Chapter 17
17
“ P retty bird!”
Cody rewarded the Amazon parrot with a strawberry. It was a different species than Gary, but equally eager.
The handful of birds that had been part of Gary’s gang of feathered troublemakers were separated in cages dispersed around the zoo. Out of sight and earshot.
Cody had been working with the remaining chatterboxes all week, reinforcing more desired vocabulary. It seemed to crowd out the words their guests found particularly questionable. These chuckleheads were almost ready for the public. By Monday, they would get another shot at being together in the aviary.
The door opened slowly as Lauren entered the meal prep room, finished with her morning primate rounds. Her uniform shirt was dotted with raindrops from the shower that had begun moments ago.
Cody heard the pattering on the roof just before Lauren arrived. The entire staff had been dodging showers and storms all week, leaving the exhibits a muddy mess by that Thursday morning.
Lauren watched from the doorway, eying the bright green bird that was now occupying Gary’s old cage. “How’s he doing?”
“Pretty good,” Cody said. “Should be ready for their reunion next week.”
“And the others?”
“Doing even better.”
“That’s great,” Lauren said. “Too bad Gary wasn’t keen on retraining.”
Cody shook his head. “That one was much more stubborn. I’d already spent weeks with him before calling in help.”
“Speaking of that help. How’s Geena?”
“She and Gary are doing fine. She’s discovered some new stuff he knows. Geena’s a natural with him, even if she did protest at first.”
She was so good with Gary, in fact, that Cody was a little worried about when they finally found an adopter for Gary. The two of them had become close, and he wasn’t sure how hard Geena would take the separation.
The potential foster-to-adopt placement the shelter had been hoping for fell through when the woman was transferred out of state. That meant Geena was still the only viable option for now. That also meant more time for her and the bird to grow even closer.
“That’s all good, too,” Lauren said. “But I didn’t mean how are Gary and Geena. I mean how are you and Geena?”
Cody sighed. “Have you been talking to my mom? Because I already got this speech from her last weekend.”
“It wasn’t a speech. I was just asking a question.”
“That was bait,” Cody said.
“Whatever. Answer the question.”
“Geena is fine. We’re… friendly.”
“You’re more than friendly, admit it.”
“No, we’re friendly. That’s all.”
“But you do have other feelings for her. Don’t deny it. Everyone can see. Even your mom, apparently, and she’s never met Geena.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Cody said firmly. “I’m still leaving once the next opportunity presents itself. And she doesn’t want anything that isn’t a serious commitment. She’s already had one jerk in her life who bailed on her. I’m not going to be the second. I care enough about her to draw the line before anyone gets hurt.”
“Why does someone have to get hurt?” Lauren waited while he locked the bird’s cage, and she had his full attention again. “What if things work out so well she decides to go with you to the next place?”
Cody shook his head. “Her family is here. She’s not leaving them for anything. I know that much.”
“Well, then. What if things work out so well you decide you don’t want to leave?”
“That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair? That I’m making you even consider the possibility?”
The parrot squawked in his cage. “Nice shirt!”
“That’s a good one,” Lauren said. “That you?”
“Yeah.” Cody felt a little surge of pride. “Been working on that with all of them the past few weeks. This guy caught on the quickest. Figured it would go over well with guests.”
“It’s perfect. But you didn’t answer my question,” Lauren said. “Why won’t you even consider the possibility that you might want to stick around?”
“I’m not worried I might like it,” he said. “I’m worried I will like it and still want to leave. I told you. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Especially not Geena.”
He’d grown to care for her more than he’d expected. They were different, but their conversations moved smoothly, and he enjoyed their time together. He was pretty sure she felt the same way.
Which was exactly why he needed to leave before things went any further.
“Let’s get one thing clear,” Lauren said. “You are not your dad. And you aren’t Geena’s ex, either.”
“I know that.”
But he didn’t. Not really. His head knew that, but he didn’t really believe it.
“What if…” Lauren said. “And just hear me out.”
“I don’t like this already.”
“What if you gave it a shot? A real shot. Take her on a date. Just one. See how you feel after that. If it’s nothing, I’ll never bug you again. But if there’s something there, maybe it’s something worth staying for.”
“You sure you didn’t talk to my mom? She did this whole song and dance, but with ribs.”
“Ribs?”
“Never mind,” he said. “Besides, we already had a date. There was nothing there.”
“Forget that one. Neither of you were in the right head space. Or you both needed a little longer for your potential relationship to cook. Some people need more time to figure out if something is working or not.”
“So I’m a rice cooker?”
“You? More like an air fryer. But maybe she’s a bread machine.”
“This is somehow even weirder than the ribs talk.”
“Okay, no more food.” Lauren stepped closer and leaned against the prep table between them. “One date. Prove me wrong.”
Cody considered her suggestion. Maybe it was something he could get behind. Proving Lauren wrong might be a lot easier than convincing her he was right. Because that wasn’t working yet.
“All right. You want me to do this? You tell me what we should do.”
If this wasn’t going to work, it wouldn’t matter what they did for a date. Might as well get out of the planning.
Lauren thought for a moment. Then she pointed a finger on the table. “What about here?”
“You want me to bring Geena to the zoo?”
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”
“Everything,” Cody said. “She’s always so put together, and she didn’t look too pleased with the place last time she was here. I can’t bring her in her nice outfits to walk around in this humidity with all of these smells.”
“I’m sure she owns some non-work clothes.”
The memory of those llama pajama pants brought a smile to his face.
He also knew she’d gone running with her sister that previous weekend. So she at least had a running outfit.
“Sure,” he said. “This’ll make it easier to prove you wrong.”
Lauren smiled. “Game on. Text her.”
G eena poured her mid-afternoon cup of coffee in the break room where James was eating his chickpea salad sandwich.
He finished the bite he’d taken just before she walked in and asked, “How’s it going?”
“Good.” Geena lifted her now-full mug and blew across the top. “Slow brain day, but okay.”
“Everything outside of work all right?”
“Yeah.”
That was mostly the truth. The rest of the truth wasn’t something she wanted to get into that afternoon.
Especially not that text she’d gotten an hour ago.
“You sure?” James asked. “You’ve been kind of weird lately.”
“Weird?”
“Yeah. I mean, not in a bad way. Just lost, I guess. In your head a lot. Is the divorce still a mess?”
The divorce. Geena wished it was as simple as that. That would be easy to focus her frustration on.
Instead, she was thinking about someone she most definitely should not be thinking about. And the invitation he’d sent.
A date.
Sunday.
A real one.
“Yes and no,” she said. “It’s still a mess, and he’s still a jerk dragging his feet on paperwork. But I’m not wasting my thoughts on him these days.”
And that was the whole truth on that topic. Despite the run-in with him last week, she’d been thinking more about her dinner companion that evening than her ex.
Ricky had called again last night to let her know he’d submitted his retirement account and benefits statements to the mediator, so she should stop emailing him about it.
He’d heard Gary in the background again and grilled Geena about why she suddenly had a bird. Ricky even recognized something Gary said and asked her who she’d gotten the bird from. Geena figured Ricky must have heard him before on a call with Gary’s previous owner.
But that conversation had slipped from her mind until just now. It was getting easier every day to forget that man existed.
Not so much for a certain zookeeper who had surprisingly turned out to be a pleasant dinner pal.
A pal who wanted to give her a zoo tour that weekend.
A pal who wanted that tour to be a date.
It was the zoo. She couldn’t believe she was even considering it. Surely, with all this rain, the smells would be worse than normal.
But with only brief consideration, she’d texted back that a zoo tour sounded nice.
That a date with him sounded nice.
“So, where’s your mind?”
Geena blinked away thoughts of Cody and returned her attention to her conversation with James.
“A parrot,” she said. “Anthony’s parrot. The one with the naughty vocabulary I told you about. The zoo couldn’t keep him with the other birds, so my sister and the other shelter workers are looking for a permanent home for him. Surprisingly, he’s kind of growing on me.”
“Oh, right. I completely forgot you have Tony’s bird.” James laughed again, a little longer this time. “I’ve heard enough of that thing in action on the phone to know you’ve got your hands full.”
Geena took a small sip from her mug and decided it was cool enough to drink.
“He’s not too bad,” she said. “Smart and well-trained. He’s a better roommate than Ricky ever was.”
“I’ll bet.” James brushed the crumbs from his hands and packed up his lunch bag. “Watch out. You’ll get attached to that thing.”
“Not likely.”
But that wasn’t at all the truth. She was already growing attached to Gary.
And the man who’d brought him into her life.
There was no point getting attached, though, so she’d better start drawing firmer boundaries for herself. Immediately. Because neither Gary nor Cody would be sticking around.
“I’m surprised Tony handed that bird over to the zoo. From what I remember, he loved that thing. Made me set up an entire account for its treats or care or whatever he needed. But the court seized that account along with all the others.”
“I don’t think Tony had a choice,” Geena said. “I guess no one else wanted Gary.”
“Gary. I forgot that was his name.” James shook his head. “I still can’t get over that he wouldn’t want someone he was close with to hold that thing until he got out.”
“Well, someone wanted him.”
“Who? Tony?”
“No, Gary the Grey. His parrot.” Geena hadn’t meant to get into Gary’s history with the zoo. But since James knew Anthony, she wondered if maybe he knew who would want to get their hands on the parrot. “Someone tried to steal him from the zoo. Do you have any idea who would do that? Someone Anthony made angry? Maybe they were taking the bird for ransom?”
James laughed. “You watch too many of those crime documentaries. I promise Tony is much more boring than that. What if someone just wanted a valuable animal, and that’s the one they stumbled on?”
“Maybe,” Geena said. “But Cody’s pretty certain they were specifically after Gary. That’s why he installed a security camera at my place.”
James raised his brow with interest. “Cody?”
Crap.
Now she had one more person who would harass her about that non-relationship.
No, wait.
They had a scheduled date now. She had to accept that it wasn’t a non-relationship anymore.
At least until the end of the weekend. If things didn’t work out then, that would be their sign that nothing was meant to be between them.
She wasn’t sure which way she was hoping this date went.
“He’s the zookeeper who was training Gary. Or trying to retrain him, I guess.”
“So this zookeeper makes house calls?”
She shrugged. “He feels responsible for Gary. And for potentially putting me in a dangerous position.”
“I mean, responsibility is sexy,” James said. “Or at least that’s what Chelsea tells me. Mostly just when she wants me to do the dishes. It works.”
“Speaking of Chelsea. How are the wedding plans coming along?”
“Still expensive,” he said with a heaviness in his voice. “But you and this zookeeper boyfriend are much more interesting than my money woes.”
“We’re just friends,” she lied.
“Uh-huh.” James frowned. “But seriously, I don’t like that this so-called friend put you in the line of birdnapping fire. Are you sure this security camera is enough? What if someone does try to break in?”
“It’s fine,” Geena insisted. “I can watch the feed from my phone if I want to. It alerts me to any movement. If I get a notification and see anything fishy, I’ll call the cops.”
“I hate that those are words you just said.”
“I’m fine. Really. There hasn’t been a peep since he’s been with me. You have enough on your plate to worry about with the wedding. Trust me. I’m fine.”
James narrowed his eyes. “I still don’t like this. You can’t stop me from worrying about you.”
“And I appreciate that,” she said. “You just worry about Chelsea and this wedding, and I’ll worry about Gary.”
“Who’s worrying about you in this equation?” James smirked. “Oh, right. Cody, is it?”
Geena rolled her eyes and aimed her mug at the break room exit. “I’ve got a spreadsheet to get back to.”
She could hear James laughing behind her as she crossed the room. Then he noisily whispered, “I look forward to hearing about more zookeeper adventures!”