Chapter 12
12
T he door in front of Cody opened slowly after a click and slide of locks. Geena stood in the entryway, leaning against the open door. He’d texted when she was leaving work that he wanted to drop off more stuff for Gary and not to eat. He was bringing food for her, too.
She wore perfectly tailored khaki slacks and a long-sleeved navy blouse that looked incredibly soft for something so dressy.
Soft enough to run his hands over that shirt.
She must not have changed out of her work clothes yet. Unless she felt comfortable enough in her work clothes to hang out in them all evening. It wasn’t as if she took care of animals all day like him.
He was suddenly very aware of how he must have smelled going straight to her place in his zoo uniform.
Geena gestured for Cody to enter, and he held up both hands, each holding a plastic bag, as he walked by her.
“I took a guess again on what you might like.”
He easily could have asked her what she wanted when he texted he was picking up food, but he found the challenge of guessing her taste to be much more fun. And the smile playing at the corner of her mouth told him she enjoyed this little game, too.
“Let’s see if you’re right.” She followed him to the couch, where he sat emptying the contents of the bags onto the coffee table. “You’re one for one so far.”
“I hope you like Thai. I stopped at the little place in the strip mall about a mile from here.”
Geena raised her brow. “Another favorite spot. Way to go, Brasseaux.”
It was Cody’s turn to be surprised. “You remembered my last name?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Feels like an unimportant detail,” Cody said.
He was pretty sure he only mentioned it once, when he and Taylor explained how they both had ‘B’ last names and had to sit next to each other in a few high school classes.
“Names are like data points.” Geena shrugged. “I remember important ones to make sure the puzzle always fits.”
“So my name was an important data point?”
He swore her cheeks were slightly redder than they were a moment ago. More than anything, he wanted to make those cheeks of hers flush even more.
Nope.
Not an option.
“It’s your connection to my sister,” Geena said. “That’s what made it memorable.”
He grinned back at her. “Okay, Bourque.”
She laughed softly. It was such a soothing sound that Cody made a note to make her laugh again. At least once more while he was there. He got the sense she didn’t get a whole lot of opportunities to laugh lately.
“So that’s a thing we’re doing now?” she asked.
“You started it.” He gestured at the containers. “All right, Bourque. Ready to see if I guessed right?”
Her smile was playful. Something he could definitely get used to.
“Let’s go, Brasseaux,” she said.
He took the invitation to open the containers, pulling more from the bottom of the bags.
She looked at it all in mock horror. “Did you buy everything on the menu?”
“No,” he said, opening the last of the containers. “It’s a huge menu.”
“This feels like cheating.”
“Cheating how?”
Geena waved her hands at the endless options in front of her. “You stacked the odds in your favor, figuring if you bought enough stuff, there would be something in here that I liked.”
“I don’t see how that’s cheating.” He handed her a fork. “Want me to make it fair and guess what you’ll pick?”
“Since that was the whole point of this game, yes.”
“Okay. Do you have a piece of paper?”
Geena reached over to an end table on her side of the couch. “Will a sticky note do?”
“Sure. And a pen.” After she handed him both, Cody scribbled on it, hiding the words from her prying gaze. “Uh-uh. No peeking.”
He folded the sticky note and slapped it on the coffee table. He was ninety percent sure his guess would be right. No reason. Just a hunch. His hunches rarely steered him wrong.
“Ready for my pick?” When he nodded, she pointed one finger at a spring roll and another finger at the green curry. “These two. You only have to guess one, so you still have an edge.”
His pulse kicked up. There weren’t even any real stakes with this game, but he felt the thrill of playing it with her, anyway.
Why the hell wasn’t he pursuing anything more than protecting her and Gary?
He pulled his thoughts back into the right gear.
Geena wanted long-term. Serious. Committed.
She wouldn’t be happy with something just for fun. No matter how much fun he suspected they could have together.
His growing attraction was simply an inconvenience.
Cody picked up the folded sticky note and handed it to her, trying to keep his smugness under wraps.
She unfolded the pink piece of paper and stared wide-eyed at it. “This is some kind of trick.”
“Nope.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How did you know I’d pick both of those? There’s no way!”
“I got your pizza right, too,” he reminded her. “I guess I can read your mind.”
“That’s not a real thing. Tell me how.”
He laughed. “I can’t tell you how. I just knew.”
She aimed her fork at him menacingly, while smiling. “I’m going to figure out your trick, eventually.”
Cody knew she’d never win this game, only because there was no trick to it.
But he was sure going to enjoy her trying.
G eena melted against the back of the couch and let out a long, satisfied sigh. She rarely ate in the living room, preferring to keep the spaces in her townhouse neatly cornered off for their individual purposes.
But she had to admit, Thai food on the couch was nice. Different, but nice.
They’d chatted about work and family while they ate. Like they were old friends instead of acquaintances who shared custody of a bird.
“So, how are things with… what’s her name?”
She wasn’t sure why she’d brought that up. It really wasn’t any of her business. And it didn’t affect anything between them.
But she couldn’t take it back now.
Cody appeared confused. “Who?”
“Your date. From the other night when you brought Gary over.”
“Oh. Um… Kayleigh.” Cody looked up at the ceiling as if he were deep in thought, then lowered his gaze back to her. “Yeah, Kayleigh. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since Friday.”
“It didn’t look like nothing.” Geena shook her head. “Sorry. None of my business. Forget I asked.”
“No, it’s fine. I mean, this is our third date and all, so you get to ask about her.” He grinned and winked at her.
Winked.
Her stomach did flips she did not approve of.
“This is not a date,” she said, reminding herself as much as him.
“Then what is this?” he asked. “We’ve got good food and good conversation. Sounds like date material to me.”
In truth, Geena didn’t know what this was much less what she wanted it to be.
But what she wanted didn’t matter. Nothing with Cody would last, so there was no point pondering much less pursuing anything.
“It’s…” Geena searched her brain for the right word. “An arrangement?”
Cody chuckled. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“It’s really the only way to look at it.”
Was it?
Geena wasn’t so sure anymore. She was at least less sure than she was a few days ago. She’d grown to really enjoy his company. More than she had with probably anyone she’d ever dated.
“Well, whatever way you look at it, there’s nothing with Kayleigh.“ He placed his fork on his empty plate and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “She was just a one-night thing.”
“Oh.”
Geena couldn’t think of anything else to say. She regretted bringing up this topic at all, and she still wasn’t sure why she had.
“But it wasn’t even that,” Cody said. “Nothing really happened after we left here. I brought her home, and that was the end of it. I haven’t talked to her since.”
“Why?” Geena internally kicked herself. “Sorry. Again, none of my business.”
“That’s okay,” Cody said. “I was too worried about Gary.”
Geena’s insides squirmed with his admission.
Sure, responsibility was always sexy. But she’d brushed Cody off as insensitive and uncaring based on his flippant view of life and relationships. She’d assumed his concern for Gary was purely job-related. But he really seemed to care about Gary.
Geena didn’t know what to make of that data. It didn’t fit neatly into her appraisal of him.
Could she have been wrong from the start?
Had her judgment been completely clouded by wing sauce?
She decided moving the conversation along was better than pondering those questions any longer.
“Well, he’s fine here now.”
“About that…” Cody cleared his throat like he was stalling.
“About what? Does he look sick or something?” She glanced at Gary across the room. The parrot was gleefully chewing on his claws. “He looks fine to me. But I don’t know much about birds. Did I forget to do something?”
Now she felt terrible. She’d been so proud of herself for figuring out the sheet over the cage to quiet him down, but could that have made him ill somehow?
“No, no. Everything you’re doing is great.” Cody stared at Gary, who was preening his feathers. “I’m the one who messed up. I shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“I mean, I have to admit, I was pretty put out by you showing up with him. But it’s fine now. He’s not nearly as much trouble as I thought he’d be.”
In fact, Geena had grown to like having Gary around. He was a better roommate than her soon-to-be ex-husband was.
She was still working on forgiving herself for getting together with the jerk in the first place. Having Gary to care for gave her a nice distraction from beating herself up about making such a horrible life choice.
“It’s not that.” Cody brought his attention back to her. “I’m worried about bringing more than Gary to your doorstep. I’m afraid I might have put you at risk, too.”
Geena’s heart rate kicked up several notches at the mention of danger. “I thought you said there was no paper trail? That there was no way anyone would know he was here?”
“I was talking about what happened with a coworker,” he said. “We both realized that someone had to know Gary was in that room. That it wasn’t someone stumbling on him in there.”
“I was wondering about that, too,” Geena said. “Like, why steal a bird if they were looking for animals to sell? Wouldn’t they want something easier to steal? Like a much quieter spider?”
“Right. And if Gary was the target, they knew exactly where to find him. Which means?—”
“They had inside information.”
Cody let out a small laugh. “When you say it like that, it sounds like a prison break.”
“Kind of.” Geena assessed all the information they knew so far. It did sound an awful lot like someone wanted him specifically. “And you’re sure it wasn’t his previous owner?”
“We’re not sure of anything,” Cody said. “The owner is in jail, but he could have sent someone to reclaim Gary. I don’t know why, though. It would be a long time before they’d be reunited. Why not steal him back later, after the guy got out of prison?”
“It doesn’t make any sense.” Geena’s brain wrapped around the one thing that did make sense. “So you think someone at the zoo tipped off another person about where to find Gary?”
“That’s the idea.”
“And it didn’t occur to you that someone could have followed you here tonight?”
Cody rubbed his hands over his face. “Shit.”
“Shit stain!”
Geena frowned. “What Gary said.”
She stacked their plates and carried them in a huff to the kitchen. She had completely bought his convincing act on Friday night that she and Gary were safe. Now, that turned out not to be the case.
But what could she do? She couldn’t make him take Gary back to the zoo. He was definitely in danger there. Here, at least, she could protect him. Sort of.
Cody joined her in the kitchen with the endless supply of leftovers from all the food he’d brought and placed them on the counter beside the sink.
“Okay. I screwed up,” he said. “So I need to make it right.”
“How do you plan to do that?”
“I’m staying here tonight.”
Geena couldn’t hide her shock. She reined it in just enough to stammer, “No way. Uh-uh. That is not a solution.”
“Sure it is,” he said. “It’s not ideal, and you don’t have to like it, but it is a solution. The only one at the moment.”
Of all the ridiculous things that had happened over the last several days, this suggestion fell at the top of the list.
“No.” She shook her head and grabbed the containers to shove them in the fridge. “Absolutely not.”
“I’ll stay on the couch,” he said. “You won’t even notice I’m here.”
“You can’t stay here forever. We both have to work tomorrow. Gary will be here alone. Unless you plan on moving in.” She shut the fridge and put her hands on her hips. “That is not an invitation, by the way.”
As much as she was enjoying Cody’s company, she wasn’t looking for a sleepover, much less a new roommate.
“We’ll worry about tomorrow… tomorrow,” he said. “For now, let me fix my screw-up. I’ll never be able to sleep worrying if I brought more trouble here. At least if I’m on the couch, I’ll know you’re both safe.”
“For the record, this is a ridiculous solution.”
“We’ll agree to disagree,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll get a security system for you. I’ll install it myself, and we’ll light a fire under Taylor and the shelter to find another place for him. One that we won’t even know about, so no one can track him to his next location through us.”
She had to admit, the latter part of his plan was sound.
This first part, however…
“Do you snore?”
His lip curled up as he tried to hide a smile. “Do I snore?”
“Yeah. My ex snored. I could hear it through the whole place. It’s not like it was his fault and there were more than enough other things to hold against him, but I need to sleep tonight. I’m getting behind on work, so I need to be well-rest and alert tomorrow.”
“I don’t snore,” he said. “At least, I don’t think I do.”
Geena couldn’t believe she was even considering this. But she had to admit she’d feel safer with another person around until they were sure no one was going to break in during the night. Or day, for that matter.
She could ignore whatever feelings she was beginning to have for him. For tonight, at least.
“Fine.” She stared him down and added, “But one snore and you’re out.”