Page 78 of Songbird: Black Kite
“Is everything alright?” he asked, staring down at me where I sat, leaned back in my desk chair. “We wanted to give you some time, but it’s been a while now, and the guys were getting antsy.” He straightened his shoulders, hands clasped behind his back in a pose that I assumed was reminiscent of his military days. “Alex wanted to be the one to come down and check on you, but Gavin and I thought it might be best if he did...literally anything else.”
Normally, a comment like that would have had me snorting out a laugh, loving to dunk on Alex as much as the rest of the guys.
But right now, I didn’t feel like laughing.
I didn’t feelanything. I was numb, completely and totally removed from myself and my body and reality in general, I guessed. How else could I explain the fact that a bomb had just been dropped in my lap, and I’d done nothing but sit, staring at it, for hours.
When I didn’t respond, Charlie stepped closer, his hands coming to rest on the surface of the desk as he leaned over me, his eyes narrowed.
“Hawk, man, what’s going on? You’ve been different for weeks now. Wound tight as a fuckin’ clock, making some big changes, big decisions after years and years of just riding the wave. Going with the flow.” He paused, his lips compressed into a flat line before he spoke again. “Don’t get me wrong; I’m fucking ecstatic that you’ve finally decided to cut ties with everything Castor, but I worry that you’re doing things a little fast. First the festival, then the label. It’s alright to want to take a step back and consider all your options. You don’t have to make a choice right in this moment.”
Charlie was such a stand-up guy. He was the kind of guy you wanted on your side, the kind of guy that could always be counted on for good advice. I used to smoke up and think about how different my life would have been if I’d had a guy like Charlie in it from the beginning.
How awesome it would have been if Charlie had been my dad.
Fuck.
The thought struck me like a fucking freight train, and I choked down the lump in my throat as I stared at the little square photograph that had been tucked in with the last letter. The image was grainy, but I thought that was how these things were supposed to look. I couldn’t tell one part of the image from the other, but that didn’t stop me from knowing exactly what it was and what it meant.
It was an ultrasound photo. An image of the baby Wren claimed was mine.
“The time to hesitate is through,” I said, quoting Jim Morrison, before reaching up and holding out the photo to Charlie.
He took it, turning it one way and then the other before it finally registered exactly what it was and what it meant.
This time, there was no denying the animation on his face.
“Holy shit, Hawk. Do you know what this is?”
“I do,” I replied, not minding his insinuation that I was a fucking moron because, honestly, it had taken me more than a fair chunk of time to come to terms with what I had been looking at.
“Do you know what this means?”
“I do.”
“Holy shit. Like,holy shit.” He sat there, the look on his face as dumbfounded as I expected mine had been, and I waited while he continued to process.
Fuck, I wasstillprocessing.
“Wait,” Charlie finally said, and I raised my head to look at him. “Just wait a fuckin’ minute here. This was in the letters? The ones that Lewis just brought over from his safe?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’re telling me that Tori had this? In her possession all this time?”
“Had what?” came the chipper voice of Alex as he pushed his way into the study, a sheepish Gavin on his heels. I’d bet he’d put up a token protest when Alex suggested they come crash in here, but judging by how they both marched right up to the desk, I would have thought it was weak at best. “What’s the Terrible Tori done now?”
Charlie looked at me for permission before doing anything, and I nodded.
The guys knew about Wren and her letters, so they might as well know about this, too. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guessed.
Charlie held up the ultrasound and Alex snatched it out of his hand before Charlie could even speak.
“Tori’s pregnant?” he blurted, and just the thought made my gut churn. “Does Lewis know?”
“Alex,” Gavin chided, reaching for the image. “It’s not Lewis’s baby.”
“Holy fuck!” Alex gaped, immediately jumping to another wrong conclusion. “Hawk, you’re still bonin’ Tori? Behind Lewis’s back?” He fired off the question, then snapped his fingers as though something else had just occurred to him. “Or you and Lewis are bonin’ her together! I thought you hated them both, though. Is it a group hate fuck? Is it good? Can I watch?”
