Page 17 of Love at First Flight

“Why do you think you’re a weird man?” she asked.

“I don’t know. No reason. You’re not afraid of crows, are you?”

“No, why—” A loudcaw-cawcut through the air near her and she yelped, hugging her body closer to Dex’s. The source of the sound was a crow perched on the railing surrounding the covered porch. She never considered herself afraid of birds, but it was unsettling that this one wasn’t afraid of being near people and didn’t fly away.

“That’s Harper,” he said, while trying and failing to get his key into the lock.

Selah did her best to ignore the bird, taking his key and unlocking the door. As soon as it swung open, the crow jumped from the railing, skittering inside. “Um, a crow just walked into your house.”

“It’s okay. She does that all the time.” As if to prove the point, the bird did a flap hop onto the arm of a couch, walking along the back of it. From this point, it did a short awkward flight to the kitchen table as though looking for some remnants of food, but only found a stack of mail and, in some kind of protest, knocked the envelopes onto the ground.

“You have a pet crow?”

“Harper’snota pet. She’s a wild animal.” Dex fell into a pale-blue recliner, leaning back with his eyes closed. In order to not prove his statement, Harper bounce-hopped to the top of the recliner and began to pick through the strands of Dex’s hair, rearranging them in a move that was very motherly for a crow.

“She doesn’t seem very wild. How long has she been your roommate for?” Before considering how inappropriate it was, Selah took out her phone and snapped a picture. She wasn’t planning on sharing the photo with anyone other than Naomi. She needed some kind of record, because who would ever believe this? And it was kind of cute.

Dex gently swatted Harper away. “Stop that.” He squinted at his shoes before leaning forward to untie one, looking like he might tumble to the ground again.

Selah sat on the couch, setting her phone on the coffee table, making sure something wasn’t going to happen to him.

“What’d you ask again?”

“Oh, I wanted to know how Harper became your roommate.” She found herself working on the half-finished jigsaw puzzle on his coffee table. It was a landscape picture of some colorful scenery with wildflowers at a lake.

Dex chuckled. “She isn’t the worst roommate I’ve ever had.”

Selah wondered if Ava had been a roommate of his. If that was the case, there wasn’t any feminine trace remaining. The house, at least the parts of it she could see, were quite masculine and utilitarian in its setup. Not that her bedroom was much better, as she hadn’t cared about putting in any effort to decorate when she’d eventually be leaving, anyway.

“I found Harper at work when she had a broken wing. The only wildlife rehabilitation in the area wouldn’t take her because of limited resources and she’s a crow. People aren’t generally interested in crows, but I couldn’t leave her there so I just...” He shrugged while managing to get one shoe off.

“There’s not a rehabilitation thing at the park?”

“No.”

She found a piece of the lake to fit, and the pieces snapped together. This part made for a better evening than eating a hot fudge sundae in the McDonald’s parking lot, all things considered. “Well, it looks like you did a good job with this one, so maybe there should be.”

“I’m not an expert.”

“But you seem to be knowledgeable about crows, at least from what you were telling me in the park earlier today. Maybe people should see them in a different light.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “but having a crow roommate makes me strange. You should know better than to hang out at some strange man’s house. What if Harper was a cougar instead of a bird? You just never know, and you’re too pretty to be mauled by a cougar.”

Selah wasn’t paying much attention to his drunken ramble until he called her pretty. That caught her attention because it wasn’t a compliment she received often. If Dex thought anything more about this, she wasn’t going to know because he was again leaning back against the recliner, one shoe off, his hair mussed from Harper picking through it. His eyes were closed with his mouth slightly open, and he was now emitting soft snores.

Selah got up, grabbing the blanket from the back of the sofa, and tiptoed toward him, bringing her finger to her lips for Harper. She wasn’t sure the crow knew the sign for silence, but the bird cocked her head and remained silent. Selah gently laid the blanket over him before quietly backing away.

“Goodbye, Dex and Harper,” she said before letting herself out and heading home.

Chapter Eight

God, his throatwas dry as rocks. It felt like he had swallowed a bucket of salt mixed with a bucket of sand the night before.

It took monumental effort to crack his eyes, and when he did, he regretted everything. Darkness was his new friend. Batman had been on to something when he embraced the dark. But Batman probably didn’t wake up with a massive headache and... Did superheroes ever take pain relievers? They had to, right? It didn’t matter how rich he was or whatever gadgets he owned, Batman probably had to take medication, just like everyone else. Getting up and finding those pain relievers was going to take a superhero effort, especially without the aid of Alfred. All Dex had was Harper.

“Harp, get me some aspirin.”

This was answered with an impatient caw rather than obedience because Harper had never buttled in her life and wasn’t about to start.

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