“—but Ilikethat.” He paused for emphasis. “I don’t find anything about you ridiculous.”
She shook her head, eyes still on a nearby succulent. “That’s not what you said when we met.”
He should have known that would come back to bite him in the ass one day.
“I was calling the entire situation ridiculous, not you,” he told her. “Ron misinterpreted because he’s a dick, and I should have corrected him then. But let me be clear now: I like your nose. I like looking at your face. I like looking atyou.”
Her gaze flew to his, and he rushed to add, “But more importantly, I like birds. Specifically, I like winter wrens. They’re my favorite species.”
Caution and hurt still pinched her brow, so he kept talking.
“Early in my career, I was in a found-footage horror film calledThump in the Woods. Maybe you’ve heard of it?” When she shook her head, he continued, “Anyway, I was cast as one of three college kids filming a project about a famously haunted cabin in an isolated Maryland forest, where people theoretically disappeared and died via decapitation by ax. As you might imagine, it didn’t end well for us poor students.”
When he mimed the swipe of an ax, complete with a whistling sound and a finalthud,the corner of her mouth indented slightly. He took that as a promising sign.
“The three of us did our own filming in the woods, and it was a hard, low-budget shoot. The directors progressively restricted the amount of food we got, and they kept waking us up at night with ostensibly scary sounds we’d have to react to on camera. It rained and rained and rained, until our tents flooded.” He sighed and scratched his beard. “We were all fighting on camera, which the story called for, but some of that tension bled into off-camera interactions too.”
She hadn’t even heard the relevant portion of his explanation, and her eyes had already warmed, her posture opening—arms no longer crossed, shoulders relaxing—as she bloomed in sympathy for him, and goddammit, she needed to stop being so fuckinggood.
“I almost lost my shit completely, Lauren. I came very, very close to walking away from that movie a dozen times. The only thing that kept me going, the only thing that made my daily existence bearable, was the local wildlife.” He thought back to his favorite animals. “We saw squirrels. Deer. Birds. Especially this one type of bird, which had an incredibly loud, cheerful song.”
She nodded, obviously cognizant of where his anecdote was going. But he needed to say it anyway, because he couldn’t stand for her to think ill of him.
“It was a wren. A winter wren. Small and round and bright-eyed and …”
Wonderful,he almost said.Amusing. Adorable. Charming.
Her mouth had turned soft, and her lips parted as she stared at him, her face only inches away. She didn’t utter a single word, though. She simply waited for him to finish whatever he had to say.
He lifted a shoulder. “Ever since then, I’ve liked birds.”
Still, she said nothing. Her patience was endless. Endless, and agonizingly sweet. He couldn’t comprehend how someone could simply sit andlistenfor so long, without needing to interject her own thoughts, without defending herself or leavening the mood somehow.
He’d bet his mini-castle that she was an exemplary therapist.
He already knew she was an exemplary human.
“If you don’t want me to call you Wren, I won’t,” he said. “But it’s not an insult. It never was.”
He rose to his full height once more, and she tipped her head back to watch.
When she’d ascertained that he was done speaking, she finally responded, her words simple and ringing with sincerity. “I apologize. I thought the worst of you without asking for an explanation. Again. I’ll try to do better. And yes, you can call me Wren.”
He couldn’t stand the remorse in that low, sweet voice. “Well, it’s not as if I’ve never insulted you. You had cause to be suspicious.”
“True. You’ve insulted me once or twice.” Her lips twitched, and his own shoulders relaxed. “Not about that, though.”
“Not about that,” he agreed.
As he tugged on his damp shirt, she tipped back her chin to stare at the dark sky wheeling above. “Did you work out your restlessness? Or do you want to do more stairs?”
“I’m done with the stairs.” For tonight, at least. He couldn’t make any promises about tomorrow. “Do you want to head back? Or do you want to sit for a few more minutes?”
After his late-night rambles, that was his custom. His mind finally calm and clear, he could take time to reflect on the beauty around him and be grateful. But she’d been awakened from sleep, and they’d been out for well over an hour now. Any normal person would want to start the hike back to the mini-castle.
“I’d like to sit for a while,” she said, to his surprise. “Is that okay?”
“Sure.” He perched on a nearby step. “I’m in no hurry. Just let me know when you want to leave.”
