Birding with Benefits

Chapter 18

That was a goddamn kiss.

John slid the measuring tape down the pine board and drew a quick mark with his pencil before stowing it between his teeth. He pulled the orange handle of the chop saw down quickly, easily shearing off a four-inch piece of wood before sliding it toward the end of the table, where it piled up with others its size.

Or we make sure it’s all worked out, and kiss one more time.

He repeated the routine. Measure, mark, cut.

Violins swelled through his shop. Classical today. Not what he usually listened to while using power tools, but he’d hoped it would help calm his mind. That, and the steady rhythm of his work.

Measure, mark, cut.

A rush of cochineal.

He’d been nine when he discovered the thick patch of prickly pear cactus a short walk from his house. Santa Rita was mostly grassland country, but the desert was always eager to claim hot, sandy slopes. That’s where John had found the clusters of cochineal, tiny bugs that live and reproduce on the pads of prickly pear. Unlikely insects to end up in an Emily Dickinson poem, except for the precious store of bright red carminic acid in their bodies, making the perfect red dye, a color so precious that the Aztec emperor Montezuma himself had levied a tax on the stuff. Young John had settled for gathering the bugs up in a Tupperware container and taking them home, where he’d mashed them into a scarlet dye for his mother’s fancy dinner napkins.

She’d shrieked when she found them drying outside, and he’d confessed immediately.

You’re no fucking actor, John.

Measure, mark, cut.

He pushed another piece down the table, sending it careening into the dozens already grouped at the end.

How many pieces of wood would he have to cut to grind out the memory of Celeste’s mouth on his? To winnow himself back down to the uncomplicated state he’d been in that early morning at the park, before her earrings swung into his life?

At the rate he was going, he’d have to build a thousand bird feeders.

The feeders were the first items John had sold after starting as a woodworker. He’d begun small, making simple, boxy bird feeders to hang outside his house for the sparrows and finches and the occasional winter songbird. But as his skills grew, the feeders became more intricate. He used them to try new methods, both functional and experimental. After he brought a few down to his parents, he received a call from a childhood friend who ran a small store in their hometown, wanting to sell his birdhouses. From there he’d branched out to shops in Tucson but had resisted Jared’s attempts to set up an Etsy shop for him.

Bird feeders, bookshelves, an occasional long dining table—John had small but steady work, and was developing a reputation for his attention to detail.

But he was nowhere near having enough business to sustain himself long term. And even if he did, it wasn’t what he wanted. Yes, the worn bench in his woodshop was preferable to the creaking office chair at the offices for the Southern Arizona Land Conservancy. And there were significantly fewer spreadsheets. But drawing more of his income from woodworking would require hours upon hours inside, hunched over his worktable. He’d rather be outside, staring up at trees and clear blue skies.

But the path from here to there was still blurred. It was that first step that was always hardest for John to bring into focus, his mind preferring to sit in consideration, turning over every possibility. Often the world acted on him to make him move—like his mother’s diagnosis his first semester of grad school, or when Breena locked lips with the stupid genius. It wasn’t that he never wanted to move on his own, but that his pace didn’t seem to fit with the world around him. Somewhere there had to be a middle ground between the stagnancy Breena accused him of and the unending climb she created for herself.

Eventually he’d understood the truth about Breena and him—Breena saw him as a block of unfinished wood, like the ones scattered on the floor of his shop now. Full of potential but in need of crafting.

But no matter how much she had urged him to share more of himself out loud, or how many times she’d told him he could do so much more, he’d stayed mostly as he was. And in the end, no matter how many cuts she made, it wasn’t enough. For her, or maybe anyone.

John Maguire, master craftsman, birder extraordinaire.

And now the voices around him included Celeste’s. She buzzed with an energy that would make a hummingbird tired, thrown into his life and into the contest, brainstorming business names and putting him on Instagram.

Celeste wasn’t Breena, not by a long shot. Where Breena chose cynicism, Celeste chose hope. But both possessed an air of movement that could leave John disoriented, being women inclined to push while he sat still. But John didn’t feel disappointment from Celeste, at least not yet. Only faith, and excitement.

A faith that was as effortless to her as it was overwhelming to him. His hesitations about launching his own business—with no credentials, no professional experience, zero knowledge of social media—were simply obstacles to be run at headlong. She was competitive, yes, but he could tell she wanted to win this contest for him.

It’s not a big deal to admit there’s a certain… chemistry between us.

Measure, mark, cut.

Whatever was happening between them was way more than chemistry. It was biology—as ever-present as breath and skin. A basic need that made him forget everything but the shape of her ribs beneath his fingers, the hot exchange of sounds, her peppermint pulse as she leaned against a wall bursting with color.

I’m basically over the whole thing.

The hell she was. They’d agreed to move on after their “one more kiss,” and they’d each played their parts valiantly. She’d obviously tried to make herself unappealing at the park, dressed in a loose T-shirt without her signature earrings, but his hands had already memorized her shape, and his body had surged at the sight of her bare earlobe, ripe for the plucking.

Anything she was trying to hide was given away in that picture. The one he’d studied so many times since that, if his skills had gone beyond woodworking, he could have sketched in every last detail—the swirling knot on the tree behind them, the fluff of the dove on the branch, and Celeste’s open mouth, lush and perfect, just like it would be if she laid her lips against his neck.

He pulled a new ten-foot board from the floor and slapped it on the table.

Measure, mark, cut.

But even if Celeste wasn’t actually over it, it was clear she wanted to be. She was unequivocal when she chatted about the coming months, about adjusting to life at home without Morgan, living fully alone for the first time in her life.

When Celeste had opened up about her marriage, he’d been surprised to see her shrink, and he’d seen it again in the bar. Something Breena had said had hit its mark, despite Celeste’s insistence that it was water off her back. There were wounds there he guessed most people never spotted, and it wasn’t for him to ask Celeste to expose them if she wasn’t ready.

John’s hand froze on the saw handle. He’d rarely found a problem he couldn’t sort out in his woodshop. But damn, the memory of Celeste’s moan on his lips had him scrambled.

He flipped off the saw’s power switch and pushed open the door of the shop, welcoming the sun on his face and rolling his head on his shoulders as the birdsong around him filled his mind. He’d bought a small place on the edge of the city with just enough space around his house for a few native trees and shrubs. A worn wicker chair on the porch served as his personal coffee, reading, and birding spot, though now he felt too restless to sit. Instead, he listened, and tracked the birds—a group of house sparrows in the jojoba bush to his right, a Lucy’s warbler flitting through the branches of a mesquite, and a couple of screeching cactus wrens arguing in front of a cholla.

The sun was rising high in the sky, heating the desert floor. This afternoon they’d be making their final appearance for Celeste’s middle school crowd, going as a pair to the costume party.

That was why he’d woken with the sun and taken his coffee straight to his woodshop. He just needed to clear his head, so he could show up for Celeste and be what she needed. It was time to focus on the goals at hand—for Celeste, a new hobby and a fresh start to her personal life without harassment from her well-meaning coworkers. And for John, a strong—no, the strongest—showing in the contest, the last push toward what could be.

Nineteen more days, and his life would be back to normal. No more peppermint, no more scrambled brain, no more fantasies about that ponytail wrapped around his fingers.

John turned and reentered his shop. He still had a couple of hours before the party.

Measure, mark, cut.