34. Rhodes
THIRTY-FOUR
Rhodes
The Owner's Decision: A contractor lays out the options, the costs, and what each one will mean five years on. What the building becomes is decided by the person whose name is on the deed, and the good ones say so out loud before anybody picks up a tool.
It's been two weeks since I put this in motion. Tallulah and I have spoken a few times, but Dale has mostly been my contact to make sure things are in order for the delivery.
I turn off Maybank Highway and follow the long drive into Oak Moss with mud already drying along the sides of my truck. The shell shipment clears the yard in Mobile today, but the trucks aren't due here until Monday. The carrier wants the staging area confirmed before the weekend.
Tallulah flew in Thursday night and heads back Sunday.
I could have done my part from the road. I'm rarely on the ground for the shipments. But when she told me she would be here working, I wanted to make sure everything goes smoothly.
The house appears through the trees first, then the marsh beyond it, winter-brown and silver under a pale sky. I haven't been here in over two years, since the whole family came out for the Fourth, before Lizzy got sick.
That thought hits harder than I realized it would.
I park beside Dale's truck and find Tallulah near the bagging shed in chest waders. Her hair is twisted up beneath a baseball cap, and she is holding a bundle of pink flags against one hip while she argues with Dale over something on a clipboard.
She looks up when she hears my door shut.
“Perfect timing.”
There's no awkward pause this time, no nanosecond of figuring out what we are supposed to do with each other. She walks toward me and holds out the clipboard.
“Your driver called Dale this morning and wants the unloading area moved twenty yards north because he's worried about the turn.”
“I saw that.”
Her brows lift.
“He called me, too. That's why I'm here, to make sure there are no hiccups on Monday.”
That gets the smallest smile.
I take the clipboard from her and follow her toward the access road.
Dale has marked off the space they planned to use for the first delivery. The approach is tight, but not impossible. I walk it once, check the turn from the road, then pull out my phone and look at the dimensions the carrier sent me.
“He can make this.”
Dale crosses his arms. “That's what I told him.”
“He doesn't like the grade.”
“He's hauling oyster shells, not nitroglycerin.”
Tallulah laughs beside me.
“We can keep this staging area and bring the first load on a shorter trailer. It costs a little more because they have to split one of the runs, but not enough to wreck the freight savings.”
“How much more?”
I tell her. Dale whistles softly. Tallulah studies the road, then the bank. “What do you think?”
I know which one I would choose. Six months ago, that would have been enough.
“Shorter trailer makes more sense to me,” I say. “But it's your budget and your worksite.”
Her eyes stay on mine for a beat. Then she looks back toward the road.
“Do the shorter trailer.”
“Okay.”
I make the call. It takes less than five minutes. The carrier complains exactly as much as I expected. I remind him what Nero sends his way every quarter, and by the time I hang up, the first delivery is locked for Monday morning.
Tallulah is still watching me. Dale takes the clipboard from her and then disappears across the yard.
“Come on,” she says over her shoulder. “You said you wanted to see what we've done.”
I follow. The property looks different from two years ago.
It's not transformed, because marsh does not care how badly people want dramatic before-and-after pictures, but I can see how much work they've done.
There are new markers along the bank, protected sections where the plantings have taken hold, and areas Tallulah points out where they pulled back after the new delineation.
She knows every inch of it.
“This section was the biggest problem,” she says, stepping carefully over a muddy rut.
“You were right about the bank.”
“What do you want me to say? I spent half a year proving it.”
“Thank goodness you didn't give in. This is really great.”
We keep walking.
She shows me where the first shell will go, not scattered directly onto the flats but staged for the next phase of shoreline work.
The details are more complicated than I remember from the first time she tried explaining any of this to me, mostly because I was too busy watching her mouth back then to absorb half of what she said.
Now I listen. By the time we loop back toward the shed, Dale is gone. She sets the remaining flags on a workbench and reaches toward a row of waders hanging from pegs.
“What size shoe?”
I look at her. She holds up a pair.
“No.”
“You wanted to see the project.”
“I have seen the project.”
“You saw it from dry land.”
“Which is my preferred way to see most things.”
She tosses the waders at my chest, and I catch them.
“Put those on.”
I stare down at them. I'm immediately taken back to the morning in Louisiana.
“You know the last time you recruited me into oyster labor, I ended up tossing forty-pound bags across a boat.”
Her mouth curves. "That's right. You know the gig. I forgot you're an old pro."
I step into the waders. They're a little short, but I loosen the shoulder straps, so they'll do.
Tallulah looks me over and starts laughing.
“Don't.”
“You look ridiculous.”
“Thanks for setting me up for that.”
“I didn't know your legs got longer.”
“Right. Of course. I’ve been the same height since high school.”
I adjust the crotch, pulling them down as low as I can. My hardening cock isn’t helping. “I have access to your shell shipment, you know.”
“That threat would carry more weight if you weren't so damn helpful.”
She says it lightly, and our eyes meet.
I nod once. “Good point.”
She hands me a bundle of flags.
“Try to keep up.”
We spend the next couple of hours placing flags along the edge of the marsh, resetting markers ahead of Monday's delivery and checking the paths they will use to move material from the staging area.
My boots sink too deep twice. Tallulah laughs both times. She nearly loses one of hers and grabs my forearm to steady herself, then keeps talking about the nutrient-rich soil here like touching me did not register at all.
At some point the distance between us stops being something either of us is maintaining. We start talking the way we used to before every sentence became dangerous.
She tells me Jo is threatening to quit reef work every Friday because Ford keeps trying to lure her to Biloxi on Thursday nights.
I stand there looking at her before I remember not to. Her cheeks are pink from the cold, and strands of hair have escaped her cap and stuck to the side of her face.
She catches me staring. The laughter fades, but the smile does not disappear.
I look toward the next marker. “Where do you want this one?”
She points, and we keep going. The sun is lower by the time we make it back to the shed.
Tallulah kicks mud from one boot before stepping out of the waders.
“Hang them there.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“See? You are helpful and obedient.”
I peel mine off and hang them beside hers.
She comes closer to straighten one of the straps where I twisted it around the peg.
She shakes her head. We're standing too close, and we both notice it at the same time.
The shed is quiet except for wind moving against the metal roof and something tapping irregularly outside.
Tallulah's hand is still on the strap between us.
We stare at each other for an extended moment. I want to kiss her so badly my entire body seems to know it before I can put a lid on it, but I don't move.
Her eyes drop, and I lick my lips. Then she closes the distance and kisses me. For one second, I forget every good intention I've had for the last six months.
My hand comes up to her waist, and she is already closer, her mouth opening under mine with the same familiarity that used to wreck me in a completely different way. I taste coffee and cold air. Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt.
I kiss her back because she kissed me first and because evidently there are limits to how evolved one man can become in less than a year.
When she pulls away, I let her. She brushes the back of her hand over her lips. Her face is close enough that I can see the tiny line between her brows.
I drop my hand from her waist. She steps back. Then she walks toward the door, her hand grabbing the frame, and turns around to face me.
“Dad and I are getting oysters in an hour.”
I look down at my muddy clothes, and back up to her.
“At Bowen's Island. You're dressed appropriately. Want to join us?”
That surprises me more than the kiss.
“Yeah. I'd love that.”
She picks up her coat, and neither of us says another word about what just happened in the shed. Like the phone call I missed three weeks ago, I wonder if it was just an accident, nothing more than that.
We leave the shed together, each of us getting into our vehicles. I follow her to James Island.
Bowen's is crowded enough that we wait ten minutes for a table, which Granger spends telling me he has never understood why anybody waits for food they have to shuck themselves.
We get a table and a tray of oysters. For the first half hour it is easier than I expect, just like it's always been.
Granger asks about Nero. I tell him enough to answer without turning dinner into a résumé. He thanks me for helping with the shell shipment, and I tell him Tallulah already had the hard part handled.
She looks at me across the table.
Halfway through the second tray, I look up to see Cooper come through the screen door and pull out the empty chair beside Granger. He doesn’t look at me once, which I notice, but also don’t fixate on.
“Y'all ordered without me?”
Tallulah looks as surprised as I am.
“What are you doing here?”
“Dad texted.”
Granger shrugs. “He was nearby.”
Coop looks around the table, then at me, but doesn't say a word. Tallulah wipes her hands on a paper towel.
Coop talks about work and Granger complains about traffic. Tallulah steals an oyster off my side of the tray and tells me I am too slow when I object.
For a second, it feels dangerously close to normal. Then I catch Cooper looking at us.
I tell myself I'm imagining it.
By the time we leave, the temperature has dropped enough that my muddy clothes act as insulation.
Granger hugs Tallulah beside his truck. Coop says he is heading back toward town.
“I need to get to the hotel,” I tell them. “Thanks for dinner.”
Tallulah looks at me. “Thanks for today.”
“Anytime.”
The word comes out before I consider the double entendre. I head toward my truck as we all disperse.
“Hey.”
I turn to see Cooper standing behind me with his hands in his jacket pockets. “You got time for a beer?”
Something in his voice makes my stomach tighten.
“Sure.”
He picks a place ten minutes away, quieter than Bowen's, but still on the water. There's a bar along one wall and enough televisions that nobody pays attention to the two of us taking stools at the far end.
Cooper orders two beers. He waits until the bartender walks away, then he turns toward me.
“How long?”
My brain scrambles for the context of his question. It could be completely innocuous, or it could be a roadside bomb that’s about to detonate my life. Based on his demeanor, I think I know which one it is.
“How long what?”
“Don't.”
There is no humor in his face. I set my hands on the bar. “Coop.”
“I went out to Oak Moss this afternoon to surprise y'all. Dad told me you were there working with Tilly.”
Everything inside me goes still. I know before he says any more.
Cooper's jaw tightens. “I saw you kiss my sister in the shed.”
The bartender sets our beers down, but neither of us touches them.
“She kissed me.”
His laugh has no humor in it.
“Oh, great. That clears everything up.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“Then what the fuck did you mean?”
I should stop. Tallulah asked me not to tell him. And for this entire time, I haven't, even when I've wanted to. But he's looking directly at me now, and there is no version of this where I can pretend he did not ask.
“Since spring.”
Cooper goes very still.
“Since Italy.”
His stool scrapes against the floor as he turns fully toward me.
“You were fucking sleeping with my sister in Italy? While I was there?”
“Yes.”
He looks away and drags a hand over his mouth, then he gives one short laugh.
“You lying son of a bitch.”
“I'm sorry.”
“You don't get to say that like it covers it.”
“I didn't say it did.”
“Every fucking call.” He leans closer. “Every time I called you from Spain and asked how she was doing, you never said a word.”
“I know.”
“I thanked you. I told you I trusted you to keep an eye on her.”
My stomach knots.
“And the whole time you were fucking her.”
His voice is low enough that nobody around us turns. He pushes away from the bar and stands. For a second, I think he is leaving, but instead, he paces two steps and comes back.
“My dad told me she was a wreck in the spring.”
I say nothing.
“He said she was crying all the time and quiet, barely eating anything at Easter. Everybody thought she was losing her shit over Oak Moss because of that federal mess she got herself into.”
His face changes before he finishes the sentence. I see the pieces move. He looks at me differently.
“That wasn't just Oak Moss.”
“No, it wasn't.”
“Jesus Christ, Rhodes. You broke her heart, didn't you? I swear, if you treated her like you treat other women you've—”
The words go straight through me. He doesn't finish, but I know he would do anything to protect her. So would I, but I can't tell him that, because he's absolutely right to want to punch me.
“I would never hurt her intentionally. I love her.”
His jaw clenches.
“She was trying to put her life back together, and I handed her to my best friend because I thought you were the one person who wouldn't take advantage of that.”
“I didn't take advantage of her.”
Cooper steps closer.
“You were older. She was living in your house. She was barely sober, Rhodes.”
"She had two years, Coop. Two years, and a sponsor, and a Tuesday meeting she never once missed. Why the fuck does every single one of you still say barely? Jesus, I know exactly who she is.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“You can hate me for lying to you. You can hate me for hurting her. I earned all of that.”
“Good.”
“But don't turn her into somebody who didn't know what she wanted because it makes me easier to hate.”
His face hardens.
“Don't you dare lecture me about taking away her choices.”
He's right. I nod.
“I don't get to.”
“Damn right.”
“But neither do you.”
His eyes flash.
“She chose me, Coop. More than once. Whatever I did wrong after that doesn't make her choice disappear.”
He gives me one last look, shakes his head, and walks out.
The door closes behind him.
I stay at the bar with two beers neither of us drank. Tallulah's name is already sitting at the front of everything I have to do next.