Bree once offhandedly described Cody as a stray cat who secretly lived for pets but bolted if approached head-on. And I was nothing if not a believer in everything Princess had to say, so I swerved.
“I have the cart for a few more hours. Would you like to cruise?” I rounded the vehicle and sat in the driver’s seat, giving him space to answer.
“Bad word choice, LL,” he said tonelessly. “And I dunno.” He scrubbed his hand over his head again but contradicted his words by sitting back in the cart and quite pointedly looking at his feet instead of me. “I think I’m mad.”
“Oh.” I leaned forward and turned the golf cart back on. “That’s not a nap side effect I’m familiar with.”
His gaze moved to the town square again, and he pressed his lips together, making his already slightly fuller bottom lip appear even more so.
“I’d wager those feelings are related to why you’re glaring at Bay Hall?”
If he didn’t break that intensity soon, I was going to have to burn some sage around the gazebo in the morning. Between the force of his stare and the demons I’d been purging there, the energy of my little haven was quite volatile.
“Yes.”
“Would you like to tell me what happened?”
His leg bounced, and his gaze flicked to me before returning to its angry post. “I tried to order a frappe.”
I kept my gaze on the steering wheel, rubbing my thumbs along the clip that was meant to hold the score-keeping card. “And… it didn’t go as expected?”
He fussed with the myriad of bracelets on his wrist, rotating them as he thought and eventually responded, “No.”
More twists of his bracelet, faster leg bouncing.
“Would you like to drive?”
The cart stilled as his leg stopped, and there was a beat before he nodded. Then he tapped my bare hip. “Switch.”
Following his lead and gentle direction, I lifted my hips before he slid into the space I vacated as I maneuvered into his. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I acknowledged, then politely dismissed, the way my breath hitched when our bodies briefly fitted together and the severe swoop of my stomach at his body heat.
He rested his arm across the back of the seat and checked both ways for traffic even though it was a one-way street—a true hallmark of a pessimist if I ever knew one—before backing up and making his way to the golf cart path.
We both sighed at the new breeze as we picked up speed on the empty path to nowhere in particular.
Silence stretched, and that urge to stir the pot visited me again.
“Wanna go over to Bay Hall and get empanadas?”
He white-knuckled the steering wheel. “Fuckno. I’m not returning to the scene of the crime.”
Well, that kind of statement needed to breathe, so I swallowed my lingering curiosity and just let Cody drive.
We made—in silence—several circuits around the square, drove through a golf cart path around a public park, and thenlooped back to the path that led to my parents’ house, though I didn’t think he knew that.
He abruptly pulled onto the grassy shoulder beside a field of bright yellow daffodils, engaged the parking brake, and collapsed onto the steering wheel, resting his forehead on his hands.
It started small with a few choked hiccupping sounds. Then his shoulder blades jerked with the movement as he gripped the wheel so tightly that the plastic steering wheel groaned.
And then there was a pause, an intake of breath, and the shape of it changed.
Cody threw back his head, making me jump, then covered his face with his hands and descended into full belly laughter.
All I could do was watch in wonder.
Finally, he pulled himself together and massaged his eyes as he spoke.
“There was an incident after I ordered the frappe.”
