be attached to it. Or why she even did it.
I considered just not depositing them, but the account was already there because Dad had set it up for me, and I liked having that safety net, desperate as I was not to use it.
None of this had been shocking. It really hadn’t. But the facade of her concern and the hollowness of her actual feeling still managed to leave me, well….
It left me . By myself. Just… here.
I clutched the key to her apartment and seriously debated thrusting it at Dick and making a hasty exit, but I was jittery and morbidly curious, which was a horrible combination that equated to reckless .
Without a word of parting, I swanned to the elevator as if I belonged among such posh surroundings, took the next ride all the way to the top, and let myself into my mother’s apartment, guided by the number marked on the key.
And what a mistake that turned out to be.