The remaining plate, its bagel mounded high with cream cheese, he plopped in front of her, and she stared at it in silence for a minute.
“Thank you,” she finally said, very quietly.
“For what?” He scoffed. “Taking the most salmon? You’re welcome. Please feel free to thank me when I claim whatever slice of cake has the most frosting too.”
Lauren wasn’t really into frosting, he’d learned, which was preposterous. Possibly un-American.
“What are your plans for today, Nanny Clegg? Heading to Griffith Park and breaking up children’s birthday parties for unlawful displays of joy and levity?”
At some point in the near future, he intended to find a new nickname for her, although he wouldn’t entirely retire Nanny Clegg from circulation. But this version of Lauren, the one that laughed and chatted, deserved a different option.
“I’d thought—” she began, only to be interrupted by the chirp of her phone. “It’s Sionna. Give me just a minute to tell her I’ll call back after breakfast.”
As she got to her feet and moved away, he heard an unfamiliar woman’s voice say, “Wren! How are you doing?”
Wren?
How the fuck had he missed that?
All this time, he’d had the niggling sense he knew what type of bird she reminded him of, and he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it.
But of course she was a wren. Of course.
A winter wren, specifically.
While she was still chatting with her friend—and it was oddly pleasing to see her animatedly talking and relaxed with someone other than him—he got out his own phone and did some research to confirm his memories.
Yes. That was it.
Winter wrens were very small: check. So round they looked like little balls: check. Brown and gray feathers: check. Loud and cheerful song: If her joyful, snorting laughter was an equivalent, check. Not particularly fast-moving on their feet: check.
Huh. Nests built by males were called cock nests. Better not to speculate about that.
When Lauren returned to their breakfast table, he complained, “You were so incredibly chatty, our bagels aren’t even hot anymore.”
She dropped into her chair. “Our bagels were never hot, jackass.”
“Ahhhhhhh.” He sat back and beamed at her. “Good harpy energy, Wren. Maybe even Big Harpy Energy.”
“You heard Sionna, huh?” She picked up her bagel and studied it, evidently deciding where to bite first. “Whatever. Feel free to call me Wren. It’s certainly better than Nanny Clegg.”
“Ice cold,” he whined through a mouthful of his own bagel. “Like chewing a glacier.”
When she failed to bite back more laughter, he was tempted to record the snorting merriment, just so he could replay it whenever he needed to smile.
He didn’t, since that would be creepy. But he tried to memorize the sound anyway, because soon enough, like the winter wren’s chirping song, it would be gone too.
LAUREN TRIED TO tell herself she wasn’t wearing her BE THE SHREW YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD tee on purpose, to please Alex. That would be a lie, however, since she definitely was. He just seemed to derive such joy from it. Even after three weeks in L.A. together, having seen all her T-shirts repeatedly, he grinned at the shrew tee’s appearance each time.
Other than that one evening, the previous week, when his brows had drawn together in thought instead.
“Do you consider yourself a shrew, then?” he’d asked. “Genuinely?”
They’d been watching the sunset from one of his outdoor sitting areas, and he’d been glancing toward her tee every so often, uncharacteristically muted.
She was honest in response. “Not particularly. But I’ve been called one before.”
He’d set his bottle of sparkling limeade down on the low, polished concrete table with extreme care, his jaw jutting beneath that beard. “By men?”
She nodded. “Most times. Usually when I refuse to go along with whatever a patient or coworker wants. I don’t tend to budge when I know something is wrong, so they call me a shrew or a bitch.”
There was an odd sound emanating from Alex’s chair. A rumble.
“It doesn’t offend me or hurt my feelings,” she added reassuringly. “If I get called a shrew or bitch for following my conscience and my training, so be it.”
“Well, that makes everything totally fine, then,” he said, his sarcasm thick enough to choke them both.
She needed to explain herself better. “It’s not right on a societal level or even a professional level, but it is fine on a personal level. It has to be, because otherwise I’d spend my life angry and sad, and I don’t want that for myself.”