Page 70 of Talk Birdie to Me

Which was exactly why he needed to leave before things went any further.

“Let’s get one thing clear,” Lauren said. “You are not your dad. And you aren’t Geena’s ex, either.”

“I know that.”

But he didn’t. Not really. His head knew that, but he didn’t really believe it.

“What if…” Lauren said. “And just hear me out.”

“I don’t like this already.”

“What if you gave it a shot? A real shot. Take her on a date. Just one. See how you feel after that. If it’s nothing, I’ll never bug you again. But if there’s something there, maybe it’s something worth staying for.”

“You sure you didn’t talk to my mom? She did this whole song and dance, but with ribs.”

“Ribs?”

“Never mind,” he said. “Besides, we already had a date. There was nothing there.”

“Forget that one. Neither of you were in the right head space. Or you both needed a little longer for your potential relationship to cook. Some people need more time to figure out if something is working or not.”

“So I’m a rice cooker?”

“You? More like an air fryer. But maybe she’s a bread machine.”

“This is somehow even weirder than the ribs talk.”

“Okay, no more food.” Lauren stepped closer and leaned against the prep table between them. “One date. Prove me wrong.”

Cody considered her suggestion. Maybe it was something he could get behind. Proving Lauren wrong might be a lot easier than convincing her he was right. Because that wasn’t working yet.

“All right. You want me to do this? You tell me what we should do.”

If this wasn’t going to work, it wouldn’t matter what they did for a date. Might as well get out of the planning.

Lauren thought for a moment. Then she pointed a finger on the table. “What about here?”

“You want me to bring Geena to the zoo?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

“Everything,” Cody said. “She’s always so put together, and she didn’t look too pleased with the place last time she was here. I can’t bring her in her nice outfits to walk around in this humidity with all of these smells.”

“I’m sure she owns some non-work clothes.”

The memory of those llama pajama pants brought a smile to his face.

He also knew she’d gone running with her sister that previous weekend. So she at least had a running outfit.

“Sure,” he said. “This’ll make it easier to prove you wrong.”

Lauren smiled. “Game on. Text her.”

Geena poured her mid-afternoon cup of coffee in the break room where James was eating his chickpea salad sandwich.

He finished the bite he’d taken just before she walked in and asked, “How’s it going?”

“Good.” Geena lifted her now-full mug and blew across the top. “Slow brain day, but okay.”

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