Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
Haleigh tightened her scarf around her neck as she hurried down Forest Avenue. Thank god Pete had suggested they meet up for brunch, because brunch meant coffee, and it was cold enough out that Haleigh already needed something to thaw her insides after the five-minute walk from her apartment.
Up ahead, people bustled in and out of the small restaurant on the corner, their breaths white puffs against the frigid air. Hold the Bacon was a vegetarian diner that had opened a few weeks ago. Since Pete was vegan, it seemed like a good compromise: Haleigh could still get her eggs and buttermilk pancakes even if they had to be sans sausage.
Let someone try to say that she wasn’t giving this dating game 100 percent effort. Rarely did she venture beyond her and Stanton’s three favorite breakfast spots for the most important meal of the day.
It didn’t help that Pete wasn’t much of a texter, so she had no idea what to expect from him or this date. And he’d refused to fill out the questionnaire because he’d rather “explore these ele ments of their personalities together” (his words, not Haleigh’s). All she had was her mom’s insistence that he was a “nice boy.” And experience had taught Haleigh that that phrase could mean far too many things.
Hopefully her favorite straight-legged jeans, heeled booties, and striped tunic sweater screamed I am casual but confident. I care. But not too much.
Her teeth chattering, she hurried the last few steps toward the diner. Anything to get out of the arctic winter that had befallen Boston after the holidays.
There were a few wrought-iron bistro sets cluttering the sidewalk outside Hold the Bacon, and Haleigh was stunned to see someone occupying one. He obviously knew how cold it was, because he had a navy-blue knit hat pulled down low over his head, a matching scarf wound tightly around his neck, and oversized gray mittens covering his hands.
On his shoulder sat, of all things, a white bird with a bright yellow mohawk atop its head. It looked like it belonged in the tropics, and yet the creature seemed perfectly content as the wind sliced through its feathers. Its beady black eyes homed in on Haleigh like the bird knew her.
The man smiled as she passed by, then whispered to his pet.
A second later, Haleigh heard the bird caw something that sounded a little too much like her name.
She spun around.
“Hi, Haleigh.” This time it was impossible to deny that those words had come from the creature’s beak.
This was… different.
“Pete?” she asked hesitantly.
A smile crept its way out from under the guy’s scarf. “Hey.”
Haleigh perched at the edge of the seat across from him. Even with as little of her ass as possible on the metal, the cold leeched into her jeans, stinging her skin. “I think it might be a little too chilly for outdoor seating,” she joked. Her gaze drifted to the diner windows, where people cradled cups of steaming beverages, their skin flushed from the room’s heat. Haleigh had never longed to be somewhere more.
She rubbed her hands together, trying for the slightest friction beneath the yarn of her gloves.
“Oh yeah. Scooter and I were just waiting for you.” Pete pointed at the bird over his shoulder. “It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here.”
There was a phrase Haleigh hadn’t heard before. A loud laugh burst out of her mouth, followed by another when Scooter started squawking, “Witch’s tit. Witch’s tit.”
Pete shushed him, then suggested they head inside. Haleigh fought the urge to text Jack about this avian third wheel as she hurried in behind them. She was supposed to be giving this date a real try, and initiating a commiseration text chain five minutes into brunch would have the opposite effect.
But there was a bird. On her date. A bird. This was new even for her.
A petite redhead greeted them at the door. Haleigh watched her eyes widen as she took in Scooter. “Um…”
“He’s my emotional support cockatoo,” Pete explained. From his pocket, he produced a set of stapled paperwork.
“Emotional support,” the bird echoed.
“When I called yesterday, I was told that Hold the Bacon welcomed all service animals.”
The woman nodded. “We absolutely do, sir.” Her gaze remained stuck on the cockatoo. “It’s just—”
“I think most people haven’t seen a therapy bird,” Haleigh piped in. Back in high school, when Jack’s anxiety was making it hard for him to leave the house, she’d helped him research service animals. She definitely didn’t remember any birds in her Google searches. She couldn’t imagine that Pete hadn’t encountered issues with Scooter before.
The poor hostess looked shell-shocked, and the customers sitting closest to the entrance were starting to stare. It was time to get to a table before they became more of a spectacle.
“That’s true. Scooter is unique in that regard.” Pete’s head bobbed sincerely. “I promise he’s quite well-behaved.”
“Well-behaved,” Scooter honked out. “Well-behaved.” He took a little jump on Pete’s shoulder as if to prove it.
Haleigh seriously doubted him. That bird had mayhem in his eyes.
Pete unfolded the paper. “I have a doctor’s note here—”
“No need, sir.” The hostess waved him off. “I was just surprised. I’m sorry for that. Please follow me.”
The owner had packed as many small tables and booths into this place as possible, and Haleigh grumbled to herself as she rose up on her tiptoes and sucked in her belly to sneak by. No one ever considered different body shapes when they designed the layout of spaces. Sometimes she wondered if she should have gone into interior design or engineering or something to help fix that, but the geometry involved in both made her brain want to melt.
The hostess led them to a blessedly isolated booth, where Pete (and Scooter) were able to sit with their backs to the wall.
Each table had its own little jukebox, and as soon as they settled in, Pete started flipping through the songs. “Scooter loves to dance,” he explained. He unraveled his scarf and shed his hat as he perused the options, finally landing on a hip-hop song Haleigh hadn’t heard since her last junior high formal.
Scooter, though, seemed to be in his element. He bopped and swayed his head to the beat, swooping his beak in each direction when the song mentioned the window and walls, as if he actually knew where they were.
Haleigh couldn’t help but laugh. The bird was kind of endearing, and now that he’d shrugged out of his winter gear, she could see that Pete was cute, with a mop of red hair and a round, boyish face. His blue eyes crinkled with laugh lines as Scooter bounced, giving in to the beat as much as any bird could.
Once the song ended, Pete clicked off the volume. “We can sto—” Scooter nipped his earlobe, cutting off his words. With a grunt, he shooed the bird farther down his shoulder, holding his hand between his head and his cockatoo like a shield. “Sorry. Once he gets dancing, he doesn’t like to stop.”
“Dancing queens never do.” Haleigh flipped open her menu. “So how did you end up with Scooter?”
“Scooter,” the bird squawked.
“I’m allergic to fur, so the usual suspects were out.”
Haleigh couldn’t imagine not being able to hang out with dogs. What a tragedy.
“Suspects. Suspects.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You’re a chatty one, huh?” she asked the cockatoo. Another first. Having a full-on conversation with a bird. Probably more than she’d said to Pete at this point.
“Chatty Scooter. Chatty Scooter.”
Pete patted Scooter’s mohawk of feathers. “Sorry. He’s not usually like this. I think he’s overstimulated.”
Over the next few minutes, Scooter proceeded to do many things that, according to Pete, weren’t usually like him.
It started with him plucking the pen from the waitress’s hand when she came over to take their order and refusing to return it. Haleigh had to lend the woman one of her own so they could actually get some food.
Then the bird yelled “fire” as a fire engine raced by outside, and half the restaurant had jumped to their feet. A small child bumped into Haleigh’s arm, sloshing coffee over her hand as the girl ran for her mother.
Resting her cold glass of water against her burning knuckles, Haleigh wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. This was by far the weirdest date she’d ever been on, and she had no idea how Pete was staying so calm. His bird was a menace, and yet he kept telling Scooter what a good boy he was.
Haleigh cleared her throat. “So what—”
Scooter let out a honk.
She waited until he was done, then tried again. “Landscaping must b—”
The bird’s honk was louder this time. And endless. The line cooks on the opposite side of the restaurant were staring at them.
Haleigh pressed her mouth flat and stared at Pete. His cheeks had gotten a little redder, but otherwise he barely reacted to Scooter, except to run a finger down his feathers.
What was with this guy?
“Have you—”
Hoonnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkkk.
It took every ounce of self-control Haleigh possessed not to scream back. Right into that bird’s knobby little face.
Thank god their food arrived at that exact moment.
Though she’d been dying for pancakes and eggs, Haleigh had decided to only order a bagel with cream cheese— easy to eat fast, or transport if this bird got further out of control.
“Do you have any pets?” Pete asked. He gingerly stirred cinnamon and sugar into his oatmeal, his glance cutting to Scooter every time the bird shifted.
The cockatoo’s beady eyes tracked Haleigh’s movements like he was a hawk and she was a mouse. She slid closer to the end of the bench. If this bird bit her, she was disqualifying her mother from the date-pocalypse.
“Not right now, but I walk dogs for extra cash.” She slathered cream cheese across her bagel. “But once I get my own place, I want at least two of my own pups.”
“Dog-walking would make me so nervous. What if you lost someone’s dog? Or it turned on you and attacked?”
Pete should probably be more worried about his emotional support cockatoo mauling him for switching off the music too soon than imaginary dogs.
“I’ve been doing this for almost three years, and it hasn’t happened yet.” She made her voice cheerful. “I guess all jobs have some risks. I’d be afraid to run over my foot with a lawnmower or fall in a wood chipper if I was a landscaper.”
Two could play the worst-case scenario game.
Also, Haleigh really needed to stop watching horror movies. She was pretty sure fewer people died by wood chipper than those films made you think.
Pete laughed, and Scooter bit his ear again. He hissed something softly at the bird before turning back to Haleigh. “I do the administrative work, so the wood chipper and I don’t spend too much time together.”
“Paper cuts, then.” Haleigh shook her head. “Those can be gnarly. And staplers. Plastic demons that shoot metal.”
Pete laughed again.
Haleigh reached for her bagel to take another bite. This was almost… nice. She didn’t feel any kind of spark with Pete, but she wasn’t having a horrible time now that Scooter had stopped auditioning to be a censor for cable TV.
The bird must have sensed her relaxing, because out of nowhere, he leapt from Pete’s shoulder and landed on the table in front of Haleigh.
Honking out, “Witch’s tits,” he snatched her bagel and took off, flying so high into the restaurant that his white feathers skimmed the rafters.
Haleigh entirely forgotten, Pete launched himself from the booth. She watched his small frame bumping into tables and chairs as he frantically chased after his cockatoo.