Birding with Benefits

Chapter 16

“You know, when I was a kid, I actually gave the chaperones something to do at these things.” Maria crossed her arms over her chest and nodded at the near-empty floor of the middle school gym. Most of the students at the Spring Fling dance were huddled in groups along the walls, scrolling on their phones. “I lost track of how many times Mrs. Sanders had to remind Danny Lopez and me about the six-inch rule while we were dancing.”

Flaccid streamers hung from beige walls as a smattering of limp balloons bounced around on the ground—it wasn’t the most inspiring setting, but when Maria, just back from parental leave and overseeing the dance in her role as faculty advisor for the student council, had called Celeste in a pinch, she’d agreed to help chaperone.

“All the better,” Maria continued, stifling a yawn. She’d made it over the hump of her maternity leave, but Xavi wasn’t coming close to sleeping through the night, and even with the eager participation of her partner, Maria was rightfully exhausted. “This gives me more time to grill you about Mr. Birding. Layla will seriously not shut up about him after seeing him dirty-talking to you at the bowling alley.”

“I told you, there was no dirty talk. It was strictly about birds.” John’s very thorough boyfriend demonstration at the bowling alley had served its purpose. Now instead of telling Celeste about her cousin, Andrea just asked about John as she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

And her coworkers hadn’t seen the kiss at the bar. Or what had come after it.

“Oh my god.” Maria’s eyes bored into her. “You just went somewhere in your head and you better tell me where it was. Because I do not believe it was about birds.”

She’d kept her chatter about John to a minimum with Maria, preferring to keep the focus on her friend as she navigated motherhood and returned to work. And if that meant delaying Maria’s know-it-all response to some of the developments between Celeste and her birding partner, so much the better.

But when Maria’s brows rose—the right just a smidge higher than the left—as her lips fell into a straight line, Celeste knew she could only put her off for so long. Not just anyone could wrangle middle school math students, let alone make them genuinely interested. Maria was magic, and this look was just the tip of the iceberg. Even Celeste shook in her Converse when it was deployed.

“Celeste. Spill.”

She stepped closer to Maria, lowering her voice. “It’s nothing.” If she said it enough, maybe she’d believe it. “We just…” She continued after a long exhale. “We had that bird trivia thing the other night, and we won because of an Emily Dickinson question, which was so amazing because it’s this poem that—”

“Hon, I don’t care about Emily Dickinson. Tell me what you need to tell me.”

Celeste sighed and kicked an errant balloon. “We won, and I was excited, so… I kissed him.”

She closed her eyes tight, waiting for Maria’s onslaught, but her friend only hummed. “On the mouth?”

“On the stage.”

“Celeste.”

It had been worth a try. “Okay, yes, on the mouth.”

“With tongue?” Maria’s voice pitched up, drawing the attention of a passing group of seventh graders, most of whom were Celeste’s students. Maria cleared her throat conspicuously. “Young. With young… people there. Ms. Johanssen, at the party you had, were there young people there?”

Most of the students were talking in a tight circle, but Julio from pre-algebra watched Celeste and Maria none too subtly.

“Yes,” she mumbled, tipping her head toward Maria. “There were young people.”

Maria tapped her foot as she did another scan of the gym. “Very interesting. And what happened after?”

Here we go. Now that Maria had the scent, she’d drag it out of Celeste regardless, so she spilled. Or spilled as much as she could with Julio lingering nearby. “After that party, we tried out one more party. We thought maybe after, we’d be okay not… um… partying anymore.”

Maria coughed, then stalked to the group gathered nearby. “Students, dear ones.” She motioned to the empty dance floor. “This is a dance! Go dance. I know most of you are here because Coach Leonetti promised you extra PE credit, and I will tell him to forget about it if I don’t see you shaking it out there for at least three songs.”

The students gave a few muttered protests, but stuffed their phones back in their pockets and shuffled away.

“Thank God.” Maria returned to Celeste’s side, then leveled her with another killer look. “Are you telling me that you kissed John, with tongue, and then kissed him again to—” She shook her head. “To get it out of your system?” Celeste guessed Maria wished she were back home with spit-up on her shoulder at this point. At least Celeste made the postpartum phase seem a little easier. “That is not a thing, Celeste. That’s not how kissing works. At least not good kissing.”

Celeste held her palms up. “In my defense, I don’t have a lot of experience with people I’m not married to, so, you know, I don’t personally know that kissing someone out of your system doesn’t work.”

Maria sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, then. If this was an experiment, what are the results? Is it out of your system?”

“Yes, it is,” she said quickly. So quickly that Maria scoffed.

Maria wanted to know the results of the experiment? It had failed. Instead of being out of her system, John was overwhelming it. Memories of his fingers on her collarbone had kept her up half the night.

But Celeste was more than a bundle of sexual urges. She was a woman living on her own, protecting her sunshine from being lost in shadow. A system-destroying kiss didn’t change that. Couldn’t change it.

“Just hear me out.” Maria’s voice had gentled, and she reached for Celeste’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “John is nice. He is smart. He is good-looking. Apparently he has some weird talent with birdcalls that you find impressive. And he is such a good kisser that when you even think about it, your face goes to the faraway place. Is it possible you should consider giving this a chance?”

“That’s the point, Maria. He is all of those things, and I’m not looking for that. He’s all the things I would get all wound up in until I was lost. I’m just coming up for air after ten years of drowning, and I can’t go back under. That’s why I’m not doing relationships.”

“Ever? How long are you going to turn off that part of your life, Celeste?”

Were Maria and Morgan communicating secretly behind her back? Why was a fear of Celeste’s being “alone forever” suddenly everyone’s concern?

“I don’t know. As long as it takes. I have a lot of time to make up for.”

And something to prove, if only to herself. She’d admitted to John on her porch that she was angry more at herself than at anyone else, ashamed of the way she’d let herself get twisted up in her marriage, had let parts of herself shrink. If she’d seen that happen to Maria or Morgan, she’d have intervened. She owed herself the same care, didn’t she?

“Honestly,” Maria answered, “I get that. Relationships aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. And you know what you need. But be honest.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You’ve got to miss sex. Especially now that you went to a really good party with John.”

She’d missed sex a lot less before meeting John. Now the thought of it—the very specific, very thorough thought of it with him—was too close to the surface of her brain and body for her liking. But that was her problem to deal with, and they’d talked about her long enough. “It’s fine. I am fine, I swear. The real question is, do you miss sex?”

Unless anything had changed since her last set of texts on the subject, Maria and David hadn’t done the deed since Xavi was born.

Maria’s eyes narrowed, but she acquiesced. “I’m only letting you change the subject because I need help. And the answer is yes, but no, but— Oh hell, Celeste. I was recently cleared by the doc, but I can’t help but think my vagina is ruined.”

“It’s not ruined; those things bounce back like nobody’s business. But if you’re not into it, give yourself time.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t have time. My mom gets here from El Paso next month and she’s staying for six weeks.” From the tone of her voice, Maria could have said “a decade.” “I’m grateful for her help, but I… I can’t have sex with her in the house. So it’s now or never.”

“Hon, you’re thirty-five. You have a baby. Your mom knows that you—”

“I know she knows. But her knowing and her being in the house are different. You don’t know what it was like, Cel, growing up with those fucking crucifixes all over the wall.” Maria drew a hand through the air, evoking the scene. “Jesus’s eyes tracked me across that whole damn house. He hung over my bed. Telling my mom I was moving in with David and having a baby without being married was one thing, but I cannot orgasm with that woman in the house. I know. I’ve tried.”

“Understood. So let’s get this done.” It was time to plan. “What’s stopping you now? Are you afraid it’s going to hurt?”

“It’s not the fear of pain as much as…” Maria sighed, a rare look of vulnerability passing across her face. “I’m worried I’m not the same. That I’ve been rearranged, body and soul, and I’m not the same.”

There was a tremor in her voice, so Celeste hooked her hand through Maria’s elbow to tug her into a corner of the gym, nodding to another teacher to indicate that they needed a few minutes. Once they were tucked away, she ran both hands down Maria’s arms. “Talk to me.”

Maria looked past Celeste’s shoulder as she spoke quietly. “I’m middle-aged, Cel. I had a whole life before this, and now half of the conversations with my partner are about what color our kid’s poop is.” When she finally looked at Celeste, her deep brown eyes were wet. “David and I had a really good sex life before this. Like, really good.” Celeste had heard plenty of the stories. “What if that’s gone now?” Maria asked. “What if it’s one more thing that’s rearranged?”

Celeste knew all about rearranging. She’d rearranged herself in her marriage, then rearranged her family’s lives with the divorce. Even now, every morning was a meditation in putting her pieces in order, watching the messages on her mirror for a sign. Sometimes she envied her friend, having had a whole life before starting the deep dive into parenthood. Maybe if Celeste had waited longer to become a mother, she wouldn’t have lost herself so thoroughly in all the years that had come after.

Celeste couldn’t go back—and she wouldn’t, really, because all of that had given her Morgan—but she could help her friend. She could help her meet each stage with bravery and vulnerability, always holding on to who she was.

“Sweetheart.” She pulled one of Maria’s curls, watching it bounce back up toward her chin. “Your life has changed. You have changed. And all any of us can do is keep going forward. But you and David? You two are…” She kissed the tips of her fingers. “That’s going to change with a baby, but it doesn’t have to change for the worse. You guys can do this. You still feel the hots for him?”

Maria nodded and smiled. “Girl, he came home from a run yesterday and, damn. He looks so good sweaty.”

“And he still has the hots for you?”

Maria leaned her head conspiratorially. “Yesterday he said my little pajama shorts turned him on and he couldn’t wait to fuck me senseless. Whenever I’m ready, of course.”

Yep, her best friend had picked a winner. At least one of them would be having great sex soon. “Okay, then here’s the plan. Let this next phase of your relationship start. Go home tonight, have a glass of wine, light a candle, and let your man fuck you senseless. It might not be the best sex of your life, but it will be the first sex of this phase of your life, and that’s a big deal.”

Maria laughed into her hand, then arched an eyebrow at Celeste. “I don’t suppose you’ll take your own advice? About the—”

“No, and don’t even try. John and I are not going there.” Although Celeste wasn’t opposed to using her vibrator a couple of more times as she let her mind wander there. Strictly to get it out of her system.

“Fine,” Maria huffed. “But you’re still bringing him to my party, right?”

The infamous costume party for David’s birthday was just a few days away, and Maria was still moving toward it at full speed. “You’re sure you’re up for that? With the baby and your mom coming soon?”

“I’m not sure I’m up for it,” Maria answered. “But I’m sure I want to do it. It’s like I have to prove to myself I can still do some of the old stuff.” She bumped Celeste’s hip. “And you didn’t answer about John.”

Celeste rolled her eyes. “Yes, he’ll be there.”

“Did you tell him I requested spandex?”

That was the last thing she needed. Maybe she’d suggest he dress as a zombie, thoroughly covered in rags. “We haven’t planned our costumes yet, but there will be no spandex.”

They should plan their costumes. They should move on from that kiss, when his touch had been innocent but so damn precise she could still feel his fingers on her rib cage.

They were birding the following day, and it would be fine. Nothing like birds to get them back to business.

“Just hear me out about the spandex.” Maria’s playful voice was a blessed interruption to her thoughts.

She caught her friend with an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into her side. “You’re such a pain, and I missed you so much.”

Maria laid her head on Celeste’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around her waist. “The feeling is mutual.”