Page 21 of Where the Little Birds Are (Little Bird Duet 2)

“Please don’t hang up,” a different gravelly tone pleads.

My eyes widen as I push up. “How did you get this number?”

“I need to know you’re okay.”

Mom eyes me curiously.

“Corbin, I—”

Mom shakes her head and walks out of the kitchen with her hands up in surrender. The sound of the closet door opening and jacket rustling against the others has me following her into the foyer. “I will not condone this behavior, Kinley. You are a grown a woman and should know better than this.”

“Mom, stop. Please?”

Corbin clears his throat. “Is now—”

“I can’t do this right now, Corbin. You couldn’t have chosen a worse possible time to check in on me. The answer is no. I’m not okay. If that’s all, then bye.” My voice breaks as I hang up on him. The burning feeling of rising tears stings my eyes. “Mom, would you stop? You just got here.”

She zips her jacket and grabs her shoes, sliding into them before even looking in my direction again. “I was hoping to talk some sense into you and figure out what you’re going to do. But if you’re going to let him into your life like he isn’t wearing somebody else’s ring, I won’t stand by and see you get hurt again.”

I try reasoning with her as she pulls her car keys out of her pocket. “I don’t even know how he got my number. I wasn’t lying when I said I needed space from everybody. Him especially. And don’t you think something I should figure out is how he fits into this?”

“It depends on how you want him to.”

Her distain isn’t lost on me. If anything, it only feeds into the distance I’ve put between her and I. “Like you said, I’m a grown woman. I can make my own choices whether you agree with them or not. Just like I did with Corbin, college, and Parker.”

She walks to the door. “I wish I would have stopped this from happening. I thought it was a good thing to see you focused on something other than your writing back then. You needed to act your age and have fun. If I had known this is where you’d end up, I would have pulled the plug on it a long time ago.”

I stand still, not bothering to stop her as she opens the door. “You act like my life is over. There are worse things that could have happened, Mom.”

How many times have I told myself that in the past three months? It’s the only reason I’ve pushed through. People go through horrible situations that don’t even compare to mine.

Mom purses her lips. “You’re pregnant with a married man’s baby. A man who didn’t choose you, Kinley. I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear, but you need to hear it. It doesn’t matter what your brother said to him. He should have looked past it and worked through it with you if it meant that much to him. I’m glad it’s not worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nothing.”

With that, she closes the door behind her. All I can do is stand there with my palm against my stomach and close my eyes.

I count to three.

And walk away.

Chapter Eight

Corbin / Present

Bouncing the heel of my foot against the ground, I stare between my cell phone screen and the clock hanging on the living room wall. The front door opens as I pick up the phone to redial her, stopping me by glancing up. The impatient expression on my face doesn’t mirror the casual nature of hers.

I stand. “Where the hell have you been?”

Lena waltzes in with her oversized designer bag draped over her arm and the matching sunglasses still covering her eyes. She takes them off and gives me a sultry smile, clipping them on the collar of her tight black tee shirt.

“I’m only a few minutes late,” is her reply, walking over to me in jeans that are painted on. She’s been wearing tighter clothes since I told her I wanted to go through with the divorce. Tighter, more revealing, and undoubtedly eye catching when she asks to meet me out. It never fails that someone with a camera is there to capture each fucking moment.

“Forty minutes isn’t a few.”

She shrugs and sits down beside me. “I was on the phone with my mother. What did you want me to do? Hang up on her?”

“Tell her you’re busy,” I grind out. Putting my face in my hands, I stifle a groan over the same conversation. “How many times are we going to put this off? The papers were drawn up a long time ago. We both want this.”

“What if we don’t?” She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “We used to be good for each other. Don’t you remember?”

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