Betrayer, page 14
part #3 of The Shining Ones Series
“I’m getting tired of repeating myself.” Birdie’s voice was low, yet anything but calm. He was pissed. “There is nothing going on you need to know about. If you think I’m that type of guy, then you should’ve never shacked up with me to begin with.”
Inwardly, I groaned. Why did men always choose the wrong words? Was he trying to antagonize her? I dropped my arms and took another step farther into the room. “I’m not lying, Katie. There’s nothing going on between me and Birdie. I needed a place to crash last night after Adam and I broke up. That’s all.”
But apparently, that wasn’t all after all. Finally awake and alert, I glanced around the room to see open cardboard boxes sitting everywhere. When I looked closer, little things became noticeable: the lack of throw cushions and blanket on the couch, dishes stacked on the kitchen table, the disappearance of Katie’s cutesy fridge magnets with inspirational sayings like “When it rains, look for rainbows,” and all the other kitschy, Target-like crap that had overtaken Birdie’s apartment.
My mouth went dry, making it hard to swallow, but there was no way anyone could mistake what was going on in the apartment. Looking at Birdie didn’t help—I could see it so clearly in his body language. He rubbed his fingers across the back of his neck before tugging down on his shoulder. I watched in dismay as he dropped his hand in a gesture of defeat.
This was bad. I needed to be out of here.
“We talked about it while you were sleeping, and, um, we decided it was probably a good idea to, you know, like take a break.” His fumbling words didn’t inspire confidence, but Katie jumped in before I could even ask why.
An irate Katie turned toward Birdie, her hands on her hips. “We didn’t decide anything. You decided that we’re breaking up!” She took a menacing step toward him.
Birdie cowered for a fraction of a second, his shoulders hunched, before thinking better of it. He stood straight up and glowered at her. To my utter disbelief, he was going to stand his ground, his stance going from one of a penitent monk to a prize fighter. The thunder rolling across his features made me want to back out of the room. His voice, when he spoke, was hard and brittle.
“That’s right! I decided that I didn’t want to be in a relationship with you,” he fumed. “Why did it take Poesy telling me about fucking angels to find out the truth? Oh, that’s right, because I was in a relationship with a big fat liar!”
That stopped her dead in her tracks. Me, too, for that matter. They were just coming to that part of the argument? What had they been fighting about before, then? But I didn’t get a chance to ponder my own question because Katie’s attention was back on me, the tears forming in her eyes before I could even get two words out.
Katie threw her arms out wide, the hurt contorting her features into something ugly and frightening, but she didn’t move toward me. She backed up a step. “You told him? After you forbade me to say anything, you turned around and told him the truth? What the fuck is wrong with you?” She was practically screaming by now.
“I didn’t have a choice!” I blurted out, no longer a bystander in this fight and starting to get as agitated as she was. “Adam has a wife. A god damn wife, and I’m supposed to get dragged off to god knows what place in less than a week. I didn’t know what else to do. He’s my best friend, Katie! He deserved to know!”
She shook her head, her tears coming fast and furious now, her face going an unattractive shade of purplish red. “So you couldn’t have given me a heads-up? Said, ‘Hey, Katie. I’m thinking about telling Birdie, do you wanna be there so you can explain?’ No, you fucking didn’t think of me at all! Some fucking friend you are,” she choked out.
“No, you don’t get to blame her for this,” said Birdie, much more calmly then I was feeling right about then. He walked right up to her, something I wouldn’t have done in a million years, but walk up to her he did, his expression now almost regretful. “She wasn’t my god damn girlfriend. You were.”
Katie snorted, but his remark had taken the fight out of her. I could see it. He’d wounded her, reminding her of what she’d sacrificed to keep my secret. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she took a deep shuddering breath, adjusting her blue tank top, which had ridden up in our confrontation, and squared her shoulders like she’d just dropped a heavy knapsack to the floor.
Pushing her bangs out of her face, she looked right at him, her voice almost deadly quiet. “We never had a chance, you know. You know it, I know it, and now she’s going to know it, too.”
Alarmed, Birdie grabbed her arm, but she shook him off, the smile creeping up on her face vicious and cruel. “What? You don’t want her to know that you’re in love with her? Or that when you’ve fucked me, you’ve accidentally said her name? Too late, lover boy. ’Cause now she knows.”
Her vulgar words shocked me, rooted me to the spot. I opened my mouth to defend him, but no words came out. It wasn’t possible. Even with his recent concerns, he’d told me that he loved Katie. More than once. I searched out Birdie’s face, my eyes pleading with him to say something, anything to refute her claim, but he wouldn’t look at me. With flushed cheeks, he stared down at his bare feet and shoved his hands into the jean pockets.
“See?” She jabbed at me with a finger. “Fucks me thinking of you. How’s that for a load of bullshit?”
The awkward silence that ensued seemed to last a lifetime, but in actuality, it was likely seconds, the amount of time it took me to get angry. What she said didn’t matter. She was just being vindictive now. This was my fault and I was going to own it. “Don’t talk about him like that,” I warned her. “Be mad, be angry, be whatever the hell you need to be at me, but that below-the-belt crap, even if it is true, that just makes you a bitch. I’m sorry my fucked-up life screwed you, too, but I never set out to hurt you. And you were my friend, are my friend, but so is he. You’re not doing yourself any favors here. Go cool off somewhere else.”
“Yes, just go. I’ll pack your shit up. I…I just can’t do this right now,” said Birdie. His grimace spoke volumes, but to give him credit, he didn’t yell at her. His eyes settled on mine before he strode to the door and opened it wide, the door finally coming to rest as its knob touched the back wall.
Katie stared at us in disbelief before shaking her head, a stony look replacing her confused one. “You know what? You deserve her, Birdie, and when she smears your heart all over the pavement, I’m gonna enjoy it.” She snatched her purse off of Birdie’s recliner and stormed out the door, slamming it so hard that my teeth clenched.
I stood there in silent shock, trying to figure out what to say. My heart was still hammering in my chest from the confrontation, and I’d been holding my breath for far too long. I exhaled in one long breath, trying to figure out where I should be looking because I was pretty sure Birdie didn’t want me looking at him, but everywhere I looked was Katie’s stuff. And I was still standing in my underwear. In the middle of the living room. Katie’s departure hadn’t made it any more comfortable for us.
Someone had to say something, and that someone was me. I said the first thing that came to my mind. “Your solution was to break up with her?” I asked in an incredulous voice. “You’re kidding, right? She is gonna totally hate us forever.”
Birdie paced into the kitchen and looked down into an open box. He picked up a plate and wrapped it in newspaper before gently setting it in the box. He picked up another plate and did the same thing again. He hadn’t said a word.
“Oh, come on, Birdie. Seriously? Why that?” I asked, and walked over to where he was packing away Katie’s dishes. I picked up a plate and examined it. It was plain white china with no adornment or border. A bit too modern for my taste. I wrapped it in newspaper and passed it to him.
“Because it was the right thing to do,” he replied with a heavy sigh.
“Right for who? Because it feels like a bomb just went off in your living room and everyone took shrapnel.” I tried to pass him another wrapped-up dish, but he didn’t take it.
“I know,” he said, his voice tight, his hands pressed on top of the box. “But whether or not you agree with me, it was the right thing to do. We’re leaving in days, Poe. Not months, not weeks, but days. She wasn’t going to understand, anyway.” He finally took the plate from me and placed it in the box. “Plus, it was never gonna work out anyhow.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” he said quietly.
The flush to my cheeks was impossible to stop, much like my rapid heartbeat, which felt like I’d just done a fifty-yard sprint, but my curiosity wouldn’t leave it alone. It was like picking at a scab—not a good idea in case it bled, but you couldn’t stop yourself anyhow. I took a deep breath and touched his hand.
“Is what she said true then?” I asked.
“Just drop it.” Birdie removed my hand from his and started placing more items in the box, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He’d just stuck a mug in with no wrapping, but I didn’t stop him.
“But we always tell each other the truth,” I insisted.
Birdie grunted as he picked up the box and set it on the kitchen counter, closing it shut before running the tape gun across its top. The zipping sound of the packing tape being forcefully drawn across the box was too loud in the otherwise silent kitchen.
Birdie dropped the tape gun on the counter with a clank and turned toward me, his blue eyes assessing me, for what I wasn’t sure. He crossed his arms. “Yeah, but I don’t wanna talk about it, and you don’t wanna hear it, so can we just leave it alone? Please.”
“Well, maybe I wanna hear it,” I blurted out.
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, but then he shook his head. “No, we’re not doing this. Sometimes, Poe, you can’t have what you want. Even you.” He picked up the box from the counter and headed toward the apartment door, no doubt starting to load the van with Katie’s things.
But I still hadn’t moved. My words shocked me.
Where the hell had that come from?
12
In the end, Birdie got his way, and we didn’t talk further about Katie’s outburst. To be honest, it was probably for the best. As much as I wanted to get to the bottom of this once and for all, part of me wasn’t sure I was ready to hear the answer. Or how I’d feel about it now that things seemed fuzzy. Like looking at an out-of-focus photo. I could see the overall image, but I couldn’t make out the details, and that made me pause. The line between Birdie and me had always been so clearly defined, but why did that feel like it was changing? And why the hell wasn’t I more anxious about that?
Because you almost lost him to Katie Fitzpatrick, said the voice in my head.
Even if that was true, and part of me wanted to deny it, there was no hope in it. Beside the fact that we were going on the run just like Birdie pointed out, there was no future for love…with Birdie or anyone for that matter. Adam had marked me permanently, made me his whether I wanted to accept it or not.
Adam.
I missed him so much it made me nauseous. The intense look in his brown eyes, his quiet smile when I said something funny, his smoky desire when he towered over me, the feel of his hands on my body…the way he kissed me like nothing else mattered. The desire, the want of him, still ran white-hot, and I didn’t need the butterflies in my stomach to tell me so. But as much as my yearning pushed and prodded at me, my heart was locked shut. Because even if I could forgive him, and I wasn’t sure I could, he wasn’t mine anymore. He’d never been mine. And that truth was the only one that mattered.
“Um, earth calling Poesy.” Birdie snapped his fingers near my ear. “Are you in there?”
I glanced over at him from the passenger seat, and his profile soothed my damaged heart. The scruffy stubble, quirky grin, and untidy dark hair painted a perfect picture of him—the battered old army jacket only added to the effect. My Birdie. Carefree and beside me. It pulled my thoughts out of the dark place and into the light. There was something good in my life and he was stationed across from me driving a crapped-out minivan and listening to The Smiths. I smiled.
“What?” he asked, tilting his head and glancing sideways at me with a raised eyebrow before focusing his eyes back at the road.
“I’m just glad you’re with me is all,” I replied, with a heartfelt sigh.
“What’s the sigh for then?” he asked, curious.
“It’s a good sigh, not a bad one. I’m happy…I think.” I shrugged, even though I knew he couldn’t really see it. I reached down and lowered the volume on the stereo. “Even after this morning with Katie, I’m relieved we’re doing something. Moving forward. I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels since Arthur died.”
Birdie nodded his head, his voice more somber when he finally spoke. “I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet him, Poe. I think I would’ve liked him.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my fingers down my seat belt harness then glanced at him. “I think you would’ve, too. He reminded me of you. Even when you’re not around, there are constant reminders of you, you know.”
Birdie chuckled, one hand on the wheel while the other reached out to pat my jean-covered leg. His old jeans. Mine were still at Adam’s. “Is that a bad thing? I mean, I know I can be a pain in your ass.”
I squeezed his fingers then released them, but his hand stayed on my leg. I didn’t mind. “No, of course not. I’m just happy to have the real thing sitting across from me. I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing Daisy on my own. So thank you.”
The van was speeding down the road and onto Wilmington Island. We were getting close now, but that didn’t help my nerves about seeing her, or the knowledge that I would have to turn her over to someone else so soon, even if it was Haylee Jane. I squirmed around in my seat.
“What are you going to do about Haylee?” Birdie asked suddenly.
He moved the van over to the turn lane and brought it to a stop in front of a red light. He looked over at me once more, his eyes searching mine. “You know you’re gonna have to fix the situation, but you’re gonna have to be careful about how you do it. I know you think she’s all about Andre, but she’s all about you, too. Don’t be surprised if she tries to come with us, even if she doesn’t know about the rest.” The light turned green and Birdie stepped on the gas, accelerating the van smoothly around the turn.
“I know. I’d be just as worried and stressed if the shoe was on the other foot, but she can’t come, even if I wanted her to, which I don’t because I don’t want her to get hurt.” I gave him a look. “That aside, I need her here for Joe. I need her to watch over my dad.” I almost couldn’t get the last words out over the lump that had formed in my throat.
My dad.
“I know, Poe. I know it’s different now with him.”
“It is, and that makes this thing even harder.” I tried to give Birdie a smile but failed miserably.
“It’s going to work itself out, Poe, but let’s try to focus on Daisy for now.” He took a right into the parking lot for the vet’s office, the van shuddering to a stop as Birdie put it in park. The van groaned, then rattled when Birdie killed the ignition switch.
“Are you ready?” he asked, turning toward me before rubbing his hands down his jeans, his blue eyes cautious. His gentle smile didn’t hide the worry I could see etched in his face, worry for me and how I was going to react to seeing Daisy awake.
I took a deep breath. “Yep, as ready as I’m gonna be. You?”
“Yep, let’s do this.” He unfastened his seatbelt and it pulled back like a parachute rip cord, not quite choking him, but close enough. This van really was a death trap. He opened his door and trotted around to my side, opening the door and holding his hand out to me. “Come on, then.”
I got out of the van and we made our way into the vet’s. As it had before, the place smelled like disinfectant and dog hair, and it was no more comforting than last time, but at least Daisy would be awake, and that in itself was a miracle. She was my miracle dog.
I gripped Birdie’s hand hard, fingers bone white as the vet tech led us back to one of the quieter exam rooms. I’d seen people go into this room before, their faces rigid masks, trying desperately not to break down in front of strangers. I wondered if my face looked that way, too.
But that thought went out the door when I stepped beyond the door and saw Daisy lying on an extra-large dog bed, almost the size of a human twin mattress. Another vet tech restrained her from making too much movement, probably to keep her from disturbing the healing that was taking place under all the bandages. I clamped a hand over my mouth to hold back the sob that was wedged in my throat, my other hand tightening like a vice on Birdie’s. He wrapped his other arm around me and pulled me in tight, whispering words of comfort in my ear before releasing me and nudging me forward.
But Daisy had heard him. Even with the bandages covering her face and a plastic cone around her neck, she whined and wagged her tail, struggling to get up at the sound of his voice. I broke from Birdie’s embrace and scrambled over to her, dropping down on my hands and knees, tears streaming down my face, and I didn’t care. I didn’t care how many vet techs saw me bawling like a baby, or how many people in the waiting room heard my sobbing. All that mattered was Daisy.
The vet tech put an arm out, stopping me in my tracks. “Be careful, she’s still pretty beat up.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I said, wiping the back of my arm across my face, trying to dry my runny nose. I crept closer, quieter and calmer, but she’d picked up my scent, her tail thumping harder, her whining louder. “Hey, Daisy. How’s my baby? Shhh. It’s okay.”
The second vet tech mumbled something about the veterinarian being in shortly, and I caught Birdie nodding out of the corner of my eye, but that was all. I was too focused on Daisy, one hand resting on the ruff of her neck, the other trying to find somewhere to pet that wasn’t covered in bandages. I felt Birdie kneel down beside me, his thigh pressed up against mine, one arm around my waist, the other tentatively touching Daisy’s belly.
