Page 85 of Honey Pot

When in reality he was just trying to survive.

A sob tore from me and that stupid friendship bracelet rubbed against my cheek as I brushed my tears away, only making me cry harder. He was just so generous and thoughtful and it bubbled up inside of me violently.

“Clementine?” Mr. Cody’s voice snapped me from my tears as he entered the living room. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I stuttered through my tears and dabbed away the ones that clung to my cheeks.

“You sure?” He asked, and settled down on the couch next to me.

He looked more put together than the last couple times I saw him. A clean pressed Hornet’s polo and jeans, his hair was brushed back off his sharp features and his graying beard was trimmed neatly against his jaw.

“Not really…” I sniffled and met his sad green eyes. “Do you remember thatbird?”

“We lived on a farm, Clementine, there were a lot of birds.” He gave me a weak smile and reached across the table for a tissue, handing it to me.

“No, we were only ten I think. It flew into the back window at your place. Hurt its wing.” I tried to help him remember.

“Oh yeah, that little barn swallow.” He nodded, his brows coming together in confusion. “Cael hounded me until I made that stupid box and sat up with it for weeks in his room until he nursed it back to health. Woke up crying one morning because the bird had found its strength and flew away out the bedroom window.”

“What?” I stopped and looked up at Mr. Cody. “No that bird died.”

“No,” he shook his head with a sigh. “It squawked nonstop in his room for three weeks, I remember because no one got any sleep and he woke us up at five am sobbing because he didn’t know how to tell you he lost it.”

“Lost it?” I said. For the last thirteen years I thought Cael had let the bird die.

Mr. Cody sighed and tried to remember, his tongue brushing over his bottom lip. “He was determined to help the bird because it made you sad, Clementine. He was miserable for weeks stressing about it, telling Rae that seeing you crying was the saddest he’s ever been and he had to fix the bird to make you happy.”

“You told me it died,” I whispered. “Momma told me it died.”

“We did that to protect the both of you. I'm just surprised Mary never told you the real story…”

I had believed all this time that Cael wasn’t capable of loving me.

Believing that he got bored of me and let the memory of us die.

Cruelty had come so easily because I was angry.

But Dean, and now Mr. Cody, had shattered the thin crust of resentment and left my heart raw to the truth that Cael Cody had never stopped loving me.

I had let him down because I let my anger get in the way.

The bird had flown again.

Love had been enough.

CODY

“Hey, Plum.” I wandered into the kitchen where she was hunched over her laptop, drinking coffee and typing away. I stared at her hand, the information we had found eating me alive from the inside.

But I shook it away, it wasn’t my story to tell and if she didn’t want to tell me who Julien was, I wouldn’t push it. Instead I dared kiss her cheek in passing and felt her body relax from my touch. A soft tingling feeling spread across my chest at the reaction only fueling the urge to do it more but I stopped myself.

Next weekend was Thanksgiving and, with Arlo home, I was starting to feel better about everything going on. He had filled Silas and me in on everything that was happening in Dallas, but he didn’t seem convinced he fit in there.

“There’s something weird about them,” Arlo said with a tight shrug like he was uncomfortable in his own skin for the first time in his life.

“Like what?” Silas leaned back against his chair, shoving french fries into his mouth.

“They don’t like each other?” Arlo laughed when Silas made a face, twisted and surprised. Arlo was painfully aware he didn’t sound like himself because he had looked over to me with a sigh.

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