Page 48 of Talk Birdie to Me

“Your date. From the other night when you brought Gary over.”

“Oh. Um… Kayleigh.” Cody looked up at the ceiling as if he were deep in thought, then lowered his gaze back to her. “Yeah, Kayleigh. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since Friday.”

“It didn’t look like nothing.” Geena shook her head. “Sorry. None of my business. Forget I asked.”

“No, it’s fine. I mean, this is our third date and all, so you get to ask about her.” He grinned and winked at her.

Winked.

Her stomach did flips she did not approve of.

“This is not a date,” she said, reminding herself as much as him.

“Then what is this?” he asked. “We’ve got good food and good conversation. Sounds like date material to me.”

In truth, Geena didn’t know what this was much less what she wanted it to be.

But what she wanted didn’t matter. Nothing with Cody would last, so there was no point pondering much less pursuing anything.

“It’s…” Geena searched her brain for the right word. “An arrangement?”

Cody chuckled. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“It’s really the only way to look at it.”

Was it?

Geena wasn’t so sure anymore. She was at least less sure than she was a few days ago. She’d grown to really enjoy his company. More than she had with probably anyone she’d ever dated.

“Well, whatever way you look at it, there’s nothing with Kayleigh.“ He placed his fork on his empty plate and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “She was just a one-night thing.”

“Oh.”

Geena couldn’t think of anything else to say. She regretted bringing up this topic at all, and she still wasn’t sure why she had.

“But it wasn’t even that,” Cody said. “Nothing really happened after we left here. I brought her home, and that was the end of it. I haven’t talked to her since.”

“Why?” Geena internally kicked herself. “Sorry. Again, none of my business.”

“That’s okay,” Cody said. “I was too worried about Gary.”

Geena’s insides squirmed with his admission.

Sure, responsibility was always sexy. But she’d brushed Cody off as insensitive and uncaring based on his flippant view of life and relationships. She’d assumed his concern for Gary was purely job-related. But he really seemed to care about Gary.

Geena didn’t know what to make of that data. It didn’t fit neatly into her appraisal of him.

Could she have been wrong from the start?

Had her judgment been completely clouded by wing sauce?

She decided moving the conversation along was better than pondering those questions any longer.

“Well, he’s fine here now.”

“About that…” Cody cleared his throat like he was stalling.

“About what? Does he look sick or something?” She glanced at Gary across the room. The parrot was gleefully chewing on his claws. “He looks fine to me. But I don’t know much about birds. Did I forget to do something?”

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