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‘Welcome,’ Wren signed.
Percy’s face went hot with rage. “Welcome? After what you did?”
Wren blinked, and then he looked furious. “What I did? I told you I wasn’t interested in a relationship. You said you understood!” His laugh was high and tight with tension. “God, every fucking time this happens?—”
“Does he know?” Percy demanded.
Wren reared back. “What? Does who know what?”
“Your…your boyfriend,” Percy managed to get out. “That man you were just?—”
“Oh my God. No. He’s—” Wren stopped abruptly and dragged fingers through his hair, letting out a frustrated groan when he knocked his implants loose. He slapped them back on his head, then pressed his hands to the counter. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but he’s not my boyfriend.”
“So you two don’t live together?” Percy asked.
Wren rolled his eyes. “Well, yes, but?—”
“Fuck you.”
Wren reared back. “Excuse me?”
“I said fuck you,” Percy repeated. “I know we said no strings, and I meant it. But I will not be the man who takes part in hurting someone else because you want to play games with technicality. You don’t get to fuck me, then go home to someone else and pretend like you’re a good person.”
Wren swallowed heavily, then lifted his hands and hovered them in the air before crossing his arms over his chest. “I am a good person.”
“Good people don’t take strangers back to their hotel room, then go home to their…whatever,” Percy spat. “You have no idea what it’s like to be the person constantly being made a fool of.”
Wren stared at him for a long beat. “You’re right. I don’t know.”
Percy waited for a moment, but it seemed like there wasn’t even an attempt at an apology coming. Which figured. “If you care for him at all—even just as a person—let him go before you do real damage. It’s not fair. It’s cruel.”
Wren’s fingers opened and closed, and then he dropped his arms and came around the counter. Percy took several steps backward, but Wren didn’t try to touch him. He just jerked his chin to the front door, and Percy realized he was being escorted out. Which, he supposed, was fair. This was the second time he’d caused a scene, after all.
He turned on his heel, and when Wren held the door, he stepped out. The cool afternoon breeze hit him in the face, and he allowed himself a deep breath before he started to walk away, but then a hand caught his elbow.
He went into immediate panic, shielding himself as he spun around, and he found Wren taking a step back with both hands up in surrender.
“Jesus. I’m not going to hit you.”
Percy’s heart was threatening to hammer straight out of his chest. “What do you want?”
“To explain,” Wren said, sounding stressed. “I didn’t fuck you and then go home to a lover, Perce.”
“Don’t,” Percy spat, “call me that.”
Wren nodded, looking devastated. “Fine, whatever. But I’m being serious. I’ll go grab Ravi right now so he can tell you himself, okay? But whatever you think he is, he’s not. We’re friends. Best friends. He’s staying with me because he needed a place to live. We’re not together.”
Was that what Evan had told his lovers too? That Percy was just a friend who’d fallen on hard times?
“An intern at my work said you attempted to sleep with her friend, but they found out you were with someone else.”
Wren groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose with his right hand, his left moving quickly through some signs like he was talking to himself. When he looked up, he seemed on the very edge of control. “I know who you’re talking about. I wasn’t trying to sleep with her friend. She was trying to sleep with me. It was her eighteenth birthday, and that’s just…not my thing.”
Percy’s anger started to deflate, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet and admit he’d made a massive mistake.
“I tried to be polite, but she was relentless, so Ravi stepped in and pretended to be my boyfriend. I swear to God, I will go get him right now, and he’ll explain the whole thing.”
Percy stood there, catching his breath, and then everything rushed out of him, and all that was left was shame. “Bollocks,” he whispered, staring down at his feet.
