Page 58 of Where the Little Birds Are (Little Bird Duet 2)

Brows pinching, I look from her to the cup, before meeting her eyes in confusion. “What do you mean?”

She points to the cup, which I spin to see a logo printed on the side. “That looks like it’s from the café down the street. We only have coffee and tea, and frankly, not very good options of either.”

Oh. Oh. “Well that was nice of him,” I murmur, glancing over my shoulder at the glass wall behind me. I don’t see him anywhere, so he must be shadowing whoever he’s assigned to.

“Very,” Jamie muses.

I try to refocus the conversation. “So, you’ll let me know when Kim gets back to you about the book?”

Despite my nerves, I know I want this far more than I don’t. No matter how much of myself is inside those pages, my hesitation is the only thing between me and proving to everybody that I can make it just like Corbin.

And I will.

But I won’t forget anyone.

“I promise,” Jamie confirms.

And just after the new year, I get an email with congratulations in the subject line, followed by here’s to the first step of many.

I’ve been signed.

Chapter Nineteen

Kinley / Present

Corbin’s phone goes off for the fifth time in the last half hour as we pass the Lincoln town sign. Population who knows what since someone scraped the numbers off and spray painted a penis where they used to be. Peeling my head away from where it rests on the passenger window, I glance at him with pinched brows.

“Do you need to get that?”

He reaches down where his phone rests in the console between us and glances at the screen after we roll to a stop off the main drag. “It’s just Mom.”

“What if it’s an emergency?”

He sets his phone down again, shaking his head. “If it were, she wouldn’t be calling me,” he answers quietly.

His phone doesn’t go off again, leaving me staring out the window at the businesses that haven’t changed at all. The art gallery still resides where it used to, the flower shop and café beside it still bustling with people mulling about the tables outside and talking with bystanders soaking in the fresh air. It makes me smile with nostalgia.

But my smile quickly falls when we stop at the red light in the center of town. If we turn left we’ll be at the gas station that the town gets everything from—I’ve consumed my weight in greasy pizza and overpriced Twizzlers from the very establishment. It’s where Corbin and Gavin encountered each other before my brother chased him away with lies. The little white building with one neon open sign flashing like always in the window is where a lot of memories were made.

If we turn right we’ll drive down the road that I’ve lived on for most of my life. The same street I’d walk on when the weather was nice, going nowhere in particular until I found my way to the gas station with what little change I had on me. It’s where Gavin and I would ride our bikes up and down the sidewalk until I’d gotten hurt and stopped riding altogether.

Corbin signals right.

My phone buzzes in my hand, making me nibble my lip and study the new email from one of Jamie’s people. After calling her yesterday afternoon and admitting what I’d gotten myself into, there was a lot of silence. Even Jamie, someone put together and on top of life, couldn’t have seen the bombshell I’d dropped.

Her “Oh, Kinley…” is what had me breaking down in the middle of my office after announcing my pregnancy. Corbin gave me the space I asked for to deliver the news because I needed to talk to her on my own. I had to accept that I made this mess and couldn’t avoid the consequences—disappointment and all. Especially not with my pregnancy nearing its halfway point and the images popping up every day from Lena. How could I keep pretending like I didn’t mess up? Like we didn’t?

“You should have told me sooner.”

“I didn’t know how.”

“You understand I can’t stop what’s going to happen once this makes the news, right? And believe me, Kinley, anything can happen now. No amount of power I hold will stop this train from derailing.”

And I’d accepted that, telling her I understood. It was thirty-eight minutes of built up anxiety all pouring from me as we talked. I told her how sorry I was, and she told me apologizing wasn’t going to fix this. So, I let her disappointment absorb into my skin and squeeze my heart.

But I did not cry.

I refused to.

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