The same girl who cracked the fortress that was Vinh Lott without even realizing she was doing it.
Time ticked on, and according to the clock above the oven, it was almost two hours later that a text notification had Bree’s phone buzzing. I’d just gotten to shading, so it was a good time for her to be distracted.
Her head popped up from the cocoon of her arms, a slight grimace on her face and her red hair askew as she squinted at the screen. “They’re almost back here. I wonder what they’ve been doing.”
Cody and Vinh came through the door a few minutes later, speaking in hushed tones. Vinh had a fogged plastic container under his arm, and Cody was carrying a disposable carrier containing four frozen drinks of varying colors.
Bree and I exchanged excited looks of anticipation before she strained her neck further to try to peek at her thigh. “How’s it coming?” she whispered, as if talking about it too loudly would reveal its secrets.
“Beautifully,” I whispered back as I wiped a paper towel down her leg. “Just finishing up details now, so maybe only thirty more minutes.”
She gasped, eyes wide with surprise. “I am so damn excited.” Then she angled her head toward the doorway and called, “Only thirty more minutes, guys!”
“Thank the fucking stars, Cher,” Cody hollered back.
I threw a clean towel over Bree’s leg, holding back a laugh at the way both Cody and Vinh seemed hesitant to come near us.
Bree didn’t hold back as she yelled through a laugh, “Y’all can come in now!”
They appeared almost immediately, carefully setting down their wares. Then Vinh disappeared down the hall, leaving Cody to disperse them.
“Decaf frap with caramel,” Cody announced, handing Bree her drink with a quick, warm smile.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely, returning his smile.
Cody picked up the green drink next but then hesitated, frowning at my hands. “How inconvenient would it be to do the whole song and dance of washing your hands and putting gloves back on?”
I shrugged. “Not so bad. Especially if that’s matcha.”
His lips twitched upward. “A matcha frap.”
My heart raced faster, remembering his golf cart confession about his frappe order gone wrong. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one in frozen form,” I said, making sure to not leave a pause that could be misinterpreted.
He seemed pleased by that, humming to himself as he slid the paper off the top of the straw and bent it forward with a crinkle. “No one is too old for bendy straws,” he mused and then brought the drink to my lips with a question—or perhaps even a dare—in his gaze.
He would find no opposition here. I parted my lips instantly and let him guide the straw to my mouth. We stared at each other as I closed my lips around it and took a small, experimental sip. I shivered as the freezing drink slid down mythroat, and Cody’s eyes flicked briefly to where goose bumps pebbled my arm and shoulder.
“Good?” he asked, his voice low as he held out the drink again, offering me another sip.
“More than good,” I agreed, leaning forward and accepting.
It was either a small mercy or great cruelty that my brother reentered the room then, casting a shadow over us as he picked his way to Bree with a chair from the kitchen in one hand and his laptop in the other. Cody and I looked away from each other, and he turned to put the drink on the table as Vinh situated the chair in front of Bree, then put his laptop on the seat’s cushion.
“What would you like to watch?” he asked her as he sat against the wall by the chair.
Bree’s eyes lit up as she swept her gaze around the room. “Are you saying I get to pick a show to force all my favorite people to watch with me?” She smiled hugely at my brother. “This is a dream come true.”
His smile for her was soft, as it always was, but his chest seemed to expand in a way that broadcasted pride at making her this happy.
“You’re staying, right?” Bree tossed the question over her shoulder at Cody, who had retreated some and was now leaning against the kitchen island.
He took the three of us in, his eyes staying on me a beat longer than the others. Exhaustion was clear in the slight slump of his shoulders, and there was such a weight in his eyes that I was almost tempted to ask him if he wanted to go lie down instead. Or demand he tell me why he wasn’t sleeping well. But then he grabbed another drink from the carrier and walked around the kitchen table to hand it over to Vinh.
“I’m staying, Cher.”
He punctuated his statement by grabbing the other two drinks—mine and his—in one hand, defying physics, and thenscooping up the plastic container in his other. Then, laughing in the face of physics again, he—without the use of his hands—went from standing to sitting on the floor.
What a marvelous man.
