I fucked up big time last night. I wanted to stop it. I knew deep down that no good could come of it, but her persistence, even if it was just a blink in time before I gave in, was too much to deny. When her mouth met mine, when her tongue begged for entrance, I was already gone, lost to her and the warmth of her body against mine.
I knew deep down before I crawled in bed with her that if things went that direction, she wouldn’t see me the same way before we touched.
I fucking knew.
And I did it anyway.
“I’m going to go make a phone call,” I tell Alex, unable to sit idle and do nothing.
The call connects, a video chat with Wren before I break the threshold into the bedroom.
“Tough news yesterday, man,” he says when the call connects.
“Yeah,” I agree, a small smile playing on my lips when a squawking version of Bob Marley’s version of Everything’s Gonna Be Alright comes from Puff Daddy.
“Now’s not the damn time,” Wren snaps at the bird, only to be met with raspberry sounds from his African Grey parrot.
“Just let it happen,” the bird snaps before he dives right back into the chorus of the song.
Wren rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.
“How are things at work?”
“You really want to talk about work?”
I look away from my phone screen.
“Unless you have a magic wand to wave over this entire situation?”
“Man, do I wish. Deacon asked me earlier if I thought sending a couple of the guys down there would help.”
The offer hangs in the air between us. Having the guys I work with—men I view as brothers—would be amazing, but I have to focus on Alex and Tinley and what they need, not what would benefit me right now.
“The offer stands,” he says when I don’t answer.
“I appreciate it.”
“We can talk about what’s going on here,” Wren offers.
“Tell him, fucker!” the bird yelps. “Tell him what happened!”
“More drama in the Nelson household, I presume?”
Wren and his live-in girlfriend share the same last name and is the sole reason they ever met in the first place. After a misplaced package of sex toys was mistakenly sent to him instead of her months ago, he did what he does best by researching her and practically falling in love with what he found before he ever laid eyes on her in real time.
Wren is distracted and glaring at his bird, and I take the time to really look at myself in the bathroom mirror, wondering if Tinley looks at my familiar face and only sees the man I used to be or the man I am now. From the way she acted this morning, I can only presume it’s the former.
“Tell him!” the bird urges again, his animal voice marked with anger. “Tell him what Satan did!”
“Simon—”
“That fucking devil cat!”
“Simon—” he begins again.
“Deserves to die!”
“Do you want me to tell him or are you going to keep—”
“A slow painful death!”
Wren pauses, his eyes focused across the room at his interrupting parrot.
“Look at me!” the bird insists. “Look what he did!”
Giving in, Wren turns his camera so I can see the fucking bird. I swear the damn thing has to be the center of attention in every situation.
Puff Daddy, the name he already had when Wren got him as a teenager, has his back to the camera, his little body bent over with what should be his tail feathers stuck in the air. If a bird can have a bare ass, then that’s what I’m looking at.
“Where are his feath—”
“That goddamn cat!” Puff spreads his wings, jumping up and down like a maniac.
We both wait for the squawking and long tirade of cuss words to end, but they seem to go on forever.
“What’s going on?”
I turn to find Alex standing in the doorway of the room, his face marked with trepidation. I can only imagine what it sounds like to him.
“Who is that man?” Puff demands.
I want to scoff. Alex is far from a man despite his size.
“Is that a bird?” Alex asks as he draws closer, his eyes glued to my phone.
“I am a God, you little shit!”
Alex grins, but I squeeze my phone a little too hard.
“That’s Ig’s son, so quit the foul language,” my friend says before I have a chance to threaten the damn thing with the death he wants to see happen to Wren’s girlfriend’s cat Simon.
“I don’t mind.” Alex smiles up at me, and I’m sure he’s heard stuff just as bad at school. I remember junior high. We all thought we were badasses, and honestly, our mouths were the only thing to back it up. “How many words does he know?”
“I’m right here, you little sh—”
Wren snaps out a, “Hey!” stopping the bird from seriously getting on my bad side. I understand the bird and his personality, but that little fucker doesn’t know when to tone it down.
“I mean…” Alex and I watch the screen still turned to focus on Puff as he walks back and forth on his perch mumbling incoherently to himself. “Dios mio. Esto es dificil.”
“He’s bilingual?”
I look at Alex with a wide grin. “Do you know what he said?”
My language-loving heart waits for his answer.
He shrugs. “He said my God this is hard.”
“Like my c—”
“Hey!” Wren snaps at Puff again. “Stop it.”
“You know Spanish?”
Alex blinks up at me. “Not a lot but you don’t grow up in Houston without picking some up. What else can he say?”
The bird has all of his attention, and I for one am glad he’s distracted instead of still living inside his head and focusing on his pain.
“Such a wise guy,” the bird squawks. “I know all the words!”
His wings spread wide again as he bounces on his perch, sounding like a maniacal ruler of all the lands.
“Can he sing?”
“Name your poison, kid!”
“What about Drake?”
“Trash!”
“Roddy Rich?”
“Trash! Come on. Give me something I can work with!”
“Cardi B?”
“Oh God,” Wren groans. “Don’t even think about it.”
The bird makes a humming noise.
“Puff, pick something else,” Wren insists.
“Gobble me, swallow me. Drip down the side of me!”
Alex busts out with a laugh and I’m just grateful the damn bird didn’t start with the fucking chorus, then I hear him humming it, whores in this house implied in the rhythm.
“That’s epic,” Alex praises. “When can I meet him in person?”
He looks up at me, and God do I want him in St. Louis.
“Come at me, bro,” Puff snaps before continuing humming the tune to that damn song.
I don’t get another word in when Alex takes the phone from me and heads out into the living room. His face is glued to the phone, his laughs echoing around the room as Puff entertains him for the better part of an hour before promptly telling my son to fuck off and go to school.
Wren apologizes, but all I can do is smile. I called because I needed a friend, someone to tell me what I should be doing to help my son get a little bit of his happiness back, and his dumbass bird was all it took. I’m not offended by the foul-mouth little thing.