Little Bird

by Honey Palomino

  Sipping my coffee, I flipped through the channels, flying past Chip and Joanna Gaines goofing off in front of their latest renovation, past two monkeys loudly mating on Animal Planet, Sir David Attenborough's deep voice echoing through the house as he described it. I turned down the volume, laughing, wondering how much noise Dane and I had made last night as we were doing the same thing.

  I kept flipping and froze at the sight of Nate’s face staring back at me. I had a strict policy to change the channel immediately when that happened, but the backdrop of the set he was on caused me to pause.

  “Oh, no,” I whispered.

  He was in Chicago.

  My heart raced and my fingers trembled as I turned the volume back up. He was flashing the host his usual smile, doing the charming act that made everyone fall in love with him.

  He looked like shit, though.

  “You have a show tomorrow at the United Center,” the host, a blue-eyed blonde wax-figure named Margaret flashed her perfect teeth at him.

  “I do,” he replied. My stomach churned at the sound of his voice. “In fact, I think we have a few dozen tickets to give away.”

  “That’s right, we do!” She beamed at him, obviously stricken with the same cougar-crush that most women were inflicted with when they met him. “We’re going to take a few video calls and give them away right now!”

  I rolled my eyes. Nate hated talking to his fans directly. He loved it when they fawned over him, but he hated when they asked him personal questions, and that’s usually all that happened. They were intrusive and nosy, he’d said. In fact, I was surprised he’d agreed to take random calls at all. Usually, his PR was screened beforehand to avoid any faux-pas that might pop up.

  “Our first call is from Sara Roberts from Hyde Park. Go ahead, Sara.”

  “Hi, Nash!” A young girl’s face popped up behind Nate and Margaret and he waved at her.

  “Hey, Sara,” he said, with a slow smile. The crowd went wild and the girl squealed and covered her mouth. She was adorable, she couldn’t have been more than ten years old, and clearly fangirling.

  “You just won two tickets to tomorrow’s show, Sarah! What’s your question?” Margaret asked, stealing a look over at Nate with hungry eyes.

  “Oh, my god, that’s amazing! Thank you! I was hoping you’d tell us when you’ll be releasing new music, Nash?” she asked, her voice shy and timid.

  “That’s a great question, Sara!” Nate said. “I actually just wrote a new song and I’m going to be performing it today.”

  The girl squealed again and said thank you before Margaret went on to the next caller, an older girl named Tiffany this time, she must have been about twenty-one.

  “Hey, Nash,” she said, her voice full of sexy confidence as she cocked her head and twirled a strand of hair around a perfectly manicured fingernail.

  “Hey, baby,” he winked. The crowd in the studio laughed and clapped.

  “I only have one question,” she said, still twirling. “Are you single? Have you moved on from the girl you were looking for?”

  The crowd gasped and Margaret damn near licked her lips as she looked over at Nate, waiting for an answer.

  “Oh, god,” I said, dreading the words I didn’t want to hear. Nate had to say yes. It was in his recording contract that he remain single in the public eye. I don’t know how many times I’d been forced to go through the back door of a venue or a hotel so that we wouldn’t be seen together. The few times we were photographed together were always followed up by a press release explaining we were just friends. Hell, they’d even made him publicly deny having a girlfriend on one of the talk shows.

  So, of course, I knew he’d say yes, that he was single again. Most likely, his handlers had admonished him for mentioning me in the first place.

  “I am,” he nodded, before continuing, “but not because I want to be.”

  He reached over and put a hand on Margaret’s knee, flashing a fake-sincere smile at her. “Margaret, is it okay if we talk about this?”

  “Of course,” she said, her face flushed. She made no move to remove his hand as it rested on the tip of her bare knee.

  “I know some of you have heard about my search. I told the world already — I met someone and we had some problems. I admitted it — I was a bit of jerk and I’ve been trying to find her to make it up to her. But no, I haven’t found her yet. And I certainly haven’t given up on my search, Tiffany! That’s why I’m so grateful for the help of the public. Everyone’s been looking for Dove, and that just makes my heart soar, you know, Margaret?” He squeezed her knee.

  “Oh, yes,” she nodded, fluttering her eyes.

  “Anyway, so I don’t know how to express myself sometimes, you guys. I’m just a dumb guy, right? So, I wrote Little Bird a song. That’s what I’ll be singing this morning.”

  “Well, why wait?” Margaret said. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “Yeah? Are we ready?” Nate asked, looking around like he didn’t already know his band had been waiting for him on set for an hour already.

  “I think so,” Margaret said, playing along.

  “Well, okay, let’s do this,” he said, pausing before standing up. “And I just want to say one thing first, directly to Little Bird, if that’s okay?”

  “Oh, of course,” Margaret said.

  Bile rose in my throat as the camera closed in on Nate’s face. He looked directly into it and it felt like he was in the room with me when he said my name.

  “Dove, baby. You know I love you. I know you deserve to be treated better than I treated you. Come home, love. Let me make it up to you. I miss you.”

  He smiled at the camera, the same slow, eerie smile he’d given me when he’d threatened my life as I lay bloody beneath him on his cold floor.

  The crowd cheered as the camera pulled away and he stood up and jogged over to his band on the adjacent stage. He took his place behind the microphone and the music started up, a slow, melodic tune rising through the air, as he started singing.

  “God sent you to me, a precious treasure

  I loved you with all of my heart

  You turned my love into wings

  Now my heart sings with sadness

  And my world has been shattered

  Fly home, Little Bird, fly home…”

  I turned off the television, throwing the remote down on the couch.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

  Fat, hot tears ran down my face as my entire body began shaking with fear. He was here, somewhere downtown — wherever the television studio was. He was close. So close. Too fucking close.

  I debated what to do. I couldn’t call in sick, because I was covering a shift for another nurse. But maybe work was the best place for me right now. If he knew I lived here — which he may or may not actually know — then the first place he would go would be my apartment.

  “Shit,” I said to myself, trying to calm my nerves. “I gotta get out of here.”

  Thankfully, Dane was still sleeping soundly when I went to his room to retrieve my clothes. I tiptoed out, leaving him there after a long glance at his sleeping form. I wanted to crawl back into bed with him, wake him up and make love again, but Nate had stolen this moment from me also.

  He’d proven good at stealing things from me.

  Fuck, he’d taken everything else, I thought as I scribbled a quick note for Dane, then began the short walk home. I put on my sunglasses and ball cap, doing my best to hide any distinctive features that may cause me to get recognized.

  By the time I’d made it through the front door, all the hope I’d woken up feeling had slowly seeped out of me.

  Chapter 43

  SAMANTHA

  After hurrying through my chores, I raced to the hospital and disappeared into the hustle and bustle of its busy hallways. I’d been there a few hours before I bumped into Mike and Charlotte at the nurse’s station.

  Mike took one look at me and stopped short.

  “Somet
hing’s different about you,” he said.

  I shook my head, in no mood to discuss anything that was going on.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, unless you are referring to stress. One of my patients isn’t doing well.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but that’s not it,” he insisted, scrutinizing me with squinted eyes. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he pointed a finger at me. “You got laid!”

  “Oh, my god,” I said, rolling my eyes and turning away.

  Charlotte whistled and nodded in agreement. “Yep.”

  “You go girl!” Mike called after me as I waved them off and disappeared around the corner.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out, reading a text message from Dane.

  “Last night was heaven. I hope you’re day is as beautiful as you are.”

  I flushed at the words, feeling a wave of pleasure crash through all my anxiety and worry. He was a good man and he was right — last night had been amazing.

  It was too bad my day was ruined so I couldn’t enjoy it more.

  “So far, so good. And I agree…thank you for an amazing evening!” I texted back, a total lie. Today had been a disaster and I had a bad feeling the destruction was going to keep coming.

  I got a hold of myself and walked back onto the floor, doing my rounds as efficiently and compassionately as possible for the next few hours. Lunchtime rolled around and I gratefully took a break in the hospital cafeteria and slowly made my way back to the nurse’s station.

  The fact that Nate was in the same town as me was something I just couldn’t shake. Thank God Chicago was absolutely huge. When Nate was on tour, he spent most of his time holed up in his hotel, doing press in television studios or radio stations, or at the venue doing rehearsals.

  The chances of me running into him were non-existent.

  Non-existent, non-existent, non-existent, I chanted all the way back to my station.

  I stopped short when I saw a huge bouquet of flowers standing on the desk.

  But they weren’t just any flowers.

  They were the flowers. The exact same shade of maroon peonies that Nate had given me on our first date, the ones he’d cut from his father’s garden.

  I panicked, staring at them like they were on fire.

  “What’s wrong, love?” Mike said, coming up behind me. “Aren’t those from McDreamy?”

  “What?” I asked, my eyes wide. “I don’t think so…”

  “Oh, well, they have your name on them, but no card. I figured your lover sent them after you got the big D!”

  “The big D?” I rolled my eyes, groaning.

  “Yeah, baby, the big McDreamy dick,” he laughed. “You must be tired, though, because you were glowing a lot more this morning. Maybe you need another dose of that big D to perk you up again?”

  “God, you’re awful,” I said, my eyes still glued to the flowers.

  This color was extremely rare. I knew that fact because Nate loved to talk about how his mom brought the bulbs back from a vacation to Asia he’d sent her on and they’d be cultivated very carefully over the years in his parent’s backyard.

  Nate loved to brag about things he’d done for others. It was almost like a currency to him. Maybe that ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ philosophy was a Hollywood thing, but it was a turn-off early on in our relationship. I never understood why he couldn’t do something nice for someone, or donate to a charity, without having to announce it to the world. It was egotistical and annoying and just another red flag I should have seen but was instead blind to.

  Frustration washed over me, with a heafty side of dread.

  Mike was right, there was no card or anything with the flowers. They just sat there like a bomb waiting to go off, with only my name taped to the side.

  “Did they come from a florist?”

  “Nope. They just appeared. I don’t know how they got here.”

  “Shit.”

  Had he found me?

  Was he fucking with me?

  I looked all around, as far as I could see from my vantage point from behind the desk, unable to shake the feeling that Nate was going to pop out at any moment. I wanted to take the flowers and shove them in the garbage. Instead, I turned my back on them, grabbed the paperwork I needed and ran away from them as fast as I could.

  Chapter 44

  DANE

  Samantha was all I could think about.

  I woke up disappointed to see she’d already left, but I needed the sleep. I’d not been getting much lately, spending most of my nights chasing away Loren’s ghost and fantasizing about what it might feel like to be with someone else.

  Now I knew.

  Every inch of Samantha’s body was now etched into my brain, easily available to access any time I wanted to relive the heavenly moments we’d spent together last night.

  She’d wanted it just as much as I had and I got the feeling it was just as therapeutic for her as it was for me, too.

  I felt free.

  For once, the heavy chains of the past weren’t weighing on me and after a long jog in the neighborhood, I ran a quick errand at the hospital, then decided to take myself out to lunch. If I was still going to therapy, I’d have called to report my progress, but I’d given up on that long ago, convinced that no amount of talking about Loren would make the memory of her go away.

  I still didn’t want to forget about her. I knew I never would.

  But to experience the love of another woman, to feel the connection, the closeness, the pure pleasure that came from sliding into Samantha’s quivering body last night as she wrapped those exquisite thighs around me had left me feeling free and alive, more than I’d felt in a very long time.

  The intoxication that I felt after performing a successful surgery came close to this, but it was entirely different. This was visceral, a full-body high that left every inch of my skin singing.

  I sat at the bar of my favorite tavern, stuffing a huge burger and fries in my mouth and chasing it with a few beers, as the television played silently above me and the events of last night played over and over in my head.

  Every cell in my body was begging for more. Another taste of Samantha’s sweet nectar. I felt myself swell at the memory of her splayed out before me, biting her lip before I delved down to taste her for the first time. She shuddered when my tongue hit her center, sending shocks of desire ricocheting through my body.

  Sliding into her for the first time had been a simply otherworldly experience.

  We’d lost ourselves in each other, barely coming up for air all night, until we’d fallen asleep the way lovers are supposed to fall asleep — completely tangled together until you can’t tell where one of you begins and the other ends.

  “Joe, can I have another beer?” I asked the bartender.

  “You got it,” he replied, sliding another ice cold bottle my way, before pointing up at the screen above us. “Something about this guy rubs me the wrong way.”

  I looked up and burst out laughing.

  “Nash?” I laughed. “I know him. His mother was a patient of mine before she died a few years ago.” Nate Nash was on the local morning talk show — a replay playing from this morning, it looked like.

  “Oh, yeah? Is he as much of an arrogant douche as he seems to be?”

  I laughed again, shaking my head. “He didn’t use to be. Fame does something to people, I guess. After his mom died, he definitely turned into a different person. I haven’t seen him in a few years, though, so who knows what he’s like now?”

  “Seems like a douche,” Joe repeated. “He’s got the whole world looking for some ex-girlfriend, apparently. She’s probably hiding out in the Bermuda Triangle. Can you imagine being in a relationship with that arrogant pretty boy?” He scoffed, before walking away. I watched the screen, the sound down completely, as Nash performed, playing to the camera expertly as he thrashed around onstage. The crowd went wild after he was done and he stood there smiling and wavi
ng to them.

  I remembered his mother well.

  Nora Nash loved her son more than anything in the world, but she was also a bit of a stage mom. Nash inherited diabetes from her, and she’d always felt guilty about that, even though there was nothing she could have done to prevent it. I always got the impression that Nate blamed her for it a little bit, though, despite that fact. His resentment sometimes showed on his face when he thought nobody was watching.

  Of course, I’d stayed out of that, as much as I could. She’d come to me for treatment, her condition getting worse by the day. I mentioned that nobody could control what someone inherits from their parents, more than once in fact. But who could say if he absorbed it at all?

  I’d heard the stories about him through the recent years — tales of him dating supermodels and partying constantly, and I figured he maybe went off the rails after Nora died. But I know damn well how easy it is to go a little crazy after someone you loved dies, so who am I to judge the guy?

  I turned my thoughts back to Samantha, a slow smile spreading across my face that I couldn’t control even if I wanted to. But why resist? This pleasure was a long time coming and I was finally convinced I deserved it.

  I let my thoughts linger on her the rest of the day and the smile stayed, too.

  Chapter 45

  NATE

  Sweat poured off my body as I walked off the stage, leaving behind twenty thousand screaming fucking maniacs. God, they were tiresome. I mean, yeah, I have to do this for the money now, because everyone knows since Spotify unleashed its evil on the world, musicians don’t get paid for record sales anymore.

  Now, you have to go out and fucking kill yourself on stage night after night to make any real cash. And fuck, the pressure from that is immense. Because not only are you responsible for yourself and your band, but there’s all the rest of the crew you have to pay for. The lighting designer, the sound engineer, the merch sellers, the drivers, the production staff. For fuck’s sake, it’s never-ending.