“She looks cold,” he insists. “Here. See?”
“I don’t—” I say, but he’s already taking his phone to the back door, holding it up to the window, and flicking on the floodlights overlooking my back yard. In the very back of the cage on the left—sized more like a large dog run than a cage—is a lump inside a wooden crate, turned on its side and perched high up on a pole. I’m pretty sure the lump is glaring.
“She looks fine,” I tell Reid. “Eagles overwinter in New England and Minnesota, where it regularly gets much colder than this.”
“In the wild, they huddle together to share body heat,” he says, with the confidence of someone who’s read a Wikipedia page. He flips the camera around so he can glare at me again. “Vicky’s alone out there.”
God, it’sVickynow.
“She’s sheltered.”
“You’ve got a whole collection of heating pads and hot water bottles,” he says, walking through the house. “Tell me which ones are for animals and which ones are for when you go camping with your buddies and move rocks or whatever for two days straight and then spend a day lying on the couch complaining about your back when you get home.”
“I don’t do that.”
Reid snorts. “Sure.”
Behind me, I hear the bedroom door open, followed by padded footsteps. When I turn, Andi’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing my sweater again, eyebrows raised. I carefully don’t think about jiggling or how I’ve seen her bare nipples without her permission, because if I did, I might spiral.
“It’s Reid,” I tell her, and then tell Reid, “This is Andi,” and yes, introductions are extra-awkward on a video chat with a dicey connection.
“Hi,” she says, and comes over to sit next to me. “You named the animals?”
“They needed names,” he says, a little defensive.
“Oh, I’m on your side,” she says, and I think it gets a small smile out of Reid.
“They arewildlife,” I mutter, not that anyone’s listening.
“It’s for show. I heard him call them Victoria and Fluffy just yesterday,” Andi says, and I frown at her. “I think he doesn’t want to get attached.”
“That’s not it,” I protest. “It can be dangerous to start anthropomorphizing wild animals, because you’re less likely to treat something namedFluffyas a threat even though he’s got just as many teeth as C-347.”
They both look at me for a long moment.
“Are you the cool girl Sadie and Ariel keep talking about?” Reid asks, ignoring my good point to change the subject. Andi laughs.
“Dunno. I hope so,” she says. “I used to live next to you guys when we were kids, but I think we moved away before you were born. Ariel and Sadie were really little. I’m surprised they remember me.”
“Mostly Sadie,” Reid says. “But Ariel believes everything she says.”
“I do remember them ganging up on Jacob,” Andi says. Jacob’s about two years older than Sadie, and they’ve never gotten along very well. “Your mom had a baby, like, two months before we moved, but I think that was—”
“That was Reid,” I interrupt, and fuck, I should have mentioned this to Andi before so it wouldn’t put Reid on the spot like this. “He transitioned a couple years ago.”
“Oh! Neat,” she says. I think a pixelated Reid blinks.
“Thanks?” he says.
“But yeah, you obviously don’t remember me,” Andi goes on. “You were tiny when we left. Are you the youngest? You’re not the youngest.”
“No, there’s two more,” Reid says, and doesn’t look thrilled about it.
“Drew and Ruth still live with our parents,” I add.
“You know how there are songs to help people remember all the presidents? Or the capitol of every state?” Andi asks, leaning back in her chair. “You guys need that for your siblings.”
Reid snorts, but he sort of smiles, too.
