CRYPTO: Infidelity (Book 1)

CHAPTER 50: VISIT

Struggling to carry the basket and the other gift, I knocked on the door.

Birdie answered and, with a smile, asked, "Is that for me?"

I smiled back. "Of course."

Birdie kissed me on the cheek. It felt like forever ago since the last time she did that.

She took the basket. "Well, come on in!"

I followed her to the living room. "I got you something else too," I told her. I handed her the bag. "It's a souvenir from Paris."

"Do you want me to open it now?" she asked.

"Yeah. I want to see if you like it or not," I said. "Not that you have to like it. It won't hurt my feelings if you don't. There's actually a funny story behind it but I'll tell you after you see it."

Birdie sat on the couch and pulled a music box with a figure of a dancing cat out of the bag. "A music box? Aw, Crypto! I love it!"

"It's actually broken," I told her. "It doesn't play any music. There might be a way you can fix that. I'm not sure, but the cat is still intact. I thought it would make a nice decoration. But yeah. The story behind it is, well, we were at an antique store and I wasn't being very careful. I leaned on one of the shelves, not realizing how unstable it was, and... it came down... along with everything on it. Really expensive things too. I had to pay for everything I broke."

"Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry," she said.

"It's not a big deal. I can afford it, but yeah. Anyway, I didn't want to keep any of the broken things and pay to take them on the plane, but I saw that music box, and, well, it reminded me of you."

"Well, thank you. Do you know why it reminded you of me?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I guess because it was the only thing that wasn't damaged, other than the music box itself, and, you know, it's a feline."

"Did you know I like to dance?" she asked.

"No. You like to dance?"

She nodded. "I love to dance. I've even started taking dance classes recently."

"What kind of dancing lessons?"

"Swing dancing. It's like the dancing you see in the old films."

"Doesn't it involve a partner?"

"Yeah, but Rockie won't take the lessons with me. He thinks it's weird for guys to dance, but at least he's paying for me to take the lessons. The instructor is usually my partner, but when he's busy teaching the class, I just practice the dance alone."

"You should teach me some of the dance moves some time," I said.

"If it's something you think you'd be interested in, you should join the class. You could be my partner. It's a lot of fun!"

"Oh, I'm not sure if I have time for all that."

"Well, if you ever do have time, you should drop by just to see what it's like. The class starts at 7 pm on Wednesdays. I can send you the address if you want."

"Alright. I'll check it out when I have the chance."

"Great!" Birdie said. "So did you want to share more about your Paris trip? I know you probably didn't do that many fun things since you were there for work or whatever, but I would at least like to hear more about how you got injured."

"Oh. I'm not sure how much I can share..."

Birdie rolled her eyes. "I'm so tired of everyone keeping secrets from me. Not even Rockie tells me things. Am I not trustworthy enough or something? You think just because I'm a girl, I'm gonna blab about it to all my girlfriends? You think I'm not capable of keeping secrets?"

I looked away to think. Could I trust her not to tell? Did it even matter if she did? Yes. She could be in real danger if the mafia found out she knew things. But would they kill Rockie's girlfriend? Maybe.

"It's for your own safety," I told her.

Birdie's lip stuck out as she pouted. "Rockie tells me that too. He doesn't trust me... You don't trust me either. I promise I won't tell. I just want to be in the know."

"I trust you," I told her.

"Then you'll tell me?"

What was the harm? I thought. Birdie won't tell anyone. I can trust her.

"Okay," I said, "but you can't tell anyone, not even Rockie, that I told you anything about it. If you do, you put both of our lives at risk."

"I understand and I promise not to tell, just like how I'm not gonna tell anyone you came to visit," she said.

My police training came in handy to read her subtle facial expressions. It looked like she was being sincere.

I told her everything about the trip, including the part where we broke out a bunch of prisoners.

"Wow... Thank you for telling me all of that," Birdie said when I had finished. "It means a lot that you trust me with all that information. You trust me more than my own boyfriend does." She laughed. "I guess Rockie is just the paranoid type."

"Yeah," I said, remembering his conspiracy theory about being cursed. I wanted to tell Birdie about Rockie; how he was not the right guy for her. That was the real reason I came over, but I decided not to tell her that night. I didn't want to dampen the mood. It just didn't seem like the right time to bring it up.