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“Forfuckssake,” I muttered under my breath as I whipped my head forward and tugged on his hand, propelling us onward again. I desperately hoped the noise from the passing boats had covered my muttering. He was too much for my brain. And for my body.
“I’m going to take inspiration from that boat and speed this along,” I stated a few moments later before dropping his hand and placing both of mine on my hips. I knew he wouldn’t interrupt and was maybe the only person who wouldn’t—Cody probably would have interjected every six words at the beginning and by now would be playing in the water or self-timing some sprints up and down the beach.
“When Mom and Grandma lived near here, Fortuna was going through a rebrand, and Mom inadvertently inspired the new icon artwork for the casino. Every time you see the goddess Fortuna depicted anywhere at the casino, the image is based on her. She’d been mad, or at least taken aback at first, but Grandmother convinced her it was an opportunity that she should embrace. With Grandmother’s encouragement, she approached management and landed herself a part-time gig. She was still only a teenager, but the laws were looser back then. So, she dressed up in full goddess garb and basically acted as a mascot for a paycheck.”
“A shrewd businesswoman,” Vinh commented.
“Yes, but shhhhh, I’m finally on a roll. I don’t want to lose my groove.” I looked at him sternly but couldn’t help the twitch of my lips.
His own twitched in answer as he breathed a dramatic breath, firmly closed his mouth, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“Huh. You really can follow directions,” I teased.
He raised his eyebrows, signaling that I was the one being disruptive now.
Forcing my gaze away, I willfully ignored the enticing flex of his jaw and monologued to the Gulf instead.
“Over time she—my mom—expanded the role to include special nights spinning the Big Wheel and full-on dramatized Fortuna stories with a group of local dancers acting as backup on stage. She started to make decent money pretty quickly. Between the Lady Luck stints, she kept performing locally and doing small tours with her ballet troupe. That brings us back to the beginning of my story, which is really the end of it, when she met my dad. A red-haired second-generation Irishman who said she was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him.”
My mind blanked at the concrete idea of my dad before I mentally severed the line of thought. Copying Vinh, I took a dramatic breath and stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Anyway, I’m hungry again.”
I met his eyes briefly, and seeing the flash of concern there, cut that off too by giving him my back and power walking back to the sidewalk.
Vinh’s startled laughter followed me the entire way.
23
BREE
Vinh hadn’t invited me to the sock hop, but he did claim a spot on my dance card by inviting me to come to his family’s restaurant the next day for breakfast.
“Since that’s our thing now,” he’d said.
Our thing.
I wished I could make my mind trust that enough for it to let my body swoon like it had wanted to.
Either way, it’d thrown me enough that I hadn’t properly responded, instead diverting all of my energy to not giggling like a thirteen-year-old. He’d also offered to pick me up, but after I imagined standing on the sidewalk waiting for Vinh to pick me up and take me to breakfast like a date date, it was too much, so I told him I had it covered.
Regardless… I was nervous.
Surprise breakfast on the boat when I’d been too tired to feel nervous even if I wanted to was one thing. This was another. Especially when I realized that there would be other people there.
Yesterday when I’d told him my theory about Grandmother preferring the people in her life to have defined roles, I hadn’t really thought that the same applied to me. But here I was, sitting in Cody’s old pickup truck in the Fortuna parking deck, wondering how in the world I was meant to interact with people outside of the Fortuna ecosystem.
So maybe I…. Ahh, no. I could not start this day by wondering just exactly how similar I was to Barbara Ann Copeland. I pulled my magical possibly-a-religious-icon sweater tighter around my body before releasing the foot brake. Ready as I’d ever be, I cranked the truck and shifted into reverse, channeling my existential Grandmother-related anxieties into fun and exciting new anxieties about the day ahead.
Would his parents be there? Did he want me to meet them? I knew a little about his family—just a few tidbits that Liem had shared yesterday during the ride over to Vinh's houseboat. But I still couldn’t picture the people who’d reared and raised two such different humans.
I backed Cody’s truck out of the parking space, shifted into first gear, and made my way toward the twin bridges, trying a different mental tactic.
Gratitude.
I was thankful the trailer had protected me last night even as I browsed the internet for available rentals. And found none that were affordable or safe.
I was thankful to have easily found Mr. Dez yesterday and for his quick agreement to drive Cody’s truck to work this morning so that I could borrow it.
I was grateful that Mr. Dez had also given me peace of mind that I hadn’t known I needed by casually dropping into conversation that he’d just seen “Miss Barb” looking well and holding court at Cornucopia—Fortuna’s giant but somehow still elegant buffet restaurant.
