CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Carly

This isn’t real life. I mean, this type of thing doesn’t happen to real live people. Well, obviously, it wouldn’t happen to dead people. Or at least they wouldn’t notice. But, alas, here I am, dealing with birds. In my fireplace. Or, rather, my wood-burning stove. They’re flapping their little wings around, hitting the glass with gusto, and all I can think is well, the little miscreants made their way in there. They can surely find their way out.

“James, there are two of Santa’s helpers flying around in my fireplace.”

“Come again?” he asks, humor lacing in his voice through my phone.

“There’s birds! Birds everywhere! Flying around in my fireplace!” I yell into the phone, flapping my arms and thanking the good Lord above that James is not here to see me. “They keep hitting the little glass window, trying to fly back up the chimney, but their stupid tiny little brains can’t figure out how to get back out, so they just keep banging and banging and banging…”

The sound of James’s roaring laughter cuts off my description of the hell I was currently living. Jack is at a friend’s house working on an end-of-the semester class project, and I thought I had the house to myself for a quiet evening. Visions of my Kindle and a chilled glass of Moscato danced in my head. A piece of the holy-hell-this-is-so-good-I-could-marry-it chocolate cake, which was covered in a mountain of chocolate frosting that James brought over for New Year’s Eve was also calling my name. Day two of school being back in session after the holiday break has me — as well as the kiddos — wiped out. But, as I said… alas, I’m dealing with birds. Damn birds.

“O-o-oh, baby, say bang one more time,” James says in a low voice.

“Seriously?! Seriously?!”

“Carly, girl,” he says, cracking up. “There’s no one on the planet who manages to get herself into weirder situations than you. Not even Tess, and she once somehow got herself tangled in fishing line, fell down, and broke her ankle in the process. And we weren’t even fishing. The pole was sitting in the garage minding its own business.”

I laugh, just picturing the entire thing unfold. Tess isn’t really accident-prone so much as just found herself in odd situations and was never able to just sit and relax. And when Lauren was involved, it seemed like it happened more often. Especially if they were working out. And then that one time when Tess thought she’d be extra ambitious and try to do a couple cartwheels when Maggie said that she didn’t believe she could do them anymore. But tell Tess she can’t do something, and she is not going to go down without a fight. After Maggie was proven right, Tess kept saying she was pretty sure she broke her tailbone. Still not sure how that happened.

“Babe, I lose ya?”

“No. Sorry, I was just picturing Tess.”

“So, back to Santa’s helpers… You want me to come over?”

I really did. Super bad. But he was over just last night, and I’m trying really hard not to expect to see him every single day, even if I want to. I had immersed myself so deeply into a relationship once before that I blinded myself to the world around me. I wouldn’t let myself do that again. I couldn’t. And yet…

“Kinda?” I find myself saying, my voice far from sure.

“Well, when you put it like that,” he jokes.

“You know I want you over here. And not just to get these damn birds out of the fireplace. But…”

He sighs, no doubt tired of having to say he understood. That he got it. He was beyond patient, loving, and truly the best. I just feared I would push him away. I feared so much, and my past was filled with worries. But this fear was a whole new type of fear. The thought of my past filtering into the present, pushing him away, was the biggest of all.

“I’m sorry,” I say automatically.

He sighs again, probably sick of hearing me say sorry. It is an automatic response, triggered from years ago. He hates it. We talked it over when he was at my house for New Years, but it’s still a hard habit to break.

“Sorry,” I murmur again.

“Hey!” he laughs. “Stop it!”

“I know! Sor—” I catch myself. “Old habits.”

“I know, beautiful, I know. But…”

“No more. Got it. So, wanna come over? I promise lots of entertainment, and maybe I’ll even share with you this amazing chocolate cake I made.”

He laughs. “Chocolate cake you made, huh?”

“Yup!” I giggle. It sounds ridiculous even to my own ears, but he doesn’t comment, just laughs lightly.

“Well, how can I resist that?”

I hope he can’t. I know my own resistance is waning thin.

“Let me just finish up here, and I’ll be over. Give me twenty minutes, m’kay?”

“What about…”

“Just leave them for now. I’ll take care of it when I get there.”

“Okay,” I say quietly. “Thank you, James.”

“Of course,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I do,” I insist.

“Well, maybe we can work out a payment plan when I get there,” he says in a low voice, but I can hear the smile in his voice.

“Hmm, I’ll come up with some ideas.”

“You do that. See you soon.”

“Yeah, see you soon.”

I don’t hang up quite yet, just stay on the phone.

“Baby?”

“Yeah?”

“Gotta hang up so I can get my shit gathered so I can come be the hero.”

I smile and hang up the phone, almost forgetting that I am in the middle of a bird crisis. Okay, so it probably isn’t a crisis, but it feels pretty big to me.

James is coming over.

No hesitation.

I ask for his help, and he doesn’t question. Doesn’t make me feel guilty. Doesn’t make me feel like an idiot for not being able to take care of it on my own.

Now if only I can put my past behind me and get out of my own head long enough to realize that I can give over my heart again.