Page 44 of Talk Birdie to Me

James shook his head adamantly. “No, I don’t want her to know how much everything costs. She’s asked here and there, of course, but I’ve assured her it’s fine. I’ll figure out how to pay for it all. It’s just stressful, you know?”

Geena did know. Her wedding to Ricky had been obnoxiously extravagant. Which went to show you couldn’t buy your way into a happy marriage.

“James, I’m sure she’d understand if she got the second-best florist in town instead of the best.”

Again, James shook his head. “No. She’s already out of my league, and I’m lucky she ever went out with me to begin with. I’m giving her anything she wants.”

There was pain and desperation behind his words, and Geena hated seeing her friend so stressed out.

“For the record,” Geena said. “I think you should at least have the conversation. Maybe she doesn’t want as much as you think she does.”

James waved the idea away. “Enough about me. Spill it. What else is bothering you? Because you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Only a couple of days,” Geena said. “I really haven’t slept well since Friday.”

It turned out that Gary hated it when she left the room. He especially hated when she left the room at bedtime. She didn’t want to text Cody in the middle of the night, so she’d done some online research late Saturday when she couldn’t take his chatter any longer. She discovered a tip to cover the cage with a thin blanket. Thankfully, that seemed to soothe him.

But she was still suffering from some massive sleep deprivation that wasn’t entirely the bird’s fault.

The truth was, she couldn’t turn her brain off since Cody’s visit.

And not just because of that near miss of a kiss. The near-miss-kiss she was trying desperately not to think about but couldn’t stop running the scene over and over in her head like a movie clip. A clip that gave her all kinds of feelings she would rather disappear.

“Something other than Ricky’s foolery keeping you awake?”

Geena jerked her brain free of the thoughts she wasn’t ready to admit she was having.

“Question,” she said, deciding to steer both of them away from that dangerous territory. “Was Anthony Montesano a client here? Am I thinking of the right guy?”

James flinched, ever so slightly. He rolled his eyes and brushed the crumbs from his hands as he finished his sandwich. “You’ve probably heard me complaining about him enough. My client from hell.”

She’d been right. That’s why the name had sounded so familiar. Even if she hadn’t been chatty with Ricky at that point and didn’t know his clients, she would have still heard the name from James.

Then again, James complained about most of his clients.

But this one was a big deal. She vaguely remembered the cops having questions for him and a few other people at the firm.

“Right,” she said. “He went to jail?”

James put his hands up in defense. “Not my doing. I had no idea he was hiding money. I’m just glad I didn’t get roped into his trouble with the IRS. But my hands and conscience are clean.”

“So it was tax evasion?”

James nodded. “What’s got you thinking about him? If he should be keeping anyone up at night, it’s me, not you.”

She had a feeling James was already up all night stressing about the wedding. A former criminal client was probably way off his radar at this point.

Geena grimaced. “I kind of have his parrot.”

James’s jaw hung slack. He quickly recovered and said, “How the hell did you end up with that thing?”

“You know about the bird?”

“Yeah. Damn thing would squawk through our entire conversations. I should have billed him for the extra ibuprofen I needed after our calls.”

“Sounds about right,” she said with a smile. “Were you introduced to his, uh… vocabulary?”

“Called me a rat bastard on the regular.”

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