Chapter 8 #2
“Watching my abuela cook and learning from her are some of my happiest memories. She taught me a lot,” I say.
“Let me check on the food, actually. That would suck if the rice burns.” She nods, and I leave her to look around.
Lifting the lid on the pot reveals everything looking and smelling perfect.
I give it a big stir and put the lid back on since it just needs a few more minutes.
“Where’s Gage?” Hermes is starting to get demanding, so I head back into the living room.
“How does he know how to say that?” Celeste asks, obviously shook.
“I taught him to say that when we play hide and seek,” I tell her a little sheepishly. Who knows if she’ll think I’m ridiculous for how much I love and spend time with my birds. She sighs like she’s both happy and exasperated.
“That is way too adorable, and I don’t know how to handle it,” she declares.
My relief that she is fine with the birds and how much I interact with them is palpable, and just one more reason why I think this fake marriage will work out perfectly.
Daisy chirps and flutters around excitedly when she sees us walking toward her, and Hermes rustles around, watching us in that all knowing way of his.
“Do you want to hold them?” I ask her. She nods tentatively.
“Celeste,” Hermes croaks. I laugh as I grab my clicker and pistachios before I open his cage.
“He likes you already. Hermes, come.”
He flies to my shoulder, and I quickly press the clicker as I offer him his reward. Then I offer my hand in a lightly curled fist with my thumb facing up.
“Step up,” I tell him, and he moves to my hand like the excellent bird he is.
“Good job, Hermes.” I give him another pistachio as a reward.
“Now you put your hand out if you’d like him to step up,” I murmur to Celeste. She puts her hand out, and without a command he steps onto it, much to her obvious amazement. I hand her a pistachio to give him, which he takes eagerly.
“You’re witnessing my first time ever chilling with a parrot,” she whispers, as if she’s scared of startling Hermes.
My traitorous bird shamelessly nuzzles his beak into her hair to check her out.
Why am I a little irked that he gets to touch her hair before I do?
He’s being a complete flirt with my possible wife right now.
“Red,” he proclaims proudly after a thorough examination of her strands, and Celeste huffs a disbelieving laugh.
“He’s smarter than most adults I know,” she says in awe.
“That he is.”
I let Daisy out too, and she flies to my hand. She closes her eyes in bliss when I give her some scratches on her head before having her sit on the big perches I have in the corner of the room. Oh, fuck. I’m so caught up with Celeste meeting the birds that I almost forget the food.
“Will you be ok for a sec while I check on dinner and turn the stove off?”
“Sure. Do they like getting pets?”
“They’re both complete suckers for head scratches, just not on the body,” I tell her as I stride into the kitchen.
Everything is done, so I turn off the burner and move the pot off of the heat.
Using a fork, I quickly fluff up the rice before putting the lid back on to keep the food hot.
When I go back into the living room, I can’t help but quietly watch for a second.
Celeste has Hermes on her forearm, and Daisy is looking happy as a clam making a nest of Celeste’s red waves.
I silently beg whatever entity is listening to not let Daisy poop in her hair, but I’m hesitant to call her to me and ruin the fun Celeste appears to be having.
Her smile is blinding as she plays with them.
That smile is then set on me when she clocks me watching her.
“These two are my new BFFs, just call me Snow White. They’re amazing,” she announces.
“Did you have any pets growing up?”
“A handful of homes I was in had pets, and I loved them. There was a German Shepherd named Knox in one home who was protective of me and so sweet. Another home I was in had a huge orange cat like Garfield named Henry. None of them were ever for me though, or felt like mine, if that makes any sense. I’ve never had a pet of my own.
” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, but her stiff posture says otherwise.
Clearly looking to change the subject, she then asks, “So, why birds?”
“They’re my dad’s favorites, he loves how colorful they are, and the way they can learn to say words.
They remind him of my mom, too, since she was so beautiful and sang a lot just like them.
I grew up around a whole flock of them. We had a feisty macaw named Soleil, my dad rescued her when she was twenty, and she lived to be forty-one.
There were two quaker parrots, Gideon and Galen, who were so smart and passed a couple of years ago when they were just shy of twenty-five, plus lots of budgies.
I loved them, and needed my own when I moved in here. ” She smiles a little.
“I love that. I’ve never met cooler pets than these two. Tania’s cats are great and all, but neither of them can tell me my hair is red,” she jokes.
“My two birds clearly like you more than me, so I think they’re honored to have you for a new BFF,” I tell her.
She perks up and beams at me. My heart cracks, because it’s so obvious that this woman just wants love, in whatever form, but is too scared to seek it out.
It doesn’t sound like she’s ever had stability or that unconditional love we all need, except from Tania and the few pets she’s lived with.
There must be something showing on my face, because her beaming smile falters.
“You don’t need to feel sorry for me. I’ve turned out ok enough, and I’m going to get the help I need for my issues,” she says a little stiffly.
“There’s a big difference between sympathy and empathy,” I tell her quietly before pointing to myself. “Abandonment issues right here, remember?” Something flickers in those stormy grey eyes before they soften and become calmer.
“Yeah, I remember,” she replies. There’s a beat of silence where we just take each other in. My need to break up the intensity takes over, so I clear my throat.
“You ready to eat?”