Chapter 4
Alyssa
The Birdhouse felt awfully nostalgic for a place I’d never actually been—I’d seen it in the background of some of Daniela’s pictures, and squeezing in through the doorframe and into a room with the big carved wood bar I’d seen in all the pictures, I was getting excited enough to forget how tired I was.
It was a beautiful space with wood paneling and furniture that made it feel a little like it was the inside of a handmade birdhouse, especially with the big windows at the back that were crowded with foliage from the trees down the hill.
It smelled like cedar and botanicals, with artwork of all different styles—and all different skill levels—crowded up on the walls and propped up on the tables, and it was lively even before people called out to Daniela.
It picked up into an excited chatter as Daniela led me in, sticking close to my side as a group of people rushed to meet us at the entrance, a woman with a midnight-purple bob cut at the front squeezing Daniela in a hug.
“So you’re not dead!” she said. “I would never have known.”
“I have a job, Abby!” Daniela laughed, patting her on the back. “You’ll live if I’m not on call literally twenty-four seven. I was just here on Monday.”
“That’s plenty of time for you to have died!” Abby said, stepping back with her hands on her hips. Another woman smiled at me, a little older than the others, maybe late forties, wearing a sleek jacket and slacks that must have been tailored with how well they fit.
“You must be Alyssa, then,” she said.
“Yeah, you must be, then,” Abby said, turning to me with an eyebrow waggle before she looked back at Daniela. “You didn’t tell me she was this cute.”
Daniela sighed. “Give her, like, twelve hours before you try to hit on her. My god.”
“It’s true, though,” I said, folding my arms. “I told Daniela she wasn’t allowed to tell anybody how cute I am. I just didn’t want people fighting over me.”
Abby snorted, and she broke out into a big grin. “You’re so responsible,” she said. “Practically a saint. I’m Abby, by the way.”
“This is Abby,” Daniela said, gesturing to her, and then the older woman with, “And this is Charlie. The pouty serious face with her is Linda.”
“Oh, Charlie and Linda,” I laughed, lighting up. “Oh, god, Daniela’s talked about you two all the time… especially the part about going to your dinner parties until Linda served shrimp.”
Charlie laughed, and Daniela reddened, clapping a hand over her face. “Alyssa!” she said. “Oh my god, we’re leading with that?”
Linda scowled a little, but she still laughed, her dark eyebrows quirking as she did. “Daniela spends how much time talking about my cooking skills?”
Charlie put a hand on her back. “Daniela just has high standards, dear. Don’t take it personally.”
I’d heard plenty about the two of them—Charlie a queer advocacy lawyer and Linda the administrator at the local community college, both of them bonding over their love of spreadsheets and everything being extremely detail-oriented.
Charlie was a decent amount older—I think they were forty-eight and thirty-four—but nobody had been surprised to see the two of them get together.
Nor for how quickly they moved in together.
Nor for how organized and well-planned their move-in was.
Charlie had a confident, dignified energy, with short blonde hair, while Linda was a little on the short side, long dark hair tied into a practical ponytail, visibly more of the outdoorsy between the two of them with her sturdy forest-green jacket and boots.
I’d heard the gossip about them from the day they first met, following their relationship secondhand as they fell in love and moved in together, and getting to meet them now felt as surreal as meeting Daniela had.
Linda put out her hand for me. “Linda. Nice to meet you. Welcome to Paxton Ridge.”
I shook her hand—a little formal, but she clearly liked it. “Thanks so much for sending out the welcoming party. I really appreciate you all receiving a refugee.”
“Refugee is a strong word,” Abby said, “which sounds like you need a strong drink. It’s on the house. To welcome you.”
“I’m, like, still a little shaky from almost hitting a tree with my car, so yeah, actually, that sounds great. Maybe like a rum and Coke.”
Charlie’s eyes went wide. “You almost hit a tree?”
Daniela waved them off. “Okay, let’s stop crowding the entryway and sit down. Alyssa’s tired!”
Abby ordered a drink for me, and Linda and Charlie walked me to the group sitting around the couches and tables by the fireplace that was stocked full of tacky little hand-carved wooden decorations, most of them with rainbow colors, glitter, pride flags.
I found myself paying more attention than I expected, taking in all the little touches, just how…
normal it was to have a queer space. I’d always been self-conscious about my orientation, and even when I did tell my boyfriend…
my ex-boyfriend about it, I ended up saying I was bisexual instead of that I was pansexual.
Just because pansexual felt… unserious. Now that I was here, it felt silly to soften any of it.
I sat with the group and got whisked around in a whirlwind of introductions—Drew, the community event organizer at the Birdhouse and the pivot the whole community seemed to revolve around most days, was here and insisted on a hug, and he was definitely a hugger, squeezing me for a minute before he stepped back and gushed about how nice it was to meet Daniela’s friend.
From the same reactions I was getting from all the other people there, it seemed like Daniela had been talking about me from the moment I’d said maybe about coming to stay with her in Paxton Ridge.
Nayla, who was a bit more serious and surly, sitting in the corner and greeting me with a cursory nod and a hey, and Kaitlyn, Skye, and Matt—my head was spinning with names and greetings by the time Daniela got back to join the group with her own drink in hand, Abby with one for her and one for me.
Still, as much as it might have been a little overwhelming, it was a fun group where nobody made a secret of the fact that I was welcome.
Daniela must have told them I was touchy about the circumstances of why I was here, because nobody mentioned anything about the breakup or about Sawyer, or asked about how long I would be here, and as I had my drink and worked to keep up with the dozen conversations happening all at once, I found myself settling in, the heavy thoughts at the back of my mind floating away.
I was feeling lighter and freer by the time I went back to the bar, and Linda came with me—just like Daniela had told me about, she mostly just suffered from a case of RBF and was actually a lot sweeter than her permanent scowl implied, just a little serious.
I stopped when she signed something at the bartender and he responded without a word, getting a bottle of wine from the cooler, and I looked at her and lowered my voice awkwardly.
“I’m not supposed to be ordering in sign language, am I?”
She laughed. “Kevin can hear. It’s just Cat’s influence.”
“Cat?”
Her expression tightened, and she tapped her card idly on the bar top. “Friend of ours.”
“Oh.” I needed to drop it. I couldn’t give into curiosity. “You don’t sound super friendly about her.” Dammit, I didn’t drop it. Linda shrugged.
“There was a big fight recently over some stupid things that didn’t need to be a big fight. Cat kind of stopped talking to anybody after that.”
Oh, god. Was everybody walking out over big fights right now? I should have been more tactful, but I’d never been good at keeping thoughts on the inside. “Is that the same fight that Jade was in?”
She gave me a quick look. “You know about Jade?”
“She’s, uh, the one who helped me when I almost hit the tree.”
She pursed her lips, turning back to Kevin behind the bar to pay for her wine, and she waited until she’d swirled it and taken a sip before she said, “Jade and Cat are friends. I think Jade’s mad about whatever it was, too, so she’s also stopped talking to people.”
“That sucks,” I said. “Do you know what people were fighting over?”
“Community organizing stuff. Like I said, things nobody needed to be arguing over. Cat’s sweet, but she doesn’t know when to let something go. She didn’t like something Drew was doing, and for some reason she and Jade decided to make a big, public ordeal out of it.”
I looked down. “Sorry that happened… it must suck being in the middle of that, feeling like you have to take sides.”
She shrugged harder this time, clearly frustrated. I needed to stop running my mouth. “It’s whatever. It’ll blow over at some point.” She pushed off from the bar, raising her glass to me. “Not something you need to worry about as a newbie.”
She headed back up towards the others, and I ordered my drink, leaning against the bar with my thoughts wandering as the bartender started on mine.
He was just about finishing it up when the door jingled behind me, and I glanced back mostly to see if it was a face I recognized from any of Daniela’s photos coming into the building, and I got a nervous lump in my throat at the sight.
A face I recognized was underselling it.
Jade, dressed a little nicer than she had been before, with a chunky sweater and her hair down, still had quite a mark on her cheek. She came into the building carrying a brown paper bag, and she stopped at the sight of me, both of us freezing up at the other.
“Oh—” I started, and she raised an eyebrow.
“They throw a party to welcome you, and they abandon you in the corner for it?”
“I was just ordering a drink,” I said, just as the bartender put my drink down. I held it up, like she wouldn’t have believed me otherwise. “See? Drink.” Why did I say that? Jesus.
She stared at me for a second before one corner of her mouth tugged in a smile. “Well, I can’t argue with the evidence,” she said.
“Yeah…” I cleared my throat, putting on a smile. “Good to see you. Um…”
“Don’t bother,” she sighed, a hand to her forehead, and I winced. “Judging from that look, I take it you’ve heard a thing or two about the dynamics. I’m not going to mess up your welcome party.”
“No, it’s fine. Really,” I said. “I don’t have issues with anyone or anything. I mean, you helped me out a ton earlier, I think you’re a good person.” Oh, god, I was talking too much again. “I’d be happy to have you here. I mean, we can be friends.”
She furrowed her brow. “I didn’t ask to be.”
Oh, Jesus. How presumptuous was I? I felt like throwing up, my face hot. Why would she want to be friends with me? I was loud and annoying. Didn’t know how to stop talking. That was one thing Sawyer had gotten right about me. “Sorry,” I managed to say. “I’m just… sorry. I’ll get out of your way.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, and she said. “No, it’s… forget it. I just came to say hi. But I brought you something.”
“You brought me something,” I repeated. “It’s not a tree, I hope.”
She quirked a smile again. Did she think I was funny or exasperating? She held up the bag. “From a friend,” she said. “One who’s not making it today, but she wanted to welcome you.”
“Oh… thank you,” I said quietly, taking the bag. She smiled, a genuine one this time.
“I think you’d like Cat. I left her contact in there. She doesn’t hang out at the Birdhouse anymore, but she’d probably love to chat.”
“Oh—Cat,” I said, my ears burning with awareness. I should… probably have kept it to myself the details I’d heard about Cat. “Linda just mentioned her as the reason she knows sign language. Is she, um…”
Jade arched an eyebrow, studying me for a second—trying to figure out what else Linda had said, probably—before she relaxed. “She’s good at lipreading. Don’t worry. But if you don’t know any signs, you might want to have your phone ready to write anything she can’t follow.”
“Oh. All right. Yeah, that’s cool.” I took the bag, standing up taller. “Thanks, Jade.”
The bartender leaned on the bar next to me, giving Jade a polite smile. “Hey, Jade,” he said. “Been a second. Giving the new girl one of your candles?”
“Candles?” I blurted the word. Something felt hot in my face. That didn’t mean—
Jade rolled her eyes, but she reached into her jacket and pulled out a glass jar with a deep-green candle.
It smelled like pine and cedar and sweet cinnamon, just like I’d smelled on Jade before.
Oh, Jesus. Now things were making sense.
“You can just ask directly, Kev,” she said, setting the candle down on the bar top. “Here you go. Same kind as last time.”
“I was genuinely asking,” he laughed, taking the candle. “But I’m not saying no. Thanks. Can I get you something?”
“I’m all good. Just going to be seen. Something to pass along to Skye too. See you around.” She paused, giving me a loaded look. “You too, Alyssa.”
I got a shudder when she said it—the intensity of her gaze on mine, hazel eyes that gleamed so fiercely it made me feel nervous and shy. She was gorgeous. I guess I could see why Daniela had been crushing on her.
Not that I was going to crush on her. Especially not after I’d ticked her off and she talked about being friends like it was as appealing as reaching into sewage.
Ugh. Maybe Sawyer was right about me. “See you, Jade,” I said, and I slumped against the bar as she headed up to check in with the others.