Page 90 of Exposé

I gave her a grim smile. "I thought that's what I was doing with you?"

"My life is boring. You're single and not taking advantage of the moment."

Rolling my eyes, I bit into my lower lip. "I don't have an interest in dating."

I tried.

It was too perfect.

And perfection never lasts.

"That is a bald-faced lie. I saw how you were talking to that hottie at the rave."

I waved her off. "He's just a friend."

My phone buzzed, and her eyes grazed over it. "Just a friend who keeps texting you?"

"He's..." I crossed my leg over my knee and groaned. "We had a date last night at the festival, and we sort of—" I raised a brow and nodded, hoping she'd catch the hint without the words spewing from my lips. "You know..."

"Oh..." Her mouth parted, her eyes widening. "Oh. At the festival?" Blush hit her cheeks as I nodded.

"It wasn't planned or anything. It just happened."

"That's normally how sex goes." She rolled her lips. "It's been a long time since Henry and I did something like that."

"Spontaneous sex?"

Her eyes lowered. "No, anything like that outside of thebedroom." A sigh fell from her lips as she sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "In fact, I think the last time was when we went camping two years ago. I can still hear the birds chirping."

Two years...

I shivered as the memory of the odd-behaving bird came to mind. "Hey, speaking of nature." Sliding my pen and paper across my desk, I drew a bizarre sketch of the bird in the tree,the image crisper in my mind than the blob on paper. "Have you ever seen a bird like this?"

"Ummm..." she squinted as she looked at the drawing. "Maybe, but this isn't a John James Audubon of pictures."

I tore the paper back from her hands. "It's the best I can do." Tossing the paper back to the desk, I stuffed the end of the pen into my mouth and chewed. "Have you ever seen it act strange?"

"Well, if it's a finch-like this toddler drawing indicates... it depends. Strange how?"

Shrugging, I pulled the pen from my lips, checking the end for broken ink, then settled my hands in my lap. "It flew into the tree above me during my meeting with your source, then sat there, unmoving, while another bird chirped and pecked at it."

"Yeah, that’s strange." She dug into her pocket and withdrew her phone. "Birds rarely stay still. Especially if they’re being attacked. But there was this one time that I saw something like that. The bird struck a window, then flew into a tree and sat there for like thirty minutes." She turned her phone screen towards me.

A cardinal sat in the lower-lying branches, while a female sat in a branch above, her head cocked to the side as she looked down at him.

"Henry wouldn't let me touch him, but after a few minutes, he flew away, and his little girlfriend followed."

Maybe...

"Therearea lot of windows on those buildings."

"It happens all the time. I once ran a campaign to have the windows of the office buildings in town covered in wraps. You know, like the ones on cars?" She held her hands out in front of her as she talked. "That way, no bird would fly into them. Besides, it'd be aesthetically pleasing all the way around. No one wants to look at big metal buildings with glinting windows that blind you in the evening traffic."

"Speak for yourself." My phone vibrated, and I reached for it. "The people in New York City find it beautiful." I glanced down at my screen, and my heart rate spiked.

"Another lead?" Aria tipped her head up. "Or your one-night stand?" She wiggled her brows.

"You aren't helping. Go find something to do before Whitney tans your hide."

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