by Celeste, B.
Where The Little Birds Go
B. Celeste
Contents
Playlist
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Acknowledgments
Also by B. Celeste
About the Author
This Book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Where the Little Birds Go
Copyright © 2020 by B. Celeste
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover Artist: RBA Designs
Published by: B. Celeste
Formatting: Micalea Smeltzer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.
Playlist
“Hollywood’s Bleeding” – Post Malone
“Lose You to Love Me” – Selena Gomez
“Picture” – Kid Rock ft. Cheryl Crow
“Consequences” – Camila Cabello
“Circles” – Post Malone
“Lover” – Taylor Swift
“It Will Rain” – Bruno Mars
“Stay With Me” – Sam Smith
To the dreamers
Prologue
Kinley / Present
I never expected him to come crashing back into my life. Without warning, without a single clue, I was face to face with my greatest weakness. Nobody knew that I was already familiar with the silver-eyed charmer whose face encompassed every magazine, newsstand, and Hollywood tabloid cover across the country.
Before Corbin Callum became America’s biggest star, he was just the new kid in the middle of nowhere. I knew all his secrets from the start—where he got the scar on his right eyebrow, why he has two black tally marks tattooed on his left pec, and who he lost his virginity to. None of that is information I gathered from the press or pieced together by rumors.
Long before we dove headfirst into the industries we’ve dreamed of being big figures in, we made a pact that we’d never leave each other behind. But our aspirations were larger than the old versions of ourselves that thought everything would remain the same. We couldn’t keep up the charade, pretending to be the teenagers who had the world at their feet.
Once upon a time, I was his.
Before the fame.
Before the money.
Before her.
For a long time, I accepted that we’d never see each other again. But here we are.
He meets my eyes and grins.
“Hey, Little Bird.”
Chapter One
Corbin / Present
I’ve officially lost it at twenty-eight. Despite the half-naked woman sporting nothing but a white t-shirt and black panties in front of me, I’m staring at a fully clothed one through distorted glass. The way her chestnut hair flows down her back as she laughs at something somebody in front of her says has me harder than the scrap of lace over a tan pert ass five feet away. I know the husky laugh well. I’ve even been the cause of it a time or two.
But that was before.
Suddenly, I’m not picturing the blonde in my clothes. I’m picturing a familiar brunette with a curvy body under a thin sheet of my favorite worn cotton. A small birthmark in the shape of a heart would peek out from the fabric on her inner thigh, where I’d be able to trace it with my finger.
The brunette isn’t in front of me though. She’s too busy talking to world renown Tyler Buchannan as he flirts his way into her good graces in hopes that’ll lead to a few glasses of wine and a strip show in the penthouse he rented.
Unbeknownst to him, she doesn’t drink. At least, she didn’t. I guess that could have changed over the past ten years. I’d be a fucking fool to think nothing else has.
The front of my slacks gets too tight for comfort as my head conjures old memories of bare skin under my old AC/DC sweatshirt. That birthmark likes to make its appearance in the back of my mind more times than not, and I can still feel the sensation of smooth skin under my fingertips like it was yesterday.
“My, my,” a sultry voice purrs.
Slowly, my eyes meet a pair of blue ones staring down at the hard dick tenting my pants. Adjusting myself with no shame, I settle into the chair I’ve been in for the past ten minutes.
“Is that for me?” Olivia asks, shooting me the same wicked grin she gave me the first day we ever worked together. I like Olivia Davies. She’s always easy to work with, and certainly not bad on the eyes. She referred to herself as Hitler’s wet dream once, which didn’t go over well with the press we were doing interviews with. I cracked up, and both our managers scolded us for the shitshow we created.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Stretching my legs out and crossing my arms over my chest, I nod toward the free chair beside me. “I wasn’t thinking about you.”
I’m sure she rolls her eyes as she takes a seat, sitting sideways on the chair and using the back as an armrest. “I’m sure. You were thinking about Lena, right? Honestly, I would be too. I can admit when I have a girl crush. She gives me a lady boner.”
I find my gaze locked on chestnut hair again, her facial features cracked from the thick decorated glass separating us. “Uh … what?”
“Lena,” Liv repeats, snorting out an amused laugh. “Your wife?”
I roll my shoulders back and force myself to look around the kitchen. Anything but the woman outside it. Everything here looks shiny, expensive, and new. The cabinets are dark wood, the countertops white granite, and the appliances all featuring the best of the best with brands I’m sure are helping fund the project through sponsorships.
“Yeah.”
Except that’s a lie. The only woman who should get me this hard with a single memory should be my wife. Unfortunately for me, that isn’t the five-seven figure walking alongside Buchannan as he gives her a tour.
Things with Lena aren’t what they seem. We spend far more time apart than together, so it’s practically like being single with limitations. I have a better relationship with my right hand than I do with the woman I made vows to.
“Definitely thinking about my wife.”
Liv nudges my foot with hers and tips her chin toward the side of the set. “What do you think Buchannan and Kinley are talking about? I doubt his new girlfriend is a fan of her books, so I’m sure it isn’t that. I’m not sure she can even read.”
Chuckling over the sad but true knock at the ditzy redhead who Buchannan is stringing along for the time being, I shake my head. “They’re probably going over expectations of the film.”
You know, if expectations were telling her where his hotel i
s and what number is on the door. I’ve worked with Buchannan before, and know his reputation. Women as gorgeous as Kinley Thomas can’t be ignored by men with prying eyes like him.
Olivia full on cackles now. “Yeah, sure. I thought writers were, like, introverted hermits. You know, kinda smelly and sensitive to sunlight.”
I don’t want to tell Liv that Kinley has never fit the stereotypical author role. That would mean I know her, and that’s far from true at this point. Once upon a time, I knew that she loved Twizzlers, action movies, and teaching herself origami using notes from class. She hated mayonnaise, movies where animals get neglected, and when people called her anything but her full name. It’s why part of me thought I was breaking the ice by using an old nickname only I ever called her. It was our thing.
Little Bird.
Turns out, I was wrong.
“Well?” Liv presses.
“Hmm?”
“What’s your opinion on Kinley?”
That’s a loaded question.
Besides the film industry, my oldest fascination has been the shy girl who preferred journaling on her own over going out with friends. She has a scar on her left cheek from when her family’s chow-chow bit her. Once she tried covering it up with makeup, but it was the dead of summer and the shit melted off and made it more pronounced. Any flaw she thought she had was my favorite part of her—scars, aversion to people, and all.
“She seems like the kind of woman who won’t fall for Buchannan’s tricks,” is what I opt to settle with after thinking on it for too long.
She laughs, letting it go.
“We’re filming in two,” Buchannan yells from his chair at the other end of the set. Next to him is Kinley’s seat, which is placed a little too close to his. I tell myself it wasn’t her who put the chair there, but it doesn’t ease the irrational irritation bubbling under my skin.
Liv gets up and puts the chair back how she found it, shooting me a wink before swaying her hips provocatively where she’s supposed to start the scene by the counter. I roll my eyes at her as I settle on the chair as cued, resting one arm on the edge of the table while watching her closely. My legs are spread, my teeth are digging into my bottom lip, and I study her like I studied Kinley Thomas before I fucked everything up.
“And, action!”
Olivia grabs a wine glass and glances over at me. Her eyes are lust-filled as they scan down my body, landing on the slight bulge beneath my zipper.
“I have a feeling you’re going to be a bad influence,” she says, delivering her line as she begins filling her glass with Pinot Noir.
Swiping my bottom lip with my thumb, I shift in the seat and stare at her exposed ass. “I don’t think you have a problem with that.”
She fights off a grin. “There’s a special place in hell for people like us, you know.”
“People in love?”
She lifts the glass to her lips. “Cheaters.”
Chapter Two
Kinley / Present
The blended mixture of red and yellow across the California skyline is dulled by the glow of skyscrapers lining the distance. Heart racing as I take another step further onto the tenth-story balcony attached to my hotel room, I absorb the noise of a nightlife I’m foreign to. For the first time in years, I think about how much I miss the middle of nowhere I grew up in.
Closing the outer door, I back into the main room of the prestigious suite that Tyler Buchannan set me up with. Everything is white, modern, and sleek—far from the odd mixture of farmhouse-meets-contemporary that litters my three-bedroom townhome in Upstate New York.
When the opportunity came, I couldn’t distance myself from the place I called home for twenty years. How many times had I told everyone I’d get out of Lincoln? Move? Go somewhere farm animals didn’t outnumber humans? Yet, the house I purchased almost four years ago is mere hours away from the family I thought I’d long since said goodbye to.
A soft knock at the door has my brows pinching, especially when my name is called following room service that I never ordered. Though I considered taking advantage of the free food Buchannan offered me on the movie’s expense, my stomach has been too full of eerily familiar flutters since seeing Corbin Callum parading around set like he owned it.
The annoying thing is, he did.
He is the epitome of Ryker Evans.
Sex appeal.
Confident.
A vulnerability so few people see.
Tugging on the hem of the AC/DC sweatshirt that I slipped on over my pajama pants, I look through the peephole at the pepper-haired man in hotel uniform. My outfit isn’t very public friendly, not that I necessarily care about what strangers think of me. But the sweatshirt is a well-worn keepsake that I hate myself for wearing. I don’t remember packing it, but the second my eyes landed on the holey fabric and faded letters, the anxiety I felt since landing in California eased.
The hotel worker greets me again as I open the door, gesturing toward the tray on the cart between us. Whatever rests under the serving tray smells delicious, but it doesn’t lessen my confusion.
“I think there’s been a mistake,” I offer, giving him a grateful smile. “It smells amazing, but I didn’t order anything.”
The man shakes his head. “No mistake, ma’am. It was called in for you to be delivered straight to your room.”
I blink. “By…?”
He just smiles. “I’m only the delivery man, ma’am. Somebody will come by to collect the tray outside your room when you’re finished. Enjoy your dinner.”
Dismissed, I accept the tray and close the door behind me with a murmured thank you. The faint smell of salt and something familiar wafts into the air, leaving my curiosity piquing. Setting the silver on the table closest to me, I take off the lid and stare at what lays underneath.
When I notice the note sitting beside the burger and fries, I pluck it off and open it. I don’t expect to see what’s scrawled in decent handwriting across the hotel stationary. My eyes travel to the smaller tray off to the side, still covered with something peeking out of the corner. My fingers hesitantly lift the lid, freezing when the packaged plastic of Twizzlers appears.
Leaning my hip against the table, my fingers smooth over the inked letters.
We’ll keep making the same mistakes because we never want to learn.
-Ryker
I remember reading those very words a thousand times after I received the script from the screenwriter. They were straight from my book—a sentence I’d debated on deleting countless times because they’d been a truth I hadn’t wanted to accept.
Corbin Callum is a mistake I’ll keep making because I’m not ready to learn from him yet. All of the pain that comes from old memories should turn me away for good, but something holds me back from cutting the string that ties me to those silver eyes I looked directly into when I said I loved him back then.
The sad part is, I’d tell him again if I thought it’d make a difference.
Chapter Three
Kinley / 16
From the corner of my eye, I notice a boy with messy brown hair drop into a seat outside of the principal’s office. As if he can feel me staring, he turns and locks eyes with me through the glass that separates us. He’s got one earbud in his ear, the other dangling freely against his shoulder, and his legs spread like he’s prepared to stay a while.
I don’t recognize him, and I would. Not just because Lincoln is a small town with an even smaller school district, but because he’s got that look I read about in books. The carefree boyish one that screams charm and trouble. Quirked lips and a challenging gaze—he’s daring me to look away.
Adjusting my backpack on my shoulder, I walk into the main office and smile at the secretary. She’s typing something a mile a minute with her acrylic nails tapping in a blur of dark red. It seems fitting for the start of fall that’s bound to hit central New York in the coming weeks. The leaves haven’t started changing, but the temperature has dropped.
Mr
s. Lewis, the white-haired secretary, tells me she’ll be just a second. Knowing her, she’s got something due in a matter of minutes. She loves playing Bejeweled Blitz on her phone all day until deadlines near. Then she’ll ignore everybody until her work is done.
It gives me time to study the new kid. I try doing it subtly because his eyes are still pointed in my direction. My fingers dig through the candy bowl, searching absently for something to nibble on despite it being eight in the morning. Through my lashes, I peek at the boy whose lips are twitching upward at me.
Shifting from one foot to the other, I glance down at my dirtied combat boots. I found them at a thrift store in town, practically new. One of the laces is coming undone, so I drop down and redo them. The new kid is wearing a pair of black ones like mine that look shiny and new. They match his black ensemble—black jeans and black shirt with white words faded across his chest like he’s owned it a while. His leg is bouncing, and I wonder if it’s to the music he’s listening to or impatience.
Standing back up, I move loose pieces of hair behind my ear. The color is usually brown, but I asked Mom to help me dye it before the new school year started. Now I have auburn and caramel highlights that makes my hair look anything but brunette.
When my gaze wanders back over to where the boy sits, we lock eyes until I flush under his direct stare. He doesn’t seem ashamed to be openly gawking at me like I am him. That’s when I notice how unnerving his eyes are. They aren’t just any normal gray, but a striking shade of silver. From here, the light hitting the mischievous gleam of the hues turns them almost white.