Page 104 of Missed Sunrise
“Ugh, Cher.”
She totally had. I needed to move.
She sighed dramatically. “Cody, I may not be Lady Luck anymore, but I am still a lady, and I won’t be entertaining the subject any further.”
I sat forward in my chair as an exasperated noise left my throat. “Itoldyou to not tell me, so don’t be Mrs. Prim and Proper all of the sudden.”
Cackling like the witch she was, she picked up her phone again as it buzzed with a new message. “Vinh’s picking me up for dinner at his parents’. Do you want to come?”
I considered it for exactly two seconds before declining. “No, thanks. I have some stuff to do, and I’m pretty wiped.”
“Suit yourself, but please make sure you eat something,” she instructed as she leaned over and gave me a hug before adding in a teasing tone, “Especially now that you lift.”
Vinh picked up Bree shortly after, and once the fornicators were gone, I went to my bedroom to deal with my other new purchase.
The black fireproof chest that was about the size of my pillow and was a touch ominous sitting there in the middle of my bed.
I scratched my nails lightly across its hard shell and reached under my bed for a much humbler box, set it beside the larger one, and stared at them side by side for a moment. Determining that I wasn’t quite up to transferring the contents from one to the other, I grabbed my notebook instead and, leaving the rest to deal with later, went back out to the deck.
But seeing as I was the same person I’d always been at my core, I had to double back to the cabin in search of a pencil. Once it was found, I was back in the slowly dying light of the day and jotting down the things I needed to research inside the notebook, as well as some answers I’d recently discovered to a few of the questions already written inside.
Eventually, the notes turned to doodles, and the light dimmed enough that when I started squinting, I went back inside to the comfort of my bed. I shuttled both boxes underneath it before collapsing onto my back and typing out a text.
Me
You free for that call, LL?
Three dots appeared on my screen, and the sudden buzz in my body had me sitting up and scooching back against the wall—there was no headboard.
LL
Almost, Dezi.
My heart thumped wildly in my chest but then settled, soothed by the photo that followed the text.
Liem’s sandy bare feet were just visible in the bottom of the frame, the lapping tide of the Gulf just beyond them.
I typed back the unfiltered question at the forefront of my mind.
Me
Can I see you too?
My grip on the phone tightened as I brought it closer to my face, but I didn’t have to wait long. A photo of a serene Liem filled my screen, his hair blowing in the breeze with a single strand across his face. A sand dune stood tall behind him like a white wall, and the entire picture had a hazy quality from the dusky light.
I saved and set it as his contact photo immediately, but something was bothering me enough that it kept me from total satisfaction. A video call came through in the next moment, so I rolled onto my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows as I accepted it.
Whipping wind clipped my speakers before the video loaded, and I scanned the screen greedily as the problem clicked.
“LL. Tell me you’re not at the beach after dark by yourself.” I couldn’t even let myself enjoy him in his windswept glory until I had an answer.
He tucked his hair behind his ear and shrugged. “I’m with you now, am I not?”
Fuck.
“And good evening, Dezi,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad to see your face.”
Double fuck.
