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My phone buzzed across the table, and I glanced down to see an incoming call from Mr. Dez. I flashed the screen at Vinh, and his brow furrowed, mine doing the same as I answered it.
“Hello? Is Grandmother okay?”
“Hey, Little Lady. No, everything is fine. I just happened to run into Miss Barb—hold on, let me walk a few feet away. The slots are loud right here.” The din of the casino faded. “All right, is that better?”
“I can hear you,” I assured.
“Good. I’ve been doing as you asked, not that it has been hard. She’s been playing almost nonstop since Saturday. Terry had to just about bribe her to go to her room the other night with a promise of several comps for Cornucopia. Anyway, she said she misplaced her phone and asked me to give you a call and tell you that she won’t make your appointment tonight.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“I’m so sorry to ask this, but can you put her on the phone?”
“Sure thing. Just a second.”
The sounds of the slots grew louder again, dread anchoring in my stomach. “What is it?” I asked after several seconds of silence.
“I don’t know. I can’t find her. She was just here. Umm, I’ll keep looking and will call you when I find her. She may have gone to the ladies’.”
“Thanks, Mr. Dez. I really owe you one.”
“None of that, kid.” He paused briefly, then added, “I know you’re the reason that Cody moved here, which means you’re the reason that I got another chance with him. I will always love and owe you for that. Beyond that, this casino owes you a hell of a lot more than I bet you know.”
I did not want to know, but the rest was sweet, and I’d have to remember to tell Cody about it later. His relationship with his dad wasn’t perfect, but it had gotten better over the years, even with Cody’s tendency to hold a grudge.
“Thank you, Mr. Dez.”
We hung up, and I stared out at the slight waves of the Gulf glistening in the midmorning sun before looking at Vinh.
“She canceled.”
Vinh tapped the fingers of his left hand on the tabletop, deep in thought. “What else?”
I quickly summarized the call, my gaze fixed on Vinh’s hand that never stopped tapping.
He noticed, stilling it before explaining. “Scales. The habit is a leftover from my physical therapy after the accident and the years of piano lessons Mom put me through.”
“I thought it seemed vaguely familiar. I did piano lessons in late elementary and middle school but haven’t touched a keyboard in years.”
We shared small smiles before carrying on with our breakfast, the conversation light from there.
The ominous feeling of the morning only grew stronger when we both received jarring weather alerts on our phones during the drive to Vinh’s parents’ house. The new forecast took the storm up a level, but the trajectory still didn’t show it making landfall here.
We pulled into Vinh’s parents’ driveway with the entirety of my earthly belongings in the back—all one bag of them—at the same time as Liem, who had met us at the dock parking lot before we left. After a bear hug and an extremely enthusiastic “Happy Birthday” to his brother, Liem had taken the keys from Cody’s truck and followed us back to his parents’ house, intending to move all his essentials today.
We worked tirelessly through the morning and afternoon, Liem and I both taking every opportunity to check in with Vinh to confirm and re-confirm that this was how he wanted to spend his birthday. He humored us at first, but apparently, we finally pushed him over the edge when he threatened to go spend the rest of the day “alone on his boat writing destructive code.” Liem and I didn’t know what that meant, but we both laughed as if he’d told a fantastic joke.
I apologized by pulling him into my new bedroom for a birthday make-out session that turned into a non-surprise blow job when Liem left for another load of his things, worried about the new projections of rain later in the evening.
Afterward, Vinh had laid me on my new queen-sized bed—the one he’d secretly ordered from a local store, arranging for Liem, who had also been ordered one, to be here to receive it this morning—and returned the favor. Twice.
The intimacy of the moment had temporarily curbed the dread that developed into more than a drop as the day progressed. We ordered pizzas from a local place for lunch and ate them in relative silence in the pre-furnished living room, with me and Vinh on the couch and Liem in the armchair. Vinh checked the radar on his phone throughout, looking grimmer each time he did until finally, after we’d all finished our pizzas, he made the call.
“I think I need to go and move the boat inland. The trajectory is getting moved closer and closer to here, and it keeps leveling up.”
“Can we help?” Liem asked, concern lacing his voice.
