It had been cleaned and smelled of lemon furniture polish. An antique iron crib was against the far wall, which had been painted a soft gray. There was a cozy, shaggy rug underfoot. There were no linens or decorations, but it had been furnished simply with a low dresser, an armoire, and a rocking chair.
Hayes had been sitting in the rocking chair but rose. “I thought you might want to decorate it yourself, so it’s pretty bare bones,” he began.
“It’s b-beautiful,” I whispered, emotion bringing the stutter back that had plagued me off and on since the accident. Tears began streaking down my face. “I love it so much.”
I launched myself at him, hiccupping when his arms came around me automatically. “H-how did you d-do all of this?”
He moved back to the rocking chair and lowered us both down to sit, with me positioned comfortably in his lap. “I have my ways,” he answered, and I shoved at his chest.
“Tell me.”
“I had some guys from the team help me move stuff in and get it set up. We painted a week ago.” He paused, his fingers tightening on my thigh. “I heard you saw Levi this morning.”
“I did. You shouldn’t have done that, Hayes.”
“I needed to. You don’t understand because you don’t remember. I know what it feels like to think I’ve lost you.” His voice was thick and his face so close to mine. I could feel his breath on my forehead, see his throat move when he swallowed. “I can’t go through that again, Birdie. I need to know you’re okay.”
I pressed my fingers to the hollow of his throat, mesmerized by the play of skin there. “I’m okay.” I raised my gaze to his. “I-I’m… I’m not going anywhere, Hayes.”
He stared at me for an eternal minute before he lowered his lips to mine and kissed me, deep and slow. I wound my arms around his neck and yielded to the movement of his mouth on mine, loving the ache of arousal deep in my core. He liked my tongue stud, I could tell, his own tongue returning to it time and again. I wondered if I had gotten it for him.
I lost track of time while we kissed, but all too soon he pulled away from me and stood, setting me on my feet. “I need a shower,” he muttered, striding to the door. “Why don’t you put on something pretty? Let’s go out to dinner.”
Bemused, I nodded. Dinner it would be.
“I am filled with wonderings, questions and doubt,
but of one thing I am certain: it will always be you
that gives flight to the butterflies inside me…”
Tyler Knott Gregson
December 14 │Birdie
THE SIGN’S SURFACE TAUNTED ME. I’d been staring at it for the past half-hour, hoping it would give me a hint. What do you want me to write? I asked silently, tracing my fingers over the smooth surface. What are you supposed to be?
It remained stubbornly silent, more interested, perhaps, in the Spotify playlist I’d found. Maggie had let me know that I could start producing more signs any time I felt up to it. With the holiday season, the ones in stock were flying off the shelves. So here I was, parked in front of a piece of wood and begging for enlightenment. I’d seen my other signs. They were beautiful. Professional, yet handmade. Where did I come by my ideas? What if I couldn’t repeat my efforts?
I heaved a sigh and stirred my fingers through the small basket of scraps I’d seen the last time I’d been in here. This was a start, but there had to be more. I looked around my studio for inspiration. Low shelves skirted the room’s perimeter, leaving space on the upper halves of the walls open for a bulletin board and a photo collage. The shelves were mostly empty, a few filled with random books and crafting tools that I didn’t fully recognize; the others waiting for the contents of the boxes that were stacked here and there. Most were open, as though I’d hunted down whatever I needed in that moment and left the rest for another time.
It was strange to see the disorder. I was starting to see that I was typically quite particular about putting things where they belonged. Everything had its place. I always placed my toothbrush in a special cup on the right hand side of my sink. My hairbrush and everything else went on the left, and never the twain did meet.
Rising from my workstation, I picked a box at random and started poking through it.
It looked like nothing more than marketing textbooks. Why hadn’t I sold those back to the bookstore? So not helpful. I shoved that box aside and pulled another to me. A glance revealed that it was stacks of vinyl albums. “I like vinyl?” I picked one at random. Conway Twitty. I pulled another loose. Patsy Cline? “I like country on vinyl.” I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. We did live in Tennessee.
“Classic country.” My head jerked up and I saw Hayes standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?”
I tucked the album back in the box. “I’m searching for inspiration,” I said on a sigh. “Maggie’s going to need new signs pretty soon and I have no clue what to put on them.”
“You had a book… it ought to be around here somewhere. You carried it with you everywhere. We’d be watching a movie, and something would catch your attention. You’d whip that thing out, start scribbling.” He went to my workstation and started pushing things around.
My inner neat freak cringed, and I stood up, pushing him gently with my hip. “Let me.”
I riffled carefully through the several stacks of paper, books, and wooden flats, until I spied a small notebook covered in llama-patterned fabric. “Is this it?”
“That’s the one.”
Opening it, I discovered pages full of neatly printed quotations, arranged in tabbed sections by category. “Oh, wow. Jackpot.” I flipped through, eagerness making my fingers catch on the pages.
I found myself laughing out loud at a two-sign set reading “dat beard” and “dat ass.” There were those I recognized as standards. “It is well with my soul.” “Home Sweet Home.” “This is Us.” Then there were those that weren’t familiar, and yet sent a flush of feeling through me. “Live by the Sun. Love by the Moon.” C.S. Lewis and Jane Austen quotes. And then I found it.
“I do not know
if I
will ever be
complete,
but I know
whatever I am,
You
will always be
the rest of
me.”
My fingers traced the words on the page. They resonated. They lingered. They transcended.
“That’s Tyler Knott Gregson. He was — is — your favorite poet. You put a lot of his stuff on your signs.” Hayes was standing beside me, reading the words as I did, with a kind of quiet appreciation. I didn’t reply, lost in the utter perfection of those words for me right at this moment. I needed more.
I sensed Hayes turn to leave and pulled my attention away from the little book. “No, stay! This is exactly what I needed.”
There was an armchair in the corner of the room and Hayes sank down into it, his large frame swallowing its dainty contours wholly. “Are you happy, Birdie?”
I closed the book and set it aside. “Why would you ask that?”
He watched me with his hooded, too-observant eyes. “You snuck out of our bed yesterday. I feel like you’re constantly running — but to what? Is there something more you want, something I’m not giving you?”