He flattened his lips as he stared at them. “I have issues, okay?”
“Do I need to get you shampoo for Easter?”
He pushed his laptop under his pillow, another one of his quirks, and came to stand in front of me, taking the bottles from my hand and reaching past me to set them on the bathroom counter. His scent wafted over me—erasing all my judgments of that single bar of soap—and I sighed as I automatically pressed my body into his.
He held me for a long time, his touch soothing as he stroked the tense muscles of my back and neck. His hands were wandering, but never demanding, as he worked me over, turning my body liquid.
“Would you like to wander with me, LL?”
“Yes,” I answered against his chest. “Anywhere.”
Cody leaned over to his small chest of drawers and pulled out a well-worn T-shirt. He considered it for a moment before shocking me by gripping the neck hole with both hands and pulling it apart. I gasped as the seams popped as the opening expanded.
Then he slid the stretched-out shirt over my head, and by reflex, I threaded my arms through the holes. Cody fussed with it, adjusting and pulling it to the side so it slipped off my shoulder, and then kissed the newly revealed skin.
“There,” he said, satisfaction in his tone and his gaze as he pulled back. “Just like that.”
He’d done that so smoothly that it gave me enough pause for memories to surface.
Cody had dressed me each day leading up to the funeral, including my clothes for it today.
I’d missed every sunrise since the night Uncle Gil left us, and the time after them too. But right now, in this moment, as warmth mingled with sorrow in my soul and this strong, loyal man stood in front of me, it felt like the sun had finally risen again.
“I love you, Cody.”
His eyes shot to mine, glistening as he studied my face for a moment and then said, “I love you, Liem. Every part of you.”
He took my face in his hands and pressed kisses to my lips with aching slowness, then branched them out to my cheeks, my jaw, and back up to my lips once more. He rested his forehead against mine and brushed his thumb across my cheekbone. “That’s another forever truth.”
With one more kiss to my cheek, he took my hand and stepped back. “Will you come with me somewhere? I have some things to show you. And an idea.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Always.”
40
Cody
When I left Louisiana,I only took three things with me.
A bag filled with only the clothes my mother hated, my favorite pillow, and an old Vans shoebox. It was a scuffed, battered old thing I’d filled with arcade tickets, expired comps, and a bunch of other random trinkets from my visits to Mississippi during those two years before I moved there permanently.
That was the beginning of my secret love story with shoeboxes.
And this fireproof box was the climax of it.
I drove Liem to the cottage and explained my first idea on the way, a little of his diminished spark entering his eyes as he thought it over.
His box was still in the truck, where it had remained since that awful morning in Gulf Shores.
I double-checked that Liem wasn’t just indulging me before we got out of the truck, and his answering kiss was both reassuring and sweet, but his words meant even more.
“I love it, and I love you.”
I’d never forget them.
Shaking myself, I followed him through the house, catching up to him as he went through to the backyard, where Bree was waiting for us. I paused then, wondering why she was holding the scissors like that, clutched in her fist.
Like... in a menacing way.
