chapter sixteen
Wren
Saturday morning on the patio is quiet and dewy. I have a knitted shawl wrapped around my shoulders while I sip a steamy mug of coffee. I can hear birds in the distance, but the feeders full of seeds, dried mealworms, and nuts remain untouched. Trying not to pout at the lack of feathered visitors, I continue to read my book. The smell of fresh soil fills the large fenced yard, promising a day of yard work, and the morning chill lazily creeps its way out.
I hear a shuffling sound and a yawn as Jay makes his way to the kitchen. He pours a mug and joins me at the patio table. “Good morning,” he greets in a sleep gruff voice.
“Good morning.”
“You’re up early,” he states and lifts his mask to take a sip of his coffee. I see the curve of his dusky rose colored plush bottom lip and quickly avert my eyes until he’s covered back up. Every time he drinks or eats, I’m like a Regency Era man seeing an ankle.
“Mm,” I hum dismissively.
“Did you eat? I can make some eggs,” Jay offers, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen.
“No, thanks,” I reply and return to my book. I hadn’t eaten, but the thought of food isn’t appealing to me this morning. I would rather engage entirely in escapism to avoid thinking about my terrible date with Grey last night.
Jay leaves me on the patio while he cooks. I hear him listening to some sort of podcast while he works in the kitchen. The faint rumble of multiple men speaking floats out to me. Angelica even flies in from her current favorite perch in the sunroom and asks him for a snack. He must agree because I hear her call him a “good big boy” before flying back to the sunroom. I smile at her antics. Ever since she came out of hiding in her room, I’ve had to lessen her food at her meal times because she always asks Jay for snacks and he always gives her one. She’s braver this week and is loving the sunroom. It overlooks the garden and much of the yard. It gets the best morning sunlight, and I sat in there most mornings with her, but today I felt compelled to sit on the patio.
When Jay returns, it’s with two plates of food. He sets one down in front of me and then pulls cutlery rolled in a paper towel out of the pocket of his gray sweatpants. “I know you said no, but you get hangry and I don’t feel like dealing with it.”
“Thank you,” I say, not feeling like arguing with him either.
We eat in companionable silence. He had made me scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and a slice of heavily buttered toast. Store-bought bread, unfortunately, since the oven incident yesterday. When we finish eating, I take our plates back in and bring out the carafe of coffee. I find him relaxed in his chair, one sweatpant clad ankle resting on his knee and a book in his hands. It’s the size of a mass market paperback and the front cover is folded back. He’s about halfway through the book, so the spine is broken. I gasp when I see how he’s treating the book.
“What?” he asks, looking around for the threat.
“You are breaking that book!”
“No, it’s fine,” he says, unfolding it to show me.
“The spine! You’ve killed it!”
He rolls his eyes and relaxes back into his chair.
“Don’t you dare touch my books with your aggressive, meaty fists.”
He cracks the knuckles on said meaty fists.
The blue hood of his sweatshirt covers his head, and he slips his free hand in his front pocket as he returns to his reading. He looks comfortable and I again smell his soap and laundry detergent. I wonder if I could discreetly take one of his more broken in sweatshirts for my own.
We sit in more companionable silence until a bird finally comes to land on a feeder. I see it land out of the corner of my eye and I almost drop my book. Jay needs to see this, so I reach out and grab his large shoulder. He follows my line of sight to see the little brown sparrow standing on the wooden feeder. It nibbles twice at the seeds and I couldn’t be happier at this moment. Finally, a bird! It had been days of waiting and here one is. This is the moment I’d bought my house for. To be surrounded by a quiet garden and wild birds. It is perf—
“Woof woof! Bark bark! Fuck off!” Angelica screeches from the sunroom window.
The little sparrow startles and flies off.
“Angelica!” I scold.
“Fucking hate birds,” Angelica scoffs, and I can hear the indignant flutter of her wings.
Jay explodes with laughter. It’s a husky, loud, and infuriatingly contagious sound. He clutches his stomach as he guffaws until tears stream into his mask.
Angry tears pour from my eyes despite the huffs of laughter that keep escaping my lips. I’m a mess of emotions. On the one hand, I can finally say it isn’t my fault that no birds are coming to the yard, but on the other hand I don’t know how to fix the issue. It was kind of funny to hear Angelica scaring off the birds, and nice to hear Jay laugh like that, but I am still upset.
“I’m sorry, that was—” Jay stops and clears his throat to a more sober tone. “That was really funny. I’m sorry.”
I grab my empty coffee cup and book and stand up. “I’m going to do some more planting this morning. Levi is picking us up at six. We’re staying local and visiting an art show.”
“You sure?” Jay asks, his expression now completely serious.
“Yes, we’re going to an art exhibit.”
“No, I mean, are you sure you want to go after last night?”
“Levi is a very different man from Grey,” I say with a shrug. “I can’t complain about the men my dad chooses for me and then refuse to go out with new ones.”
Jay tilts his head as if to say “If you say so” before returning to his book.
****
Levi picks me and Jay up in his own vehicle. Levi’s dad works for a marketing company my dad hired last year. It’s a smaller business and does well, but isn’t a Fortune 500. Levi’s car is a top of the line electric vehicle and he beams proudly as I buckle into the passenger seat.
“Nice car,” I say because it’s expected.
“Thanks, I got her earlier this month.” Levi beams.
I find it nice to be picked up in a car rather than a limo or with a driver service. It feels different to see Levi driving the car to our date. It’s something I read about in books or see on TV. Except for the massive bodyguard folded into the back seat. Every time he moves, I feel his knees press into the back of my seat. I want to reach behind me and smack his legs, but I don’t want to break the illusion that Levi and I are alone on this date.
The art exhibit isn’t far from my house and I wonder if Levi did a lot of research or if he is from the area. It seems like an event someone would have to be local to know about.
“Are you from the around here?” I ask as we park the car.
It’s an outdoor exhibit, and everyone is parked in tidy rows in a grassy field. I can see the glow of twinkling lights in the distance as the sun begins to set. The area smells like freshly mowed grass and pine trees. Jay stifles a sneeze behind me.
“I’m not, but I have family around here,” Levi explains. I feel special knowing Levi had researched this date.
Jay sneezes again and Levi blesses him and then looks at me. He leans down to mutter, “Is he going to follow us everywhere we go?”
I nod and rummage through my purse. “Yes, he goes everywhere I go.” Locating the travel bottle of allergy medicine, I pass it back to Jay without looking at him. Jay’s warm fingers squeeze mine and seem to linger longer than necessary as he takes the bottle of pills.
Levi looks unsure as he considers the hulking, masked bodyguard, but then looks back down at me and smiles. “Alright, let’s go see some art.”
The art exhibit is run by an art center and features local artists, many of whom were amateurs and had taken a class at the center. I’ve been to many art shows in New York. Most of them by well-known artists who had their art bought by millionaires before the night was over. This is different. These are middle-class people who took classes and are showing off their art to family and friends. It is the best art show I’ve ever seen. No pretentiousness, no ego. Just people and their art. The refreshments are laid out on a long table and still in plastic clamshell containers from Costco.
“Do you like art?” I ask Levi as we move from one painting a woman did of her children to a sculpture made of metal an older man made.
“I love it. I’m more into music, though,” he says.
“Oh? What kind? Do you play an instrument?”
“I play guitar in a band, actually. We do a sort of pop punk, rock reimagining. Think of the old stuff like My Chemical Romance and, like, Blink-182.”
Behind me, Jay made a sound like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Old?” he wheezes.
I ignore him.
“That sounds so cool! I’ll have to come see you play,” I say to Levi.
“Absolutely.”
“Gemma, my best friend, would love it, too,” I say conversationally as we move to the next art piece. It’s glazed stoneware pottery, and I look at a set of coffee mugs.
“Gemma Cox, right?” Levi asks.
“Yup.”
“I saw her at your party. I didn’t realize you two were friends,” Levi says and shoves his hands in his dark jean pockets.
I talk to the artist and offer her a hundred dollars for her coffee mugs. They’re clearly handmade but made with care and love for the craft. The blue glaze she used reminds me of the color of the robin’s eggs I saw at the park. My new favorite color. Her husband and three small children are there supporting her art and she looks back at them with wide eyes when I offer her money for her work. I feel like I should offer more, but I don’t want to be obvious. Instead, I let her wrap up the mugs in newspaper and plastic bags for me to take home. I jot down her number so I can contact her later about a full set of crockery.
I make Jay carry our new mugs and Levi and I move to the next art display.
“So, tell me more about your family. I only met them briefly at the party,” I say to Levi once we sit at a wooden picnic table and sip some fruit punch from paper cups.
He’s sweet when he describes his parents and younger sister. Clearly, he loves his family and respects his parents. All good signs. My attraction to Levi isn’t strong, but he’s nice, respectful, and took me on a pretty cool date. I wonder if my bad dating history is tainting my ability to be attracted to him. Like maybe my heart is trying to protect itself from further pain by pretending not to be attracted to Levi.
We laugh and talk about some of his recent concerts, and I tell him about Angelica. The date is going great and I’m thinking about inviting him to spend the night to explore a further connection. I reach for his hand as we walk through the art displays under the twinkling lights and star strewn sky and he grins at me when our fingers touch.
A man is showing off his leather creations at a table near the end of the art show. He has a stack of leather bound journals, each with designs embossed and branded into the covers. One catches my eye immediately. It’s a rich, dark brown with a bird embossed on the cover in gold. A blue jay.
“Do you sell your art?” I ask the man with a huge smile on my face.
“I do, usually at craft fairs or online. Do you see one you like?” the man asks, his mustache twitching around his own smile.
“This one,” I say and point to the notebook with the blue jay. I look back at my own Blue Jay and see him not paying attention to what I’m buying, but watching the surrounding people.
“I can part with this one for fifty,” the man says brightly.
“Sold!” I give him money, and he wraps it in brown paper and hands it to me with his business card tucked inside.
Jay’s hand reaches out for the parcel and he adds it to the bag with the mugs. I don’t think he saw what I bought because his eyes are still scanning the crowd.
“I didn’t know I was taking you shopping,” Levi jokes.
“Me neither!” I laugh. “I guess now I have my house, I feel the need to fill it with cool stuff.”
The rows of art displays end and we circle back to head for the parking lot.
“I had a lot of fun,” I say to Levi and look at him through my lashes.
“Me, too.”
“Would you like to come over for coffee or a glass of wine?” I ask. It was kind of awkward. I’d never invited a man back to my home before. But the thrill of getting to ask was exhilarating.
Levi smiled shyly and rubbed the back of his neck as we approached his car. “Sure.”
On the ride back to my place, he played me a few of his band’s songs and I truly enjoyed them. “So, you don’t want to go into business with your dad?”
“Nah,” he replies as we turn onto my street. “I’m not interested in business.”
This makes my stomach flutter with excitement. Levi isn’t about to ask me to hook him up with my dad’s business. This is the first date I think I’ve ever had where that didn’t happen. I feel better about asking him to come over now. The only missing piece is a physical attraction, but I am sure I can find something to be compatible with.
We pull into my driveway, and he turns to me as he puts the car into park. I hear Jay unbuckle behind me and mutter our return to the Crows with his earpiece.
“My band doesn’t have an agent right now, and to do that we need visibility,” Levi says as we get out of the car.
“Does your dad do any of your marketing?” I ask casually as I open the door with my code and my scanned retina. I realized belatedly this has the potential to scare men off. It thankfully doesn’t scare off Levi, though.
“No,” Levi says as he looks around my foyer. “I was hoping you could maybe give me Gemma’s number?”
“Gemma?” I ask as I pull two wineglasses from the cabinet. Levi leans against the doorway and watches me in the kitchen.
I hear Jay behind me, setting the bag of purchases from the art show on the dining room table. It’s a quiet thunk and rustle of the bag, like he’s trying to be as invisible as possible. I find it hard not to notice him.
“Yeah, do you think she’d be interested?” Levi asks.
I pull a white wine out of the wine cooler. Red is more romantic, but I don’t want to have stained lips and teeth if I’m going to be kissing Levi.
“Hm, if she’s in town, she might post on Instagram that she’s going to be there,” I say and open the wine bottle. “She’s done that before.”
“No, like… do you think she’d be interested in me?” Levi asks eagerly.
I freeze with my hands about to pour a glass of wine. “What?”
“Is she seeing anyone?”
Jay emerges from the dark dining room, his eyes fierce and set on Levi. I’m still frozen in disbelief when Jay grabs Levi around the biceps and hauls him to the door. Levi is tall, maybe an inch shorter than the hulking Jay, but Jay drags him to the door like a naughty toddler.
“Ow! What the fuck, dude?” Levi swears at Jay as they disappear around the corner.
Jay growls something in return, but I can’t make it out. The door slams shut and Jay comes back around the corner into the kitchen alone. Embarrassment fills me and I feel my face flaming. This Jay has been on three dates with me with three different men and has watched every single one of them end in disaster. He must think I’m the most pathetic excuse for a woman. I had invited Levi into my home with the pretty obvious intention of sleeping with him and he asked me for my best friend’s phone number.
“I—” Jay says, but I cut him off with a raised hand.
“No.”
“Wren,” he starts again, but I shake my head.
I take a stuttering breath in. The sound of my choked breath clues me into my impeding tears. I can’t let Jay see me cry over a boy. And really, I’m not crying over the guy, I’m crying over the embarrassment and frustration.
Jay’s eyes are sad and pitying as I grab the open bottle of wine and push past him to the stairs. I can’t stand the expression, so I say nothing else.