“What is this?” she asked, also whispering. She’d managed to sneak out of the villa unnoticed, but Alexis knew there were eyes everywhere. Last season, she’d been the one watching, following Skye like a damn shadow. Looking back now, she was mortified by her own behavior. She wanted the earth to swallow her whole just thinking about it.
“I want to show you something,” Birdie said.
“Couldn’t you have shown it to me inside?” Alexis muttered. The summer heat stuck to her like a second skin. Her hair was probably dry already, but she didn’t bother reaching up to feel.
Birdie shook her head and extended her hand. “No,” she said. “We had to come out here to see it. Now, will you please just take my hand so I can show you?”
Alexis hesitated, eyeing Birdie’s long, slender fingers. She had perfectly trimmed nails and lovely visible cuticles. She wondered briefly how many paper cuts Birdie had endured over her lifetime. Many, Alexis thought, and then she let Birdie take her hand and lead her out of the garden and into the vineyards.
“You’re not going to take me somewhere secluded and kill me, are you?” she asked, glancing ahead at the rows and rows of dark vines.
“I do tend to hold really strong grudges,” Birdie replied, smiling.
“Well, I’m not sure I deserve death,” Alexis said. “But if running away without ever calling you back in Portland is worth killing over, I should probably apologize.”
Birdie stopped mid-step, her foot halfway off the grass and on soft earth. “Wait,” she said, looking at Alexis. “Are you saying sorry?”
“It’s a onetime thing,” Alexis said quickly. She’d never been good with apologies, and if she had to give them, she preferred doing it over email. Less personal. Less humiliating. “Now let’s not drag it out. What do you want to show me?”
Birdie laughed, then caught herself and smacked her hand so fast and so aggressively over her mouth that Alexis wondered if it would leave a mark. “We should probably be quiet until we get there,” she whispered, glancing back at the villa. The lights were spilling out of the windows like spotlights. She then tugged at Alexis’s hand. But Alexis didn’t budge.
“How about you tell me first where we are going?”
“How about you trust me,” Birdie replied.
“Trust you?” Alexis blurted. She sounded way more alarmed than she meant to. Why shouldn’t she trust Birdie? It wasn’t like Birdie had ever given her a reason not to.
Birdie seemed to think so too because she replied, “Yes,” without missing a beat.
“Fine,” Alexis relented. “But only because—” She didn’t get to finish because Birdie yanked her hand. The next moment they were tumbling into the vineyards with their legs moving faster than Alexis would’ve liked. She was wearing flip-flops, and the thong part was digging into her toes.
“Come on, Birdie. You know I don’t like surprises,” Alexis muttered, not loving the fact they’d been swallowed up by a sky so dark it felt like they had fallen into an ink well. Or that it wasn’t the safest idea to be wandering through vineyards with no flashlight, no phone, no sense of where the path was going. Not to mention the soil was loose, almost shifty beneath her flip-flops, and Alexis had to watch her footing with every step.
“I didn’t know that,” Birdie said, stopping just long enough that Alexis got hopeful, before tugging her forward again. “I had no idea you don’t like surprises.”
“Most people don’t.”
“That’s not true,” Birdie countered.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Alexis replied. She couldn’t bring up exact statistics to support her claim, but she was pretty sure the majority of people preferred knowing things over being ambushed with them.
Birdie clicked her tongue. “You know, I don’t actually know that much about you.”
“You know plenty,” Alexis shot back. In fact, Birdie knew more about her than most people did. She didn’t have that many friends, and the ones she did have lived in other states. Some didn’t even know Alexis had once owned a pet bird, or that she’d never ridden a horse in her life. If they watched this season ofThe Sapphic Match,they’d probably come to realize just how impersonal their relationships with Alexis really were.
“All I know is that you used to have a parrot, and you live in Portland. I don’t even know what you do, or whether you like scary movies, or how many siblings you have. I don’t know whatyour favorite color is or if you prefer baths over showers, or if you have plants in your house.”
Alexis sighed. There was no way she could get out of this.
“Real estate agent,” she said, trying to remember the list of things Birdie had just mentioned. “I don’t like horror. Why would I watch something that’s going to keep me up at night? And no, I’m not a middle child. I’m actually an only child. Favorite color is green, don’t bathe often, prefer to shower, and yes, I’ve got plants in every corner of my third-floor apartment.” What Alexis didn’t say was that she used to love scary movies until she watched one that disturbed her for a lifetime, that she always longed for a baby brother or sister, and that even though she had plants in every corner, she never managed to keep them alive for more than a month or two.
Birdie didn’t reply. Not for a minute, at least. And when she did, all she said was, “I should’ve known you were an only child. Explains a lot.”
Alexis chose not to be offended. “Well, there you go. Now you know enough about me.”
“Not nearly,” Birdie said. “But we can revisit this later.”
There would be no revisiting,Alexis thought. But before she could tell Birdie that, Birdie tugged Alexis onward, deeper into the vineyards. The smell of crushed grape leaves filled her nose, and the air carried a nip. Goosebumps rose along Alexis’s arm where her skin wasn’t covered by her T-shirt, and she thought of the cardigan she had considered bringing along but hadn’t.
