As the silence stretched, I idly wondered if I wanted him to say something. Or do something.
He tugged briefly at his curly hair, his features pinching in agitation.
But then he stepped aside and gestured to the open doorway without a word.
The shame at my instant relief piled on top of the regular shame I’d accumulated, and I added it to my baggage.
My mouth also remained shut as I stepped through it.
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,godforsakencruise 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 giveherthe 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.”
