Where the Little Birds Are (Little Bird Duet Book 2)

by B. Celeste

  Giggling, I step back. “Don’t forget to make me a shirt like you promised. Everyone needs to know I was your first fan.”

  “But certainly not his last,” the older gentleman says. He holds out his hand. “Mark King. Nice to meet you.”

  Hesitantly, I shake his hand. “Kinley Thomas.”

  Corbin weaves our fingers together. “It looks like I just found myself a manager. Mark’s daughter Dalia was in the movie with me. He wants to work with me to get more parts.”

  Dalia. I’ve seen pictures of her and Corbin from set that he’s posted on his Instagram account, but hear far more about her than I like. It’s weird having her stand mere feet away.

  “Already have one in mind,” Mark adds, drawing me away from my jealousy.

  The blonde smiles at the bird perched on my wrist. “Cool bracelet. Where’d you get it?”

  I blush, touching the bird. “Corbin got them made from a local woman. It’s sort of our thing.”

  Her brows raise. “Birds?”

  I just shrug.

  Corbin squeezes my hand, redirecting the topic to me. “Kinley is a writer. She got an agent a few months ago and has multiple stories published online and in magazines.”

  Everyone turns to my red face.

  It’s Mark who says, “Impressive. Is that what you want to do with your life? Write.”

  Clearing my throat, I give him an uncomfortable shrug. “I’m not sure. I’d like to, but—”

  It’s Mrs. Callum who brushes her hand against my arm and tells him, “I have no doubt in my mind she’ll go places.” Her eyes travel to Corbin. “They both will.”

  Mark nods in approval. “I don’t know what’s in this town’s water, but it seems to be creating the kind of dreamers I like working with. Consider what I said, Corbin. We’ll talk more at a later date now that you have my card.”

  Dalia wiggles her fingers at him as she loops her elbow with her father’s. “Call me when you make up your mind. You and Daddy will make a perfect team.”

  “I will, Dal. Thanks for coming.”

  The two walk away, leaving the four of us left staring at one another. I can’t help but watch Dalia as she waves at everyone like she knows them. It bothers me more than I like, but I force the wary feeling away.

  I turn to Corbin. “I’m really happy for you. A manager? That will be huge for you if you agree to work with him.”

  His dad grumbles. “Still think the guy came off as an asshole.”

  Corbin’s lips twitch. “You think everybody comes off as an asshole, Dad. Mark is just confident. You need to be, in this business.”

  His father’s matching silver eyes roll at the remark. “There’s a difference between being confidant and cocky, and that guy was the latter. And I don’t think everybody is an asshole. I liked Kinley from the start.”

  My face heats. “Thanks, Mr. C.”

  He flashes me a grin before his eyes focus on his son’s. “Keep her, son. Best advice I’ll ever give you is to never let go of the good ones.”

  Corbin looks at me, his eyes shining with a different kind of light I haven’t quite seen before. “Trust me, Dad. I won’t be letting anything happen to her.”

  I look down at the ground when I can no longer keep his locked gaze. His fingers tighten around mine, his thumb brushing the back of my hand, as we begin walking to their car.

  With his parents leading us, he leans down and brushes his lips against my ear. “I know that I mess up sometimes, but I mean it, Little Bird. It’s you and me against the world. You’re stuck with me even if you don’t want to be.”

  I hold onto his hand and lean against him as we walk together. His lips brush the side of my head, causing my eyelids to flutter.

  When we settle into the back of his parents’ car, he takes a pen from the console between his parents and grabs my hand.

  Across the back of my unmarred skin, he writes, fly with me.

  Biting my lip, I look up through my lashes and want nothing more than to say I love you, but the intense feeling in my chest leaves me speechless as he picks up my hand and kisses over the ink.

  No more words are spoken.

  None have to be.

  Chapter Ten

  Kinley / Present

  The letters scattered across the kitchen island stare back at me in vast numbers, but my attention is on the package with Corbin’s name in the sender’s section. It’s bigger than the one he sent with the notebook that I have yet to use. It just sits in my office on display for me to torture myself with. Maybe if I opened it again I would have known the number by heart that he called me from the other day.

  Would it have made a difference?

  Almost on cue, the phone rings again, and the number in question pops up. This time, his name is sprawled across the screen in bold white letters that blend with my phone’s background of Penny.

  Sitting straighter, I press the answer button and stare at the package. “You actually picked up,” he says quietly.

  He called nearly a week ago, and I never found the energy to use his number to return it after Mom stormed out. I only saved his information to my contacts for when I had the courage to break the news.

  “Can we talk?” he asks.

  “We are.”

  His sigh is heavy, tired even. “Please? I don’t want you shutting me out.”

  I move from the counter and glance at the package, walking away with only my phone in my hand. “How does Lena feel about these calls? I’m sure she’s thrilled. You know, since you two are so in love.”

  There’s a pause that echoes the hurt in my hollow chest as I lay down on the couch. “What she did is not okay with me, Kinley. You have to believe me. That’s why she doesn’t know I’m calling,” he admits. “But it’s not because—”

  “Just don’t. I’m tired, Corbin.” I don’t want his excuses. In fact, I can’t figure out what I do want with him. I’m just over fifteen weeks along and my patience is already wearing thin.

  Sinking into the cushions, I close my eyes and try calming my breathing like Dr. Ray taught me. His stress is bad for the baby speech is laughable considering my life is a cement ball of stress that nobody can lessen at this point.

  “Did you get the package?”

  I swallow. “I haven’t opened it.”

  “Please?” is all he says.

  Penny stares at me from the floor, waiting for me to make my decision. My body is worn out from the nonstop puking, gross from the amount I sweat, and fatigued from the lack of sleep. I just want to lay here and pretend like there’s no responsibility waiting for me.

  It’s the way his voice breaks in quiet plea that shatters my will. I don’t want to appease him, but I do it anyway. I peel myself off the couch and walk back into the kitchen. The cool floor feels good against my bare feet, so I stay standing and eye the package in question for the millionth time since receiving it.

  Setting the phone down and putting it on speaker, I work at the packaging it’s wrapped in. “Do I even want to know how you got my address? Or my number? We talked about stalking, Corbin. It’s frowned upon in most, if not all, countries.”

  His low chuckle makes the tiniest smile tip my lips upward. It doesn’t last though. “Just open the present, Little Bird. I think you’ll like it.”

  I still want to know the answers to those questions, but I let it go. Eyes narrowing in suspicion, I finally get the packaging off and pull out a white cardboard box with a familiar logo across the top. Brows pinching, I open it and stare at the contents inside. My lips part as I pick up one of the origami birds, holding the blue folded paper carefully in my fingers.

  “Kinley?” he asks after a long moment of thick silence.

  I blow out a breath and notice the printed words on each one of them. They look like pages from a book. When I read a few, I realize they’re pages from my book. “Why would you get me this?”

  “The woman who made your corsage back in high school still runs her own business,” he
explains quickly. “She does paper flowers too, but I thought those would mean more. I hope you’re not mad that she used your book, but I wanted to immortalize it in a way that meant something to us.”

  Us. My stomach twists with flutters from the simple two-letter word. This shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it does. He shouldn’t know what makes my heart race, or my fingers tingle, or my stomach flutter, but he does. It’s frustrating to feel like the battle within myself is always a losing one when it comes to him.

  Reality tells me to shut this down before I’m torn apart. The fantasy I’ve built in my disillusioned head tells me to embrace it without question. Being stuck in between the two has me split, but I think back to the truest line I’ve ever written.

  Maybe we’re addicted more to the pain than to each other. But who says the two need to be mutually exclusive? With Corbin, that’s never the case.

  I find the stool and slowly sink onto it. “I don’t even know if there is an us,” I whisper, picking up another bird. This one white.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I’ve seen the pictures of you and—”

  “Those pictures mean nothing,” he insists, making a dry laugh bubble from my lips.

  “Like the ones of us?”

  He grumbles under his breath. “Are you free this weekend?”

  My eyes widen. “Why?”

  “Why do you think?”

  I shake my head. “Corbin—”

  “I love you,” he says, cutting me off. My heart pounds in my chest hearing those words. He told me the very same thing not long ago. He’d botched lines during filming just to look me in the eyes and tell me how he feels. But I don’t know if he really feels that way or not.

  I don’t want him to.

  I do want him to.

  I just … sigh.

  He keeps going when I make no effort to speak. “We need to see each other and talk. I got you those birds because I’m proud of you and want to share your success. You’ve accomplished so much, Little Bird. Let me be there to cheer you on like you always did for me.”

  Staring down at my bulging stomach in the tight camisole covering it, I blink back tears and grind my jaw. “It’s not a good idea.”

  “That seems to be our thing.”

  I close my eyes when I hear the humor laced into his words. “Do you think this is funny? It’s not. This is my career on the line. If you come here and somebody sees you…”

  “Nobody will—”

  “Stop!” Do I have to remind him of the disguise he insisted would hide him at the hotel? Or at the pharmacy when we were there? If he isn’t going to think straight, I need to. “You may not have anything to lose, but I do. If you want to support me, then don’t come.”

  There’s a knock at the front door. “Shit,” I murmur, putting the birds down and walking into the foyer. “Please just listen to me for once.”

  I grab a blanket from the back of the couch and wrap it around myself before unlocking the door and pulling it open. My jaw drops when a pair of silver eyes greets my frazzled dark ones.

  Corbin smiles at me. “What would happen if I didn’t listen?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Corbin / Present

  She’s pale as she stares at me, her hands winding the blanket tighter around her body. I figured it was a risk showing up unannounced, but I didn’t know what else to do. It took a lot of work trying to figure out where she lived without owing Zach a kidney or being seen by the press without draining my bank account from bribed silence.

  He cares about her. Enough so to hesitate before giving me her address and I understand why. Mom told me over the years that he’s always been there, cementing the biggest reason I stayed away following my encounter with her brother. She made her choice and I respected that the best I could.

  “You told me you weren’t okay when I called the first time,” I say softly into the phone.

  Hers is still pressed against her ear as she blinks at me. Slowly, I lower mine and hang up. I wait for her to do the same, but when she doesn’t I take the phone and do it for her.

  “Kinley?”

  Her throat bobs. “You cannot be here.”

  Ignoring the comment, I step forward and gesture toward the inside of the house. “Can I come in?”

  She let’s out a sharp breath and stands aside, clenching the blanket to her. My brows pinch as I walk past the large green plant in a wooden pot outside her front door, stepping on the welcome mat with whiskers that says home is where my cat is. I smile when she closes the door behind her, and a small calico purring loudly struts over to me.

  “You got a cat,” I praise, kneeling to pet its head. It nudges my hand for more attention, turning in a circle and twitching her tail.

  “I’ll be right back,” she whispers, disappearing around the corner. I hear footsteps against creaky wood and assume she’s going upstairs.

  It gives me a chance to look around the living room off to my right. The open space is warm, with a large brown sofa and matching armchair around a light wooden table near the back wall. The TV is on a matching stand across from them with pictures of her family on the various shelves, and movies lining the bottom. I chuckle when I graze my fingers against a Stephen King movie in the mix, smiling and studying some of the pictures on the wall.

  The picture of Gavin with a blonde-haired woman and little boy has me shaking my head in awe. They all look happy as they play in the leaves. Older. At peace. Walking to examine a photo of Kinley and her parents beside it, I notice how much her mother and father have aged. Time feels like it’s barely passed since I last saw them, even though I know it’s been almost a decade. Her father’s hair is white, his beard speckled with gray, and her mother’s once dark locks that Kinley got from her are lined with silver.

  But that’s not what I really focus on.

  When I hear her behind me, I peel my gaze from the AC/DC sweatshirt she’s wearing in the picture and turn to say, “I can’t believe you wore—” My words fade when I see the very sweatshirt in question covering her body. It’s always been too big on her, and she’s swimming in it now.

  “The sweatshirt,” I finish. My head cocks as I approach her, eyes trailing on the way her cheekbones are more pronounced than I remember. “You’ve lost weight.”

  She plays with the sleeves. “Stress.”

  I blow out a breath and reach for what’s in my back pocket. “I got you something. Figured I shouldn’t come unannounced and empty handed.”

  When I pass her the red licorice peace offering, I don’t expect her to pale more. “Please get those things away from me, Corbin.”

  My eyes widen as I stare down at the Twizzlers. “What do you mean? I thought—”

  “Jesus.” She covers her mouth and runs out of the room. This time I follow her until I find her hunched over the kitchen sink in the room over, barely able to hold her back as she empties her stomach.

  I walk up beside her and collect her long hair, holding it back and cursing. “What do you need me to do?”

  She grips the counter on either side and murmurs something I can barely understand before vomiting again. When she’s done, she runs water and rinses out her mouth, spitting into the sink and making a choked noise in defeat.

  After a few moments, she stands up and walks away, my hands letting go of her hair as she grabs a dish towel and wipes off her mouth. I just watch her as she throws it on top of the washing machine that sits off to the side by the end counter.

  “Little Bird?” When I step forward, she holds her palm up to stop me. “Need me to get you something? Ginger ale?”

  She sniffs and wipes at her face, and it’s only then I realize her cheeks are damp. “What I need is for you to stop doing this.”

  “Doing what?”

  She walks past me, brushing my shoulder and shaking her head. I follow her up the stairs and two doors to the right. We enter a large bedroom spattered with little color other than blue decorative pillows on the bed, an
d abstract flower pictures hanging on the otherwise plain wall. I take in the photographs on her black dresser, surprised to see one of us from high school.

  A door on the other side of the room opens and she disappears into it, leaving it cracked open. I walk over and see her grab a toothbrush from a small vanity and begin brushing her teeth.

  I lean against the wall outside the door, studying the black nightstands, my eyes locking on a stack of books. “For what it’s worth, your house is beautiful. It suits you.”

  She makes a sound that doesn’t sound very amused, so I push off the wall and walk over to where the picture frames are. My fingers brush the edge of the frame featuring me and her at the winter formal. One of her palms rests against my chest, the custom corsage on her wrist on full display, and the other is wrapped around my back. One of my arms is hooked around her as my lips press against the top of her head. I’m flipping off the camera, making Kinley laugh.

  Zach took that picture of us.

  Next to that one is an image of her and the cat that greeted me downstairs. They’re both looking into the camera, Kinley smiling and the cat glaring. I chuckle and move on to the frame face down.

  When I pick it up, I stare at the dark-haired man standing beside Kinley that I don’t recognize. He has to be around my age, definitely older than her. The way he holds her tells me that they were more than friends at some point. His hold is territorial, claiming. But not as much as the rock on her finger I quickly spot.

  “Fuck me,” I whisper, shaking my head.

  “What?”

  I turn with the picture in my hand. “You never told me you were engaged.” My eyes can’t help but go to her hand, where all fingers are naked of jewelry.

  She walks over to her bed and sits on the edge, pulling the baggy sweatshirt away from her body and staring at me like she can’t quite grasp something. “I told you that I’ve had failed relationships in the past. Excuse me if neither one of us went into more detail about our significant others before we jumped into fucking.”