Chapter Two
Birdie Sinclair was not made for reality television.
She was made for small things. For the paper-and-ink smell of her bookstore, for alphabetizing shelves by obscure categories no one else but her understood.
She was known for late-night potluck dinners with friends and early morning walks through Tanner Springs Park.
The woman was not made for ring lights, audition videos, or a producer somewhere in Los Angeles watching her sweat through a linen blouse while trying to look effortlessly lovable.
And yet, here she was, standing in the living room of her two-bedroom apartment in Portland’s Pearl District, wishing she was doing anything but this.
Her home, which was her sanctuary with its wide windows and chipped white frames looking out over brick warehouses converted into condos, a Persian rug worn thin, and a sofa so soft it practically swallowed whoever sat on it, had somehow become the location for her audition video for the highly rated dating show The Sapphic Match.
Birdie shifted uncomfortably on the wooden dining chair she’d dragged in front of the bookcase. The spines of her novels formed a colorful backdrop. On the floor, at her feet, sat a half-drunk mug of chamomile tea, cooled and forgotten.
“Okay,” her best friend Jade said from behind the camera. Well, technically, Jade’s cracked iPhone was what she was using to shoot the video. “Try to be… I don’t know… like sparkly or something.”
Birdie blinked into the borrowed ring light. “Sparkly?” She didn’t even know what that meant.
“Yes,” Jade replied, tossing her auburn hair back over her shoulder. “Make them fall in love with you. Remember, you’re competing with thousands of women. You can’t just sit there looking like you’re about to read a page from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.” She gestured vaguely.
“That’s not what I looked like. Okay, fine, you’re right.
That’s fair.” Birdie pushed her bangs out of her face.
Earlier this morning she’d tried styling them into something glamorous, but they were aggressively resisting.
A few strands faced the opposite way, and no matter what she did, she just couldn’t get them to obey.
“Leave your hair,” Jade instructed, shaking her head impatiently. “And smile. But not too big. Like in between. You know what I mean, right? Sensual. Be sensual.”
Birdie sat up straighter and smiled softly, yet enthusiastically, at the camera.
She ignored Jade’s wince as she said the words she had rehearsed a million times that morning.
“Hi, I’m Birdie Sinclair. I run a bookstore in Portland, which is definitely not a euphemism for being boring.
” She paused for dramatic effect, which got a thumbs up from Jade, and then continued.
“I’m twenty-nine years old and I believe in love.
Like, embarrassingly so. I know that makes me sound like someone who owns too many mugs with quotes about soulmates, but I promise I only own three. ”
Jade made frantic hand gestures behind the phone. They’d agreed on Birdie admitting to only two mugs, but that would be lying, wouldn’t it? It would be stretching the truth a little too far, considering she actually had seven mugs with romance quotes emblazoned on them. Birdie ignored her friend.
“I’ve had my heart broken more times than I’d like to admit,” she went on.
“But I still think it’s worth the risk. And, well, if The Sapphic Match wants someone who cries at YouTube videos about dogs being reunited with their owners, then…
hi.” She gave a small wave, feeling incredibly stupid. “That’s me.”
Jade lowered the phone, grinning. “Perfect. That was totally sparkly,” she said.
Birdie groaned and stood up to head over to the sofa.
She stepped over Sebastian’s cat bed and flopped into the cushions.
“I can’t believe you talked me into signing up for a reality dating show.
” She stared at the ceiling, where one of her houseplants crowded the sills and shelves as it dangled precariously from a macramé hanger.
She should be in the bookstore right now, shelving the newly arrived box of books by queer authors, not auditioning for a reality show she barely watched.
In fact, she barely even believed in it.
“You need this,” Jade said, plopping down onto the mottled green ottoman beside the sofa. “The last time you did anything brave like this was ages ago.”
“Not ages,” Birdie pointed out, remembering Lexi, the woman from the bar, the one who was undoubtedly beautiful and devastatingly self-possessed in a way Birdie would never be.
Birdie had accidentally, or maybe on purpose, bumped into her despite feeling a little shy in the way-too-revealing outfit Jade had forced her to wear.
She just never expected things to move that fast. One minute she was apologizing, and the next Lexi was leading her out of the club to a room in a hotel just a few blocks down the road.
There was barely any talking. Just sex. And then nothing.
Lexi had left before things even got started, and that was it.
Jade frowned and then, as if a lightbulb had flicked on above her head, she snapped her ring-clad fingers. “Oh yes. The woman from Ninety-Two. The one who took you to a hotel room instead of to her house and left right after.” She scissored her fingers. “You two did it. That was very brave of you.”
Birdie rolled over and muffled her face in a throw pillow. “Yes,” she mumbled into the soft velvet fabric. “That’s the one.” She risked a glance upward and found Jade watching her with a terribly concerned expression on her face.
Jade’s eyes were wide, her thick, tattooed brows drawn together.
Understandable, really, since Birdie had almost fallen apart two days after it happened.
Almost. She just wasn’t the type of person to do a one-night stand, which was why when she handed over her contact details to Lexi, she’d assumed the woman would call or email.
Or at least she hoped the woman would. But then she hadn’t, and Birdie had spent a better part of her weekend wondering what the hell she’d done wrong.
“You know that was like three weeks ago, right?” Jade said, changing her expression from worried best friend to entirely impatient best friend.
Birdie scowled. “You make it sound like I’ve done nothing but mope around.”
“And have you?” Jade asked, both eyebrows raised. “Moped around all day, every day?”
“No, I’m busy. I run a bookstore,” Birdie said, as if that explained everything.
Which, to her, it did. She kept herself busy.
She shelved and organized stacks of books into neat displays.
She made tea for the regulars, who sat on the set of leather sofas in the back of the store.
She reconciled invoices and managed inventory, balancing the necessary paperwork that came with owning a business.
Birdie didn’t have time for moping because she was too busy running a business.
“You know you have to stop using your bookstore as an excuse for everything.”
“I don’t.” Birdie snapped back.
“You’re a gorgeous woman who needs to let her hair down a little.”
Birdie felt her cheeks warm at the compliment. “I did let my hair down,” she said, remembering Ninety-Two with the loud bass rattling her ribcage, the strangers brushing past her in sweaty waves, and Lexi’s hand around hers. “And look where that got me.”
“Well, I’m proud of you anyway. You went to a lesbian bar with actual music and sweaty strangers. That’s progress,” Jade said, suddenly softening.
Birdie groaned. “Don’t make such a big deal about it.”
“It is a big deal,” Jade said, grinning. “You left your fortress of solitude. You put yourself in a situation you weren’t comfortable with. Just like you’re doing now with entering your name for The Sapphic Match. I’m seriously proud of you.”
Birdie pulled at a loose thread on the throw pillow. “It doesn’t even matter. I probably won’t even get onto the show.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I’m not the kind of person they’re looking for,” Birdie said.
And it was true. She wasn’t. She was the kind of person who puttered around her store from open to close, who ordered the same brand of loose-leaf tea, who liked her evenings quiet and her mornings predictable.
She didn’t belong on a show like The Sapphic Match, just like she hadn’t belonged at Ninety-Two.
“Maybe we should just leave it,” she muttered, not looking at Jade. “I’ll meet someone organically instead. Someone real and not on a reality show with cameras everywhere.”
“No,” Jade said firmly. “Absolutely not.” She planted her hands on her waist as if she were about to deliver a lecture, which she probably was.
“You’re not backing out, Bird. I won’t let you.
You can’t keep waiting around for someone to just stumble into your bookstore and fall into your lap. You have to put yourself out there.”
Birdie wasn’t going to remind her again that she had done just that. Or maybe she was. “Didn’t you just congratulate me on putting myself out there?”
“I did,” Jade said, unbothered. “But you need constant reminding that doing things that are uncomfortable is good for you. And just because one person didn’t call you back, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.”
Birdie didn’t agree. It had felt like the end of the world. Or at least in the way she imagined it. For her, it was complete mortification.
Jade stood up and crossed the room to the kitchen.
Despite the small size of the apartment, the kitchen took up quite a bit of space with its honey-colored cabinets, teal backsplash, and a long butcher-block counter cluttered with jars of dried herbs and well-loved cookbooks.
She grabbed a bottle of red wine from the counter and twisted off the cap before pouring two generous glasses.
“Here’s to new adventures,” Jade said, handing one to Birdie.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Birdie replied, swirling the wine like a character in one of her favorite books.
Or at least that was how she had imagined Marie Christie in Midnight Montmartre doing it while she sat in one of Paris’ smoky cafés watching people as they passed by a rain-drenched window.
Jade shook her head as she settled herself on a stool at the counter. “I sent your audition tape off,” she said, waving her phone in the air.
Birdie blinked as she lifted her glass halfway to her lips. “What?”
“You’re officially in the running,” Jade said excitedly.
Birdie set her glass down a little too carefully on the table, her heart thumping in her chest. “You mean they’ve already received it?”
“Received it, approved it, and now it’s out of your hands,” Jade said, leaning back against the counter with her arms folded over her chest, clearly delighted with herself. “Congratulations, Birdie Sinclair. You’re one step closer to falling in love on TV.”
Birdie pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long, half-panicked, half-disbelief sigh. A headache was quickly starting. “Well, this is a tad terrifying.”