Mrs. Calloway nods her head in agreement. “It upsets me I never questioned why she was with them, why she was with Porter, when I knew that wasn’t the type of person my daughter would fall in love with.”
I can tell she’s angry at herself. “I think we both might have a few regrets that involve Eva, and the past,” I reply, making it known that I too have my own.
She looks at me and smirks a little. “You’re an old soul, Bodhi. I like that.” She then raises her coffee up in my direction. “No more regrets?”
I pick up my mug and lift it towards hers. “No more regrets.”
She stands and walks over to me. “Will it embarrass Eva if I give you a hug while in my pelican pajamas?”
I laugh a good laugh. “We don’t have to tell her.”
Mrs. Calloway gives me a long hug and a couple pats on my back. It’s motherly and it makes me miss my mom. It makes me miss her hugs. It makes me miss everything about her.
“I miss your mom,” she says, taking the words right from my mind.
I might hug her a little tighter as I whisper back, “I miss her too.”
This moment right here, this quick, small moment I shared with Eva’s mom, means more to me than she will ever understand.
“Well,” she sighs, wiping her eyes with her fingers, “time to wake the boys. The alarm company will show up at some point this morning. Will you tell Eva I went home with them?”
“Sure thing.”
She goes to walk out, but spins back around. “Eva, she really likes coffee.” She points to the coffeepot. “If you bring her some—”
“Extra hot with a splash of cream. Right?” I interrupt her.
She laughs. “Of course you already know this. Doesn’t surprise me. See you at the house, Bodhi.”
She leaves down the hall and I turn to get some coffee for Eva before heading back to the bedroom. Super hot with a splash of cream. I’ve known this since we were thirteen and she peer pressured me into drinking coffee with her when we stopped for donuts one Saturday. I hated coffee until Eva. Now I drink it every morning or my day doesn’t seem to function in the right way.
I balance the two mugs as I walk back down the hall and push the door open with my foot. Eva’s still sound asleep, still looking beautiful, like anything would have changed in the few minutes I was gone. I quietly place her coffee on the table next to the bed and go over to the window. I open it a little to see if the morning sounds are any different from the nighttime ones. Will I ever learn to like the noises of the Halifax? I hear some birds and the motors of a few boats, but other than that it’s quiet. Too quiet. A few minutes pass before Eva starts to stir. I turn to watch as she wakes up.
She first rolls over to her stomach. She brings her arm out from under her body and starts feeling around next to her, for me I assume. I stifle a laugh, but it makes my heart flutter at the same time. I see her eyes open, and I stand there quietly as she spots the coffee mug. I can still see the steam rising from the top as a smile forms on her face. She closes her eyes again.
“Bodhi Bishop,” she mumbles into her pillow. “Did you bring me coffee in bed?” She stretches her arms out and flips over, sitting up and spotting me by the window.
“Yes, I did.”
She leans her back up against the headboard and lets out a dramatic sigh. “I think I love you.”
“You think?”
“I know I love you,” she smirks.
She motions with her index finger for me to join her, patting a spot on the bed. I walk over and sit as she leans in, grabbing her coffee at the same time. I could do this every single morning and never grow tired of it.
“Good morning,” she says to me, taking a huge sip from her mug. I have no idea how she doesn’t burn her tongue drinking it so hot all the time.
“Morning,” I reply, kissing her on her temple, then her cheek, then her neck. I want my lips on her body as often as possible. “Your mom told me to tell you she’s heading home with your brothers.”
“You saw my mom this morning?” she cringes. “Did that go okay?”
“It did,” I nod my head. “It went really well.”
She curiously looks up at me. “Yeah?”
“Yep. It did.”
She rests her cheek on my shoulder. “Good.”
“I’ve gotta help the guys out at Dolly’s today. It’s Wednesday, produce delivery day. Can I walk you home before I head there?”
She nods her head. “Produce delivery day?” she then grins.
“Every Wednesday,” I reply. “The guys would just argue the whole time if I wasn’t there to supervise. Nothing would get done.”
We sit in bed until our coffees are both gone, then Eva heads into the bathroom with her bag and gets dressed. She walks out moments later in a sky-blue surf dress, her hair in a messy bun, no makeup, barefoot, as natural as can be. Her beauty leaves me speechless. I can’t help but stare at her like the fool that I am.
“What?” she questions, looking around at herself.
I smile and walk over to her. “Nothing,” I reply, pulling her body into mine and lining her neck with kisses. “You’re just so beautiful, that’s all, and sometimes I can’t believe you’re standing right in front of me again. And that I get to kiss you now, and touch you, and do things with you I’ve been fantasizing about for years.”
She blushes. “If you keep talking like that, you’re going to be really late to meet the guys,” she smirks, pulling my head down for a kiss.
Making out with Eva in the morning is definitely how I always want to start my day, and although neither one of us wants to stop, eventually we’re walking hand in hand down the dock to her house.
“Looks like the alarm company is here,” she points out as her patio comes into view.
We instantly see a handful of guys in matching shirts, walking around the perimeter of her yard with boxes of equipment. Eva’s brothers are floating on giant flamingo inflatables in the pool, while her mom sits on the side in a chair, scrolling through her phone. She looks flustered and worried. I catch on right away that something’s bothering her. When she sees us, she jumps up from her seat.
“Mom?” Eva questions. She senses it too. “Everything okay?”
Mrs. Calloway looks between the both of us. I can tell she’s internally asking herself if she should bother us with whatever has happened since I last saw her in Calvin’s kitchen.
“Mom?” Eva says again, obviously irritated by the silence. “What’s going on?”
A loud sigh comes from Mrs. Calloway. “The alarm system. They told me it wasn’t broken, the wires, our phone line, it was intentionally cut.”
I’m the first to understand what this means. “What? Someone cut the wires to your phone line? Where your alarm was hooked up to?”
She nods. “We never use the home phone so I didn’t notice anything was even wrong until the backup battery died yesterday. They’re installing a wireless one now, so it won’t ever happen again—”
Eva waves her hands in the air. “Why would someone cut our phone wires?”
Mrs. Calloway shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. “I have no idea. The police are on their way so I can file a report. I tried calling your dad, but there’s no answer and he still hasn’t responded to any of my texts. I have no idea why someone would do this.”
“I do,” I speak up. “Isn’t it obvious? Whoever destroyed Mr. Calloway’s office yesterday didn’t want to be seen or heard. I doubt it was Mr. Channing, especially if you’ve caught him in your house before. You should tell the police about the break in to Mr. Calloway’s office too.”
“I was planning on it,” she agrees. “It’s just, there’s nothing to show them, it looks normal in there. What are they supposed to be looking at?”
“You should still tell them,” Eva says. “This is just too crazy.”
My mind races. “This new security system, is it the best one they’ve got?” I hate thinking of leaving Eva and her family in thei
r house, alone for the day, knowing someone did this.
A brief smile appears on Mrs. Calloway’s worried face. “Yes, top of the line. I made sure of that.”
I still don’t feel like I should leave. Eva senses my hesitation.
“The guys,” she reminds me. “They’re going to be waiting for you. You should go, Bodhi.”
“I can stay. They can work without me. I don’t want to leave—”
“No,” she interrupts me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “We’ll be fine. Right, Mom?”
Mrs. Calloway nods. “Police are on their way, security system is getting installed. We’ll be fine.”
“And if anything crazy happens,” Eva continues, “we’ll head back over to Calvin’s.”
I look between Eva and her mom. I still don’t want to leave. “You sure?” I ask both of them.
“Yes,” Eva gives me a little shove, while Mrs. Calloway nods again. “Don’t make Coop and Beck mad,” she tugs on my hand. “I don’t want them to be mad at you because of me.”
I lean in and give her a small kiss and whisper in her ear, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Then I leave, even though it’s the very last thing I want to do.
chapter twenty-one
Bodhi
A bout fifteen minutes later I’m pulling into Dolly’s. I’m only a few minutes late, but I already know the guys are going to give me shit for it. I walk to the side of Dolly’s where the produce truck parks, and thankfully, it’s not there yet. Coop and Beck are though, sitting on the railing next to the steps, discussing Kennedy Wallace. Beck dated her for six months, but they broke up when she moved to Tampa. He’s the only one of us to ever have a normal relationship with a girl, until now that is. Rumor has it, her family is moving back to Flagler soon.
“Of course you pick up where you left off,” I hear Coop telling him. “Has it even been a year?”
“Ten months,” Beck replies, kicking the pebbles on the ground. “Ten long months.”
“Go for it,” I say, announcing my arrival. They both look up. “For real, as soon as she gets back.”
“Wasn’t sure if you’d make it,” Coop responds.
“Wednesday?” I remind him, raising my hands up in the air. “Produce delivery day? Can’t miss produce day. In fact, I’ve never missed produce day. Beck? Have you ever missed produce day?”
He’s laughing as he shakes his head no.
“But you,” I point to Coop. “Remember Christmas break last year?”
“One time, you bastard. And I had the flu!”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I laugh. “You were hungover.”
He jumps down and smiles. “I was hungover because I spent the night trying to keep up with your drunk ass.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Not my fault you can’t hold your beer.”
Coop smirks. “Alright, you asshat, details, Eva. Let’s hear them.”
Beck rolls his eyes. “You need a girlfriend or something,” he says to Coop. “You are way too invested in other people’s relationships.”
“No girlfriend for me,” Coop declares. “I will not be tied down.”
I laugh. At seventeen, Coop has not dated once. Neither have I, until Eva, but I had my reasons. Coop though, he swears off relationships. He’s had plenty of unhealthy encounters and lots of random hookups, but nothing that has lasted more than a week, and even that was too long for him.
“Beck’s right,” I point out.
“You two shitheads, enough!” Coop throws his hands up at us. “I’m curious how the love story of Bodhi and Eva is playing out. Is that too much to wonder?”
“You planning on writing a romance novel or something?” Beck questions him.
“Maybe, and maybe if you’re nice to me, I’ll include your name on my thank you page,” he says to Beck. “So?” he turns to me. “Details?”
“Eva and I are good,” is all I say to him. If he thinks for a minute, I’m going to tell him I had my mouth all over her body last night … he definitely doesn’t know me as well as I thought he did.
He puts his hand to his forehead. “That’s it, man?” he cries out. “You gave us more details when you made out with Kennedy Wallace’s hot cousin visiting from Arkansas when we were fifteen. And if I recall, we’ve heard more details with every random girl—”
I put my index finger up in the air and stop him. “That’s the exact point right there. Eva isn’t someone’s hot cousin visiting from Arkansas that I won’t ever see again, or some random girl from a party. This is Eva, and I love her, bro. I love her, a lot, and I don’t think what we do together when we’re alone, needs to be discussed every morning with my best friends.”
Coop and Beck are both silent and staring at me. Beck jumps down from the railing after a few moments and walks over, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I respect that, sir. I respect that.”
I look over to Coop. He has a smug frown on his face, but he shakes his head and walks over to the two of us. “Can you at least tell us what it’s like to make out with her?” he asks. “After years of listening to you pine away for her, we deserve at least that.”
I smirk. “Magical.”
He pushes me hard. “Goddamn bastard, I knew you were going to say that.”
I laugh and tell them, “To be honest, it actually is magical. Every time I kiss her it’s like—”
“Enough!” Coop demands. “Enough! I’m sorry I asked. You’re making me gag.”
I laugh again and watch as an old red pickup truck slowly backs up into the delivery zone. It’s a normal pickup truck, aged for sure, and not the giant produce truck we’re used to.
“Maybe he’s turning around?” I suggest, while the three of us watch him hit the brakes.
No one ever comes to this side of Dolly’s unless you’re making a delivery. I stare at the truck, trying to figure out if the driver’s here for business, or if he’s just lost. There isn’t a back-license plate to see if he’s from the area, no weird bumper stickers declaring he’s a family guy or ones that show his opinions on recreational drugs or political views. I can’t even see who’s driving it unless I walk closer, which right now, I’m not going to do. Something about this seems weird. Like he’s going to abduct us, or rob us at gunpoint, or dump a body or something. The only thing I can see are palm trees dangling from the rearview mirror.
“Unloading only!” Beck shouts to the driver.
The driver’s window starts to roll down in slow motion and we watch as he turns to bring his head out into the open air. I catch a glimpse of a khaki-colored baseball cap, but just as his face almost comes into view, a loud horn blares behind us, causing us all to jump. The produce truck has arrived and the pickup truck is blocking his entrance. The pickup truck driver lifts his hand out the window, to let the produce driver know he sees him, and then he hits the gas and drives away, saying nothing to the three of us left standing there.
“Well, that was fucking weird,” Beck exclaims.
“No shit,” Coop agrees.
The produce truck backs up and the driver, Jack, who we have a love-hate relationship with after all these years, hops out. “Ready to get to work, ladies?”
It takes us a few hours to get everything unloaded and put in the right spot in Dolly’s kitchen and refrigerators. We’ve been doing this for so long, every Wednesday during the summer months and breaks from school, just the three of us, that we have a system in place. As ridiculous as it may sound, we work together as a team. It definitely takes longer when one of us isn’t here. When we’re finally done, Dolly makes some fish tacos and brings them to us as we sit out on the patio overlooking the beach.
She puts my plate on the table and pats me hard on the head, her dangling bracelets whacking me on my nose. “What the hell happened to your eye, Bodhi?”
“Fight with a surfboard.”
She looks at Coop and Beck, who both ignore her stare and immediately start eating. “You think I believe that?” she asks me.
&nb
sp; Dolly is like a grandma to me. She looks out for me just as much as she looks out for Beck, and Coop too. Lying to her is not recommended if you want to stay on her good side. Trust me, you want to stay on her good side.
“I don’t think you believe me, but that’s my story for now.”
“I think you three better stay out of trouble,” she points to us.
“Yes, ma’am,” I agree.
She keeps talking as she walks away backwards, “And you tell that girl of yours, if she can keep catching fish the way she does, I might make her part owner of Dolly’s.”
I laugh and dig right in. Dolly’s has some of the best fish tacos I’ve ever eaten, and I live on the beach, I eat fish tacos a lot. The three of us barely make a sound as we devour what’s in front of us.
“You gotta get back to Eva?” Coop asks me a little while later, pushing his empty plate to the end of the table.
“No …” I tell him.
I don’t tell him I’ve texted her three times, and that each time she’s responded that she’s fine and hanging out with her mom, my heart flips in my chest. I want to be with her so badly, I can feel myself being pulled towards her. I do tell them both about the phone line connected to their security system being cut though.
“No shit?” Beck asks.
“No shit.”
Coop takes a big drink from his coke and shakes his head. “Bad guys coming out to play,” he reminds us. “Did they file a police report?”
I nod my head.
“Who would do that?” questions Beck.
I drain my glass. “Whoever broke into her dad’s office yesterday is my guess.”
Coop shakes his head again. “I understand if you want to stay over on the Halifax until this shit gets figured out. I’ll cover for you.”
I lean back in my chair, staring at Coop. He looks sad, it’s rare for him to show serious emotions. Coop and I, we’ve grown up as brothers and have spent over the last decade pretty much relying on each other, and Beck when he came along. I can tell Coop’s struggling with my sudden daily absence, but he won’t say it to my face.
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