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Chapter one
“Prettybird,Andy.Prettybird.”
At the familiar refrain, Andalise Rhodes Whittenbalm glanced from the sink in her kitchen island to the breakfast nook at the end of it.
Petals was excited.
She wanted her freedom.
And Andy’s little feathered friend was a highly intelligent creature.
Petals knew, for example, that Andy got up every morning at approximately 7:15 and made herself a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats. Petals also knew that every morning at approximately 7:20 — after Andy deposited her empty bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, and washed her hands with one pump of unscented foaming hand soap — freedom would be granted.
Although on this particular morning, the schedule had shifted slightly.
Drying her hands, Andy glanced at the two women seated on the opposite side of the island. Her mother and Andy’s roommate were absorbed in a happy bubble of chatter. Which was fine by Andy. She wasn’t much for conversation at five in the morning.
Well, she wasn’t much for conversation generally speaking, but at this hour — when the world outside her apartment still bore a curtain of darkness, and her head still felt sluggish from sleep — it was particularly annoying.
Padding into the breakfast nook, Andy sidled around a gray-washed bistro table and stopped before Petals, who clung to the bars of her tall, wrought-iron cage.
“Pretty bird, Andy. Pretty bird.”
Despite her grumpiness, Andy found herself smiling as she unlatched the door of the cage. Petals burst free in a rapid flutter of clipped wings and flew to the table.
Andy sat down on a cushioned chair and slumped forward to rest her head on a place mat. She crooked an arm out beside her. Petals immediately sprang up.
Eyes now level with her little friend, Andy’s smile grew. She loved the feel of Petals’s twig-like feet climbing up her arm, the way her beak clamped on the sleeve of Andy’s pajama top as she scrambled up to perch on a shoulder, and the way she nuzzled Andy’s face looking for kisses. Which Andy happily bestowed, pressing her lips to one of the muted orange patches on Petals’s white cheeks.
“You’re the pretty bird, Petals. You’re so pretty, and smart, and nice. And I love you.” The words whispered from her softly. Too softly for her roommate and her mother to hear as they were still engrossed in their chatter.
“…and how long will you be gone again?” Kory was asking Andy’s mother.
“Two months.” Davis Whittenbalm set her coffee cup on the counter, voice lifting with excitement. “We’ll be in Paris for most of our trip and Dublin the last couple weeks.”
Andy’s parents were leaving for their second honeymoon within the hour. Second because her parents had divorced when she was a freshman in high school, had gotten back together when she was a sophomore, and had finally remarried after Andy graduated college. Which had been about a month ago in May.
Second-chance romances.
Sigh.
Swoon.
Ugh.
To be honest, Andy would have vastly preferred her parents had never divorced in the first place. Moving out of her old house to live with her mother in the apartment had been really stressful at the time and had seriously messed with her routine. And, of course, just as soon as Andy had gotten used to them being apart, her parents had started dating again.
They’d just needed a “relationship reset,” her mother had told her one night before Andy’s father had arrived at the apartment to take her to some nightclub in the city.
Andy didn’t like silly expressions likerelationship reset, but her mother was a Family and Marital therapist, so she’d learned to put up with them.
She also didn’t like nightclubs. The music was always too loud, there were strobing lights everywhere just waiting to give you a seizure, and every time you sucked in a breath, you inhaled a noxious mix of perfume, cologne, and hairspray. None of which Andy liked.
There was a very long list of things Andy didn’t like.
Near the top of said list were any major changes to her routine.
Which is why when her mom decided to move back in with her dad, Andy had put her foot down and refused to leave the apartment. She’d only been seventeen at the time, so her parents could have forced the issue. But instead, they’d opted to let her stay, so long as she kept up her grades and agreed to have Miss Tiffany move in with her.
