Page 138 of Songbird: Black Kite
Thinking of that closed-minded little town drew my mind back to Wren and Cooper—not that they were ever far from my thoughts, anyway.
“Actually,” I cut in, interrupting Alex as he debated the highs and lows of the first band on offer. “If the conversation is switching to music, there is one more thing we should talk about.”
“Oh, fuck. What now?” Alex moaned, sitting back and dragging both hands down his face. “I don’t think I can handle any more surprises tonight.”
“Tough shit, man.” Pulling the iPad away from Gavin, I navigated to Instagram and logged into the fancy new account Cooper had set me up with.
“Who the hell is Boomer McGarrett?” Alex asked, his head tilted to the side as he tried to read what I was doing from across the table.
“He’s me. Cooper set me up with a Finster account.”
“Finsta,” Alex and Gavin corrected at the same time.
“Whatever.” Was I the only one who had never heard of this thing?
“Not whatever, dude.” Alex was practically bouncing in his seat. “This is fuckin’ amazing! You’re on Instagram? I’ve been begging you to get on socials for ages.”
“You spend far too much time online for a celebrity, even if you’re using fake accounts,” Gavin scolded him, rehashing the same argument they’d had several times.
“How the hell else am I supposed to meet chicks?”
“Instagram is not a dating app.”
“Maybe not for you,” Alex insisted, taunting Gavin with a wag of his eyebrows. “But some of us can get laid no matter the situation.
“Guys, can we please focus?” Holding up the iPad, I spun it around and held it up. “You need to look at this?”
“Songbird?” Gavin asked, squinting? “Is this a band? You want to add them to the lineup?”
“It’s not a band, dude. It’s Wren.”
“Wait, Wren? Like,yourWren? Bird?” Alex asked, his head shooting up in surprise.
“The very same.”
“She still plays? That’s dope, bro.”
“Just listen, alright.” Navigating to the video I wanted, I pressed play, the first notes of the song filling the room with the now very familiar melody.
“Hey. That’s our song.”
Alex wasn’t wrong; the opening chords that Wren was playing on her Instagram video were the exact ones we had recently used to write our latest song together.
The ones I’d pulled from my dreams.
The very dreams that had always been of her.
“How the hell did she get this? You share it with her?”
“Would you just shut up and listen?”
He finally did, and when the intro was finished, and Wren started to sing, both Gavin and Alex were frozen, mesmerized by my Bird.
Her voice was strong, lower than most women would sing, but still soft and feminine with just a hint of rasp. The words were sung with conviction, and you could actually feel the pain coming out of her as she sang about the heartbreak of being hurt by someone who was supposed to love you.
When the song ended and the video stopped, we all sat there staring at each other, the guys having the exact same reaction I had when I’d first heard her song.
“She’s fuckin’ awesome!” Alex crowed.
