Page 10 of Where the Little Birds Are (Little Bird Duet 2)

Gavin: I swear to Jesus if you don’t pick up the fucking phone I’m coming to your house.

Eyes widening as I palm my stomach, I pick up my cell to dial his number. The last thing he needs is to see me like this. He picks up on the first ring, cursing me out before saying hi. I wince and sink into my chair, letting the magazine on my lap fall to the floor.

“I thought that’d get your attention,” he grumbles coolly.

“Please don’t say anything. I—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Gavin—”

“Mom and Dad have been trying to reach you for weeks, asshole.” My teeth sink into my bottom lip. “You don’t answer our texts, phone calls, Facebook messages—”

“I’ve been avoiding Facebook,” I explain quickly, rushing to give him a little comfort. “I’m sorry, Gavin. I really am. But … things have been tough for me and you all promised to give me time. I haven’t had the energy to explain anything.”

He doesn’t relent. “Times up, Kinley. I’m not dealing with the bullshit I keep hearing, seeing, or reading about. I see your name everywhere next to his and I go mad. If one more person brings up the shit being said about you, I’m going to jail for assault. Now tell me what the hell happened.”

I don’t answer. If there’s one person who sees right through me, it’s my brother. He knows when I’m lying, when I’m hurt, and when I’m struggling to cope. But if I tell him what’s happened, he’ll just tell me he was right all along. That’s the last thing I need to hear right now.

“I need…” I clear my throat. “I just need you to know that everything will be okay. I’m handling it.”

“You’re handling it?” he scoffs. Something crashes in the background as he says something away from the receiver. “What is it that you’re handling exactly and why are you keeping us out of it? We can help.”

But they can’t. I know my family. They’re hard-headed and stubborn just like me. They won’t accept that there’s nothing to be done and will try figuring out something to do despite my insistence otherwise. Their involvement will only feed a fire that has grown out of control already.

Knowing I can’t keep evading his questions, I do my best to give him what he wants without feeling like it’s tearing me apart. I fail though because shards of invisible glass cut into my skin with every second I hold back the truth. “Do you want me to tell you I screwed up, Gavin?”

He remains silent.

I take a deep breath. “Would it make you feel better to know that you were right this entire time? Congratulations, big brother. Every single warning you gave me since you suspected something was going on with Corbin back in high school came true. He left. He broke me. I tried to move on and failed. And then we…” He makes a noise when I pause. “And then I fell back into old habits. Happy now?”

But I know Gavin. He’s not happy. How could he be? He’s one of the few people who made it seem like what I do is impressive. His wife tells me that he brags to people about my books when he’s out, not that he ever admits it.

His laugh is dry. “He’s married.”

“You don’t think I know that?” My voice breaks as tears cling to my eyes. “I’m sure you think that I’m stupid. I think I am too. But whether either of us likes it or not, I made a bad decision because I was never really over him.”

I keep telling myself that there’s no such thing as a failed relationship because each one has a lesson to teach. But what has Corbin taught me other than how to be cautious?

“What about Parker?”

Somehow I manage to roll my eyes. I ask myself about my ex-fiancé all the time. “You mean the man who ended our engagement right before the wedding? He knew that I wasn’t in it like I should have been and was smart enough to bow out before it was too late.”

My eyes widen. He’s my Ian.

Subconsciously I’ve always known. Maybe I even played into the role of Beck when I agreed to go out with him the first time. The biggest difference is that the character I wrote Ian to be was compassionate enough to let Beck be with the man she really loved. That kind of response is fictional—a fantasy that we want to believe in, so our actions make us less like a bad guy and more humane.

But I was the bad guy to Parker. From the day I met him at Jamie’s office when I was seventeen, our fate was sealed. Whether I admitted it or not, I chose somebody other than him no matter how hard I tried making it work. He was simply the man I settled with to lessen the likelihood of getting hurt again. And while I loved Parker Jennings in a lot of ways, I loved Corbin Callum more.

To my surprise, Gavin’s voice isn’t as jagged when he speaks again. “It’s been years, Kinley. You can’t honestly tell me that you’re not over him.”

“Maybe I’m not supposed to be.”

“He moved on,” he points out gingerly.

My lips tremble. “But did he?”

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