3
Cody
“It’s this or bangs.”
Bree’s shoulders slumped, but she volleyed one last effort to change my mind. “Why are those the only two options? What about a new piercing or…,” she trailed off as she eyed my decade-old board shorts. “A wardrobe overhaul.”
I smirked. “Witch.”
Her eyes crinkled in mirth before she drew in a deep, audible breath that sounded like resignation.
I knew it well.
“Okay,” she finally said, the word coming out a bit shaky before she squared her shoulders and repeated, more confidently, “Okay. I can do this. Liem has some clippers in the bathroom cabinet. They must be the good kind, because he keeps that buzz on half of his head pristine. I’ll go grab them and meet you on the back patio.”
“You sure he won’t mind us using them?”
She tilted her head to the side, studying me for a beat before answering. “I’m sure. We have joint custody of most of our hair-care items.”
My hand balled into a tight fist à la the Arthur meme we used to love so much. “Why does that make me jealous? I cannot believe my plan backfired last year. Or, I guess, workedtoowell.”
Bree frowned. “Plan?”
I huffed before making one of my confessions. I was tired of concealing shit, and I knew how much of a hypocrite it made me that I’d been doing that. “Remember before I left for the ship in September, when I told you that I had eyes and ears all over the casino?”
Her eyes went distant, and her expression pinched, creating a row of creases down her forehead. “Vaguely. But I probably assumed you meant your dad, since, ya know, he literally has eyes and ears around the casino from the cameras he monitors from his office.”
“Ah.” My lips flattened. “I can see why you would’ve thought that.”
She put her hands on her hips. “What did you do?”
I studied her face. “You have an obscene amount of freckles. It’s almost vulgar.”
She lifted her gaze to the heavens, searching for strength there, and I took the opportunity to glance at Liem’s bedroom door even though I knew he was already gone this morning. He wouldn’t overhear what I was about to say, though I wasn’t sure if I would’ve minded if he had. It’s not like he didn’t know.
“I trusted someone to look out for you. It was probably the best decision I made last year, and maybe one of the only good ones too.”
We were both quiet for a moment, the levity of the morning flowing closer to melancholy. I could only hope the ebbs betweenlightness and remembering lengthened the longer I was home and the further away we got from… everything.
Bree eventually broke the silence. “We’re going to talk more about that later. Now get on outside,” she commanded, forcibly turning me around and swatting my ass. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Frankly,now that we’re out here, I’m worried this is a cry for help.”
I turned my upper body where I was sitting in the patio chair in the cottage’s backyard and lifted my eyebrow. “This can’t be the first time the thought crossed your mind.”
Bree nervously turned the stainless-steel clippers in her hand. “Well… no,” she admitted on a sigh. She flicked the clippers on once and jumped at the sound before quickly turning them off. “Okay, okay. I can do this.”
“Hey. Look at me.”
Her gray stare met mine, and I held it for a long moment.
“Do it, Cher.”
“I’m scared.”
“DO. IT.”
She flicked the clippers on again and, thankfully keeping her head, buzzed a strip of my dirty-blond hair off from just above my ear instead of straight down the middle as I probably would’ve done.
