Page 76 of This Time Around
“Get the podcast,” she muttered, still flipping for a new station.
“So, speaking of orgasms,” Wade said, “I hear you and Jack brought the party home last night.”
Allie ignored him and glanced back up into the oak tree. The birds that had dotted the branches were beginning to collect on the deck railing, their chirping more ferocious now. A few new feathery bastards swooped in and landed on the fence. Sparrows, maybe, or some sort of jay. Maybe not woodpeckers, but what the hell did Allie know? She should probably get a bird identification book.
She settled on a station broadcasting something pop-y with a tinny beat. Was that a Justin Bieber song? She wasn’t sure, but she cranked it up anyway, then turned to Wade. He was apparently still waiting for her response to his question about Jack and orgasms, which she had no intention of answering directly.
“I take it Skye told you about our conversation this morning?” she said.
“What? No, she didn’t utter a peep.” Grinning, he folded his arms over his chest. “She told me last night that you and Jack had the cats handled, which I took to mean he was here with you. I filled in the blanks as soon as I saw your just-got-laid grin.”
“Great,” Allie muttered, glancing at the porch rail. A dozen more birds had gathered, little speckled brown and tan ones. They cheeped and chattered in time with the music, one of them pausing long enough to raise its tail and poop on her grandma’s prized rose bush.
Allie sighed and spun the radio dial again. She found some classical music—Beethoven? That should do it—and turned up the volume a little.
“So what did Skye say about me?” he asked.
Pleased he’d moved on from wanting to discuss Jack, Allie dropped her hand from the boom box and regarded him with a stern look. “I’m not sharing private girl talk with you, Wade. If she didn’t spill the dirt on my date, I’m certainly not telling you anything she might’ve told me in confidence.”
“Fair enough,” he answered. “At least tell me if she’s even a tiny fraction as into me as I’m into her. Which is actually saying a lot, because I’m really fucking into this girl.”
Wade’s normal cocky-cool was gone, replaced by something much more vulnerable. The chatter of birds around him gave the whole scene a hopeful, Disney tone. Allie sighed, always a sucker for fairytales.
“Yeah,” she said. “She’s into you. Really into you. And that’s all I’m going to tell you, so stop pestering me.”
“Yes!” Wade gave an awkward fist-pump and an out-of-character foot shuffle. A handful of birds startled behind him, fluttering up in a burst of feathers and squawking.
“Do that again,” Allie said. “You’re scaring the birds.”
“I’ll pass. But maybe you should try some different music. I think they’re kind of enjoying this stuff.”
Allie glanced around. True enough, the feathered rats had multiplied. Fat little blue ones and a couple redheaded ones she thought might be cardinals. She spun the dial again, settling on something that sounded like Frank Sinatra.
“So,” Wade said. “Did you have a chance to look through any of the materials I brought you yesterday? The legal stuff about found goods?”
Allie nodded and shot a quick glance at the house. No sign of Skye. Still, she wasn’t sure she wanted to have this conversation. She would have almost preferred talking about Jack.
“Yeah, I skimmed through it this morning,” she said. “Thanks for digging that up.”
“You’re welcome. You sure you’re not willing to tell me what you found?”
Allie hesitated. She thought about some of the passages she’d read this morning in the packet of information he’d given her. Her single year of law school had done nothing to prepare her for the sea of legal jargon she’d read in the text of ORS 98.352 and ORS 98.376 and a gazillion other Oregon Revised Statutes pertaining to lost, unclaimed, and abandoned property.
A person commits theft by receiving if the person receives, retains, conceals or disposes of property of another knowing or having good reason to know that the property was the subject of theft . . .
Which wasn’t to say Allie really thought the money was connected to her parents’ crimes, but still. She had no way of knowing for sure.
“Earth to Allie?”
“What?” she glanced back at Wade in time to see him watching her with an odd expression. Behind him, another cluster of birds had gathered in the cherry tree, their chirping nearly drowning out the sound of Old Blue Eyes. Frankly, Allie was relieved. She’d always hated Sinatra. She turned the dial again, this time settling on a country western station.
Wade stepped closer, possibly to speak in confidence, or maybe to avoid the crow hovering on the roofline just over his shoulder. “Look,” he said. “I know you said you don’t want to tell me too much about what you found, and I can respect that.”
“Thank you.”
“But can you at least give me a hint?”
The blare of twangy music and the lyrics about exes in Texas made an awkward backdrop to this conversation. He was still looking at her, expecting a response, so Allie sighed.
