Page 101 of Songbird: Black Kite
Ending the call, I tossed my phone onto the nearest table and drove my fingers into my hair, giving it a solid tug in an attempt to ground me.
Everything had just gotten so fucked up.
“Hawk?” Wren’s voice sounded hesitant, and I closed my eyes.
This was all my fault. I’d ruined her fucking life. How would she ever forgive me?
“Bird,” I said, my voice much softer than I would have thought possible considering I was so goddamn furious. “Can we sit for a second?”
She stared at me, then eyed the couch and nodded, making her way over and settling into the farthest corner possible. I took the hint and sat in the opposite corner, which was fuckin’ hard when everything in me wanted to be near her. To hold her to me and pour out apology after apology.
“Wren,” I started, my elbows on my knees as I looked at her. “I need you to know that I didn’t have anything to do with that. All that shit that Tori had you sign? I never organized any of it. I didn’t even learn about Cooper until just a few weeks ago.”
“Are you serious?” she asked, blinking rapidly.
“I fuckin’ swear it, Bird. I don’t know how she found out, but Victoria Castor is about as evil as you could possibly imagine, so it doesn’t surprise me that she’d pull shit like this.” I shook my head, mad at myself. For so many things. “I promise you, Wren. If I’d have known.” I dropped my hand to the bracelet, my fingers finding the beads automatically, and a knot in my chest released. “If I’d have had any idea you were here, needing me. Baby, you have to know I’d have come for you.” I lifted my head, finding her staring at my hands as I spoke. “I’d have come for you both.”
Wren didn’t say anything for a moment, lifting her gaze to mine and licking her lips. I stared at her, following the path of her pink tongue as it slid over her plump lips and finding myself trying to remember how she tasted. I might not have remembered much from that night, but I seemed to recall tasting her lips and finding them so, so satisfying.
I waited for her to respond, my heart in my throat, thinking she’d insist she still wanted nothing to do with me. Instead, her gaze landed back on my bracelet, and she shifted on the couch, sliding to the middle cushion and settling closer to me.
“I can’t believe you kept it,” she said thoughtfully, her delicate fingers joining mine as she stroked the leather bracelet, gently touching the beads I’d played with for as long as I could remember.
“Kept it?” I asked, shaking my head. “What do you mean?”
“I made this,” she said, her eyes still on the bracelet, and I froze.
“My bracelet?” I repeated, uncertain if that was what she meant.
“Yes. I left it with Charlie that night. Asked him to give it to you after...well, after.” She finished, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink.
I stared at her, her hand still hovering over the bracelet on my wrist. The bracelet I never took off.
I remembered waking up in Milwaukee that morning, the bus having headed out from Minneapolis sometime in the night, my head throbbing from all the shit I’d consumed the night before. I’d been sprawled out on the bed at the back of the bus next to my Martin, feeling like I’d been kicked in the head by a mule. I had been trying to piece together the events of the previous night, but all I’d managed was a pair of gorgeous hazel eyes, staring up at me and the nameBirdfloating in the back of my mind like smoke. I knew there was something there, something special that I was forgetting, but for the life of me, I couldn’t make myself remember. When I’d rolled over in bed, the bracelet had been there, sitting on the small side table, like it had been put there just for me.
I’d slid it on to my wrist, the warm leather feeling like it belonged there, and from that moment on, I’d never removed it.
“Why, Bird?” I asked, my voice sounding as ragged as my heart. “Why did you leave it?”
“Because.” She paused, licking her lips again, and I felt the movement in my chest. “Because I didn’t want you to forget me.”
“Oh, baby,” I groaned, my hand coming up to the back of her neck and pulling her closer. “I never forgot you.” I pressed my forehead to hers, feeling the slight tremble that rolled through her body. “I never forgot you, Bird. I just didn’t remember that you wereyou.”
I watched as Wren closed her eyes, a single tear escaping, tracing a slow path down her cheek. Moving my hand to cup her jaw, I swiped the tear with my thumb, hating that I had any hand in putting it there. Now that I’d connected my Bird with Wren and her letters, I felt an overwhelming need to protect her. She’d had so much heartache in her life—a good amount of it due to me—and there was a burning desire in my soul that neither she nor her daughter—ourdaughter—suffer ever again.
“Hawk,” Wren said, her hand coming up to cover mine where it still rested on her cheek. “About Cooper. I don’t want to confuse her, okay?”
“Confuse her, how?”
“Well, about you.” She pulled against my hold, and as much as I didn’t want to, I let her sit back. I couldn’t let her get too far away, though, so I flipped my hand over, capturing her fingers in mine and giving a gentle squeeze. “I just think we should go slow when it comes to her and you.”
“Wren,” I said, shaking my head. “I’d never hurt her. You have to believe that.”
“I don’t think you’d hurt her on purpose, no. But she’s a teen girl who’s never had a decent male role model, Hawk. She’s in a vulnerable place, and I don’t want anything to make her feel...unwanted.”
She flinched as she said it, her eyes darting away, and I remembered her letter, the one where she’d said her own dad had thrown her out when she’d found out she was pregnant. I had no idea what had happened after that—though I meant to find out—but I could imagine the pain she’d felt when the one man who was supposed to love and protect her did the exact opposite.
“I get that,” I said, waiting until she looked at me again before I continued. “But just so we’re clear, the second I found that letter, found out about Cooper, I wanted her. I wanted to get to know her, and to be a part of her life, in whatever way you’ll let me.”
