Page 10 of Talk Birdie to Me

Not that any of that mattered. Geena had clearly been unimpressed by him.

No worries.

It wasn’t like he was looking for a long-term relationship right now. In fact, he was one phone call away from his next adventure. No point starting something serious when he was leaving.

Besides, while he didn’t have a type, Geena probably wouldn’t mesh with his life, anyway.

She seemed a little… uptight? No, that wasn’t fair. Tidy?

Whatever Geena was or wasn’t, she didn’t have a good time with him. And what was the point if everyone wasn’t having fun?

The thought that she didn’t like Cody weirdly bugged him. He normally couldn’t care less what anyone thought about him. But he’d kind of liked her, despite how different they obviously were. Their differences made things interesting. He liked interesting.

But Lauren had been right about one thing. The last thing he wanted was to turn out like his dad. Better to end something long before anyone got attached.

And Geena definitely seemed like an attachment person.

Gary peered his head out of the cage, looking around at the familiar faces and pausing his scan on the two new visitors. When he was convinced it was safe, he flew out of the opening and landed on a tall cabinet across the room.

“Bitches get stitches!”

Lauren laughed, which only made Gary repeat the phrase.

“His owner sounds delightful,” Geena said.

“His owner is in jail,” Cody said.

Geena lowered her camera. “What for?”

Her curiosity and the slight crinkle of her angular nose softened the severity of her features. Curious Geena was pretty darn cute.

“Don’t know,” Cody said.

“You didn’t find out?” Geena sounded shocked.

Taylor asked, “How could you not want to know that? I mean, zoo life is probably interesting, but an owner surrendering a sweary parrot because he’s in jail? That’s too interesting to just shrug off.”

Cody shrugged again. “Not my circus.”

“Someone else dropped him off,” Lauren added. “I’m sure it’s in the paperwork somewhere, but we didn’t meet the owner.”

Cody had enough on his plate around here without needing to dig through paperwork just to find a name that wouldn’t mean anything to him.

A buzz sounded from the nearby counter. As Geena refocused on taking photos of Gary, Cody checked his messages.

It wasn’t a text. It was an email.

An email wasn’t a phone call.

An email meant no new adventure.

That was a dramatic assumption. Maybe he was wrong.

Cody swiped the notification to open the mail app and only had to read the first line for confirmation of his assumption.

“Damn,” he muttered under his breath.

“Damn bird!”

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