Page 57 of Code Word
I kept looking at the photo of Luke, then looking at the places behind me, and I’d be damned if that house with the veranda wasn’t the one in the pic.
He might have just been walking by for all I knew. Though the photo looked like he was right by the veranda, near where I’d stood. But fuck, he could have been passing by and was now on the other side of the country. Or in a different country by now. Maybe I’d missed him by minutes at the airport.
Maybe he saw me and pretended he hadn’t...
Fuck.
Then I was mad at myself for thinking like that. There was also no point in sitting there till dark, and I wasn’t sleeping on the beach. I knew I had to find a place to stay or call that kind taxi driver to come back and get me, maybe.
I felt so useless.
Helpless.
And fucking lost.
Come back tomorrow. Come back every day after that if you need to.
And that’s exactly what I’d do. No matter how long it took.
Determined again, I stood up, dusted the sand off my ass, and turned back the way I’d come. The beach was prettier now, hues of purple and pink, fairy lights twinkling, people walking, people laughing in the distance.
And with a heavy heart, I headed toward them.
Maybe I’d show them Luke’s photo and ask them if they’d seen him. Or maybe they knew of a place I could stay...
I glanced back at the place where the woman had been sweeping, and seeing it in the fading sunlight, I stopped.
I was sure it was the place.
I looked at the photo again and looked back at the place, holding the photo to catch the corner of the veranda the way the photo had.
I was certain.
I headed up toward it. The woman wasn’t there, but there were lights on inside and the doors were open. “Hello,” I called out. “Hola. Anyone home?”
The woman came out, and seeing it was me, her expression became annoyed. “You need to leave.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do,” I said. “I’m looking for my friend.” I held out my wrist, pulling up my sleeve so she could see the Atrous tattoo. “He has a tattoo just like this one.”
Her eyes went to my wrist, then to my face, and she opened her mouth to say something just as someone came up onto the veranda from the side of the house.
“Alma, all I could get was . . .”
It was Luke.
He was wearing shorts and a long-sleeve T-shirt, holding a white plastic bag. He stopped dead when he saw me. His eyes went wide, he rocked back on his heels as if hit by an invisible force, the bag in his hand forgotten as it fell to the floor, his eyes filled with tears.
“Luke,” I breathed, trying not to cry. Seeing him made it all so real.
Nothing in my life had been clearer to me than it was in that moment. Like I was seeing him for the first time.
Like I was seeing what he meant to me for the very first time.
He shook his head, his mouth opened and closed, his expression shock and heartbreak, and I just couldn’t stand it.
I collected him in a hug, wrapping my arms around him, holding him tight. His body, his warmth, familiar yet new. But he kept his arms by his side, rigid.
Alma came over and picked up the plastic bag. “You okay, Mister Luke?”
