Page 4 of The Cocky for Cody
He pressed his lips to mine before the cab veered around a bend and the shimmering blue of the Coral Sea came into view, stretching from a lush green bush-covered bay all the way to the far horizon.
I blinked back the light and weariness, feeling a second—or more accurately, twenty-second—wind coming on. “Is that the place you call home?”
“Nearly,” Cody smiled. “We’ll be there in a few minutes, then I’ll fix you some of that zombie antidote in my fridge, more commonly known as… a mango daiquiri.”
I sighed, content at last. “Now that sounds like my kind of cure.”
The heat was intense, the thrum of the insects deafening, but the sea sparkled like champagne and the sand was softer than melted butter.
“Oh… wow!” was the best my extensive vocabulary could muster up at the view from Cody’s front porch.
“You like it?”
“Like it?” I set my suitcase down on the porch after dragging it the short distance along a bush track to his shack on the beach. I breathed in the fresh salt air and looked out to sea, and for a moment I thought I saw a sea turtle come up for air before disappearing once more. “Cody, this is a goddamn postcard. You didn’t tell me you lived in the most perfect place on earth.”
“Don’t get too excited. You haven’t experiencedallthere is to experience yet.”
“Are you kidding me? If this is a taste of what’s to come, then I can’t wait to experience it all.” I turned to him, feelingrejuvenated, recharged, ready for anything. As he jiggled a key in the lock of the front door, I laid my hand on his and stole a kiss. “Whatever adventure you have in store for me, whatever our next chapter holds, I think I’m ready for it. I’m ready to experience everything your island home has to offer.”
Unexpectedly, he grimaced somewhat knowingly.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying. You never lie. You’re too easygoing to lie. What’s the matter?”
He bit his bottom lip, his face now overcome with uncertainty. “Nothing’s the matter. It’s just that… you might want to brace yourself before I open this door.”
Suddenly his uncertainty becamemyuncertainty. “Oh my God, please don’t tell me there’s a cane toad waiting for us inside.”
He laughed uneasily. “A cane toad? No, they’re easy to handle. You just shoo them out of the way.”
My heart sank and my fears rose even more. “Oh Jesus, don’t tell me you have death adders hiding under the rugs! Oh God, I thought they hid in the sand, not underneath the furniture!”
“Haha!” Cody didn’t actually laugh, he just said “haha” with more anxiety than I’d ever heard in his usually carefree tone. “Actually, they’re not a problem either. To be honest, you can always sweep a snake out of your house with a broom.”
“Firstly, let’s be clear that I won’t be sweepinganysnakes out of the house. I’ll be up on your shoulders screaming like a banshee. Secondly… if there are no toads or snakes inside your house, what the hell am I bracing myself for?”
Cody sucked in a breath. “What can I say… it’s complicated.”
A sickening feeling overcame me. “Now you’re really making me nervous. You’re not keeping any secrets from me, are you?You’re not going to open this door to reveal some jealous, horrible boyfriend I don’t know about… are you?”
“Boyfriend? Not exactly. Horrible and jealous?” He bit his bottom lip, then answered the question by pushing the door open.
Before I even had a chance to step inside, a frying pan came flying out the door at me.
Cody yanked me out of the way just in time as the pan clanged across the porch and slid into the sand.
It was followed by a barrage of abuse like nothing I’d ever heard before. A shrill voice screeching, “Where the fuck have you been, you scummy, cheating, lying bastard?Squark!Once again you fuck off without so much as a goodbye kiss and off you go, gallivanting around the world while I’m left here to pick up the pieces of my broken heart.Squark!And who’s this you’ve brought back with you? Some filthy stinking slut you picked up on your travels? If that rancid whore thinks he’s setting foot in my house, tell him he’s dreamin’! Now fuck off, the both of you!Squark!”
As a butcher’s knife came flying out the door, I jumped back and stared in wide-eyed terror at Cody. “Who the fuck is that?”
“It’s okay, he’ll calm down in a minute. Or ten.”
“If he doesn’t kill us first! Should we call the police?”
Cody shook his head. “No point. Besides, the cop shop’s only open nine till noon, Mondays and Wednesdays.”
