"So, you're serious. You have a macaw you need me to watch."
"Yep."
"When? For how long?"
"Um, I don't know yet, but soon. And for however long a trip to Texas is going to take."
"Do I want to know?"
"It's a long story," I said with a shrug.
"Then, no, I don't want to know. This thing isn't going to take my finger off, is it?"
"Fuck if I know. I've never even seen it. Just heard it while I was locked in a basement cell last night."
"Basement cell," he repeated, brows drawing together.
"Misunderstanding about a murder that was actually a suicide."
"Ah," he said, like he knew exactly what happened.
"Oh, wait," I said when my phone rang in my pocket. It was such a foreign thing for me that I actually jumped. "Might have more details in a sec," I explained as I swiped the screen.
"Is that... a cell? That was... ringing?"
"It's looking like the day after tomorrow at, say, ten AM. She will come by and drop off all the stuff he needs. I will keep you updated via text on when we might be back. So I need your... what?" I asked when all he did was stare at me.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked, shaking his head. "You suddenly have a friend who you are going on some road trip with. You have a cell, and you are actually programming numbers into it. What the hell happened in that basement Luce?"
That was actually a pretty valid question, one I knew I would have to mull over myself. Sometime. But not today.
"Dunno man. I'm evolving I guess. So you'll do it."
"I, ah, well it gives me some time to research."
What did I say?
In a day or so, Barrett was going to be the foremost blue and gold macaw expert in the country. He was a prime example of why some seemingly cold, robotic people could actually make good assets in life. Maybe he wasn't going to kiss the fucking bird's beak or some shit, but he would feed it right, make sure it slept, shit, exercised, and behaved like it was supposed to.
A day and a half later, I was standing in Barrett's office with a huge smirk.
Because it wasn't his office anymore. Not really. Sure, his desk was still there, and his office equipment was where it always had been, but all of the limited free space had been turned into a mini bird jungle.
No shit.
There was stuff hanging from the ceilings and huge tree limb play stands all over. There was an overhead light that he explained was full-spectrum because, apparently, if birds didn't get enough of the right lighting, they actually stopped seeing color. Which, he went on to explain, would make their eating habits change for the worse because they couldn't see what they were eating properly.
I swear to fuck he told me all this shit in the three minutes between when I showed up and when Evan walked through the door.
She did so with the bird in question sitting on her hand. It was looking around curiously, but not seeming the least bit spooked. "Oh wow," she said, stopping short, looking at me with big eyes for a second, questioning, then looking at Barrett. "I think you're going to take better care of him than I do," she said, sounding almost a little guilty about that.
"I did some parrot research, but are there any specific things I need to know about him?"
Oh, Barrett. All about the facts. He didn't even know her name. Or the bird's.
"Ah, well he isn't clipped, so he flies all over. He screams at sun up and down, but only for a little while. If you give him cauliflower, he will throw it. If you give him blackberries, he will... just don't give him blackberries. Trust me. He talks and he only nips when you are trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to. He's pretty good, all in all. And he's used to moving around and strangers, so he shouldn't be nervous or self-destructive being away from me for a few days."
"His diet?"
"Pellets, seed as treats, and fresh veggies and fruit when he will eat them."
"Alright. That's all I need to know."
"Well, his name is Diego," Evan said, brow lifted. "You might need to know that."
"Figured he would tell me himself," Barrett said, approaching the giant bird with a massive beak, and offering his hand without even an ounce of fear. I wondered if that was part of Barrett's thing, his whatever-it-was that made him just a little different from everyone else. Did it also make him foolishly fearless?
But the bird responded to his confidence and stepped right up, letting out a caw that made me wince.
"Alright. We will keep you updated via text," I reminded him, as he seemed to completely ignore us, bringing the bird over to his new jungle, and introducing him to the places where the food dishes and water were. "Might as well get going now, doll. We lost him."
She looked at me, then back to Barrett who was giving Diego scratches, then back to me. "Ah, yeah, okay. Let's get going. Do you have everything?" she asked. I reached down, grabbing my backpack, and picking it up. "That's it? Really?"
"That's it, really," I agreed, nodding. I didn't exactly have an extensive wardrobe.
"Are you seriously wearing the hoodie on the plane?" she asked as we headed outside toward her car, storing my bag in the back with her modest duffle. Moving around as much as she had, she must have known how to economize with her carry-on.
"I'd be more worried about the recycled air, MRSA armrests, and screaming babies than my hoodie, Ev," I said, giving her a small smile.
"Oh, you're gonna be a fun flight-buddy, huh?" she teased, rolling her eyes. We climbed in and made our way to the airport.
"I told you not to wear the hoodie," she said after the TSA guard made me take it off to look me over and pat me down. I guess I looked like a criminal. You know, because I was one.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, shrugging back into it like armor. "You done 'told you so'ing? Can we get on the big metal germ incubator now?"
She laughed, the sound warm and musical.
"You're ridiculous," she declared, whacking her shoulder into mine as she said it, like she was saying she liked that about me.
And that, yeah, I liked that too much.
This trip was going to be all kinds of revealing; not just for Evan but me as well.
I couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.
NINE
Evan
I think he was insecure about his scars.
That was why he had insisted on wearing a hoodie on a flight that was going to land somewhere that would make both of us break out into a sweat in minutes.
I had gotten a peek of some once before, but I had no idea they were as extensive as they were until the TSA agent made him take off his hoodie, leaving him in a simple black tee instead, his arms on full display.
And there were scars.
There were a lot of scars.
Some looked like deep gashes, like maybe the people he had killed had scratched him. Others though, they looked odd. Round. Very perfectly round. And I had the bone-deep feeling that they were cigarette and cigar burns. The skin was raised and puckered like it did with the remains of burns like that. My father had had one on the top of his hand in the triangle between the thumb and forefinger from some gang leader who got their hands on him once.
There were others too, ones that weren't as superficial as the scratches; they looked like gouges had been taken out of his flesh, then left untreated so that the skin had needed to try to grow over the missing spots, not being sewn together with stitches, making them neat.
Painful.
Whatever had done that had to have hurt like a mother.
I couldn't imagine.
And whatever had caused them was obviously not something he wanted to talk about. That was why he kept them covered at all times.
What darkness must he have known?
"Nope," he said suddenly, making me jump, so long lost in my own thoughts that I realized I had followed him on auto-pilot into the plane and down the aisle without noticing.
"Nope, what?"
"N
ope, I want the aisle," he clarified, bumping my shoulder, and effectively almost sending me falling into the seat.
"Such a gentleman," I said, rolling my eyes at him as I dropped down.
"That's me, regular fucking Ashley Wilkes. You should know that reference from all your book learning," he added, fastening his seatbelt.
"Gone With the Wind."
"That's the one. Another good flick. If you have four hours to spare."
"You're totally going to make me watch the in-flight movie, aren't you?"
"Well, look at that," he declared, smirking. "We can watch Moana," he said, sounding excited. "And by 'can,' I mean 'will be,'" he declared.
A couple minutes later, we were.
And it was cute.
But I was maybe a little more distracted than I should have been by the fact that we were kinda sharing an armrest, that I could feel his body heat through the material of his sleeve, that he didn't pull away when mine moved there. It was like being sixteen all over again.
Which, apparently, meant I totally had a - and I cringe using this word as a grown ass adult - crush on the strange, scarred, occasionally hilarious, always mysterious, very skilled kisser known as Luce.
Really, there was no denying it.
Not when I was hyper aware of tiny, inconsequential things like his arm brushing mine, his body heat, and the way his eyes danced when he said something funny. That all added up to crush, no matter what way you tried to work the equation.
Smart?
No.
Logical?
Well, of course not.
But there was the feeling nonetheless.
I figured maybe the trip was good. Maybe being around him for a couple days straight in stifling heat while in a somewhat emotionally-charged situation would cure me of it.
Or, you know, maybe we would end up a tangled pile of sweaty limbs after intense world-shattering orgasms.
Either way.
I was willing to take that 'risk.'
"So?" he asked when the movie ended, reaching over to pull my headphones off.
"I want a pig," I declared, making him chuckle. "Puaa means pig in Hawaiian. That didn't take much imagination."
"Like Heifer from Rocko's Modern Life. Oh, yeah," he said, sighing, "I forgot. Your childhood never taught you that r-e-c-y-c-l-e song. How the hell did you ever learn how to spell 'conserve' without that show?"
"Um... a dictionary?" I suggested.
He snorted at that. "Nerd," he accused. "So, from Houston, where are we heading?"
Luce had literally left every little detail of the travel planning to me. I knew he was normally an almost alarmingly meticulous stickler for details in his work, but maybe because this wasn't his work per se, he was alright with riding passenger, and letting me handle all the plans.
"I have a car rental from the airport. It is a five-hour drive from the airport to McAllen where we can crash for the night. We're gonna be beat by then."
"And where are we crashing?"
"Well, I did do my best to try to find a cabin in the woods on a hill with old man vibes, but, alas, Texas is flat and not big on the woods department. Plenty of old men, though. Maybe one will have left his energy in the walls of your hotel room. It is very, ah, southern decor-wise. I'm pretty sure I saw framed pictures of cowboy boots on one of the walls. It's a nice place. And only fifteen minutes from the church you mentioned."
"Sounds good."
"Maybe you'll be able to get some sleep there," I said at the strained silence, making his head snap over to look at me curiously. "Come on, not even all the caffeine can hide the fact that you're not sleeping."
"I go through phases," he evaded, shrugging like it was no big deal.
"Well, maybe a change of scenery will help."
"Yeah, maybe."
There wasn't even a shred of optimism in his voice.
And I couldn't help but wonder what his phases were, what caused them, what made them go away again. Was it simply all the darkness he had involved himself in? Behind his lids when he tried to rest at night, did he see men begging for their lives, taking their last breaths, dead bodies melting in a tub?
These were all questions that would seemingly go unanswered because for the rest of the flight, he cold-shouldered me. He wasn't outwardly all that difference except he kept his focus out toward the aisle so I couldn't catch his eyes to start another conversation.
I had a feeling he was being touchy because I hit a nerve. Maybe between seeing his scars earlier and calling him on his sleeplessness, he was feeling a little exposed. A man like him, living behind his guards, behind his long sleeves and hood, hiding in his woods away from the world, I was pretty sure he wasn't used to having anyone even attempt to get close to him.
I mean, even his private investigator friend Barrett didn't exactly seem like a friend. The two men interacted like two people who used to hang out when they were teens and hadn't seen each other in a decade. They were both equally odd characters, sure, and maybe that had more to do with it than Luce's inability to connect. For all I knew, maybe they watched sports together and hit the town to pick up chicks every week.
That last idea made my belly wobble slightly, completely irrationally, I knew, but it happened none the less.
I needed to get ahold of those crushy-type feelings for the man.
This would prove nearly impossible, though, once we got through a very tense car ride where I drove, and Luce played captain of the radio. This was fine by me because, well, I didn't know any of the damn songs anyway. I could feel Luce's eyes on my profile when a song he must have found particularly popular, poignant, good, or all three, looking for some sign of recognition. When he found none, there was a quiet sighing or tisking.
Other than this, and the occasional directions from the English-sounding GPS lady on my phone, the ride was painfully silent.
We didn't talk.
He didn't make jokes at my expense.
And me, well, I couldn't think of anything to say.
Oh, look, another horse, seemed a bit lame.
The outside of the hotel was a warm sandy-colored stucco, very Spanish villa styled, massive, and there was a fair amount of greenery that I found impressive given the oppressive dry heat.
Me, I had experienced all kinds of heat in my travels.
In my humble opinion, nothing was worse than dry. It pressed down on your chest and made breathing more like an idea than an actuality.
We grabbed our respective bags and moved into the lobby where I let out a snort because, not only was there a framed picture of cowboy boots as I had insinuated, but there was also a framed picture of a cowboy hat, one of a spur, and one of a cactus. Sure, they were kinda modern with bright primary colors, but they were still incredibly, almost offensively southwestern. Were the locals even into things like that? Who knew.
"I'm sorry, Miss Cruz," the young woman at the service desk said, looking up from her computer, looking competent and professional in her crisp white shirt. How she didn't sweat through it on the way to work was beyond me.
The blood thins was something someone once told me in Alabama when I complained about a particularly bad heat wave.
Maybe people who grew up in certain climates weren't as affected by them as people who visited them were.
"But I have you down for one room with two queens, not two rooms with a queen in each."
"What? No," I insisted, shaking my head, feeling like an idiot. "No, that's not possible."
"It can be hard on the online form, ma'am," she went on, looking apologetic and seemingly unconcerned with how my lip curled at the word 'ma'am.' I was hardly a ma'am, damnit. I was still squarely within the miss category. "Those two options are stacked. You probably just hit the wrong button."
Ugh.
I guess that was entirely possible.
"You done fucked up," Luce said, low, leaning on the desk with his back to the woman. It was maybe the first time he spoke directly to me aside from helpi
ng me read street signs since the plane. And when my gaze went over, he looked amused at said fuck up.
"Right. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding," I said, giving her a smile. "Is there any way... what?" I asked because halfway into my speech, she was already shaking her head at me.
"I'm sorry, ma'am." Oh, she was really digging her grave with the ma'am shit. I was hot. I was stiff and irritated from travel. My stomach was growling. And I was almost irrationally irritated with the distance between myself and my travel companion. In short, I was grumpy, and I was not in the mood for hospitality nonsense. "There is a convention in our event room this week. We are full-up."
"Of course you are," I grumbled, closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to not flip on her since, sins of the 'ma'am' aside, it was not her fault. "I guess we will go somewhere..."
"Just check us into the room you have us down for, ma'am," Luce said, making my eyes snap open to find his lips twitching, like he knew I was pissy over that word, like he knew exactly what he was doing saying it to the woman who was at least two or three years younger than me.
I had to press my lips together when she immediately stiffened, her smile falling for a beat, before it got replaced by a glacial hospitality-fake one.
"You get grumpy as fuck when you travel, huh?" he asked as she clicked away at her computer.
"Says the guy who has had his panties in a bunch for five hours and wouldn't speak to me. The silent treatment is childish, Luce. In case you weren't aware. If you have a problem with me, you tell me."
I could feel his eyes on my profile, almost surprised he didn't bore holes into my skin with their intensity. But I kept my focus on the woman at the desk as she started her little spiel.
When I was handed the keycards, I thanked her, turned on my heel, and started toward the elevators she had pointed to, not bothering to wait for Luce to see if he was coming or not.
He did, however, catch up and slip into the elevator with me, following me down the hall on our floor.
The room was nice, if a bit unusual. The wall behind the beds was a somewhat bright lime green. The wall where the windows overlooked the pool in the back was covered in fake white bricks. The window dressings were sheers and terra-cotta curtains. The carpet was clean, plush, and a medium brown. The beds each had faux leather brown tufted headboards, white sheets, and comforters of white, the bright lime green, brown, terra-cotta, and aqua. It was almost very beachy considering how far inland we were.
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