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I stiffen. I know that Bee’s late-night escapades have gone on unchecked, but I didn’t know that Wren was aware.
“You’re both night owls, huh?” she presses.
“You could say that.” Wren squirms in her seat for a moment, darting little glances in my direction. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Wren.”
She shrugs and sighs. “Well, it’s none of my business, really. But Bee seemed kinda off when she got in a little while ago.”
“‘Kinda off’? Explain.”
She flushes delicately. “I mean, she was really drunk, so maybe that was part of it. But she did seem kind of… sad. Almost like the drinking was a… a consequence of it. Or, like, a symptom. Or maybe a cure, I dunno.” Unease has my extremities tingling with warning. “Then again, maybe she was just having a little fun?” Her gaze flickers to me searchingly. “She does get really flirty when she’s drunk.”
Fuck me. Did Bee make a move on Wren? Has Wren been sitting up trying to figure out the dynamic between Bee and me? She’s getting dangerously close to the truth and it’s making me uncomfortable.
“You don’t need to worry about Bee,” I reply curtly. “She’s fine.”
She opens her mouth to argue, then closes it again and exhales. “Oh, okay. Then again… you didn’t see her tonight. You weren’t around.”
“I don’t have to be around to know what’s going on with my fiancée.”
She flinches. “If you say so. I was just worried?—”
“Well, don’t be,” I cut in. “It’s not your business to worry about Bee. In fact, it’s not your place to talk about her, either.”
She reels back, her face falling instantly. The tentative truce of the last half hour falls away. Wren’s jaw is working hard from side to side like she wants to say something.
Do it, I dare her silently. Ask me. Have mercy and just fucking ask me so I don’t have to hide this shit anymore.
In the end, though, she doesn’t. She climbs off her stool and makes for the exit.
The smart thing to do would be to let her go. But she’s gone and ignited my rage all over again. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire—and I’m burning just like my building did.
So as she passes by me, I snag her arm and reel her into my side. She’s eye level with me, and her green irises are flaming every bit as bright as mine are.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I growl. “Just because you live here doesn’t mean you know shit about Bee or me or our relationship.”
She tries to free her arm from my grip, but I just dig my fingers in deeper. Her lips are pressed together in a hard line and she keeps her mouth shut very deliberately.
“You’re here because it’s not safe for my son out there,” I snap, jabbing a finger toward the world beyond these four walls. “But if you want freedom, you’ll get it soon enough. Once you push him out, you’ll be free to go wherever the fuck you want.”
She stops struggling. Stops moving altogether. “What is that supposed to mean?” she whispers hoarsely. “Are you threatening to separate me from my son?”
I like her proximity a little too much. Her body is giving off all kinds of heat. If I turn just a little bit to the right, she’ll be standing squarely between my legs. “That’s up to you. If you want to stay with our son, that means you’ll have to stay put.”
Her eyes crackle like fireworks. The emerald turns dark and I wait expectantly for her anger to burst all over me. “You fucking?—”
“What’s going on here?”
Both of us flinch in the direction of the kitchen entrance. Bee is standing in the open doorway in a pair of tiny shorts and a tank that reads, I’m great in bed—I can sleep for hours.
Wren springs away from me as though we’ve been caught in the act. Weirdly, it feels like we have. “What’s going on here is your fiancé is an asshole,” she manages to spit. Then she darts past Bee and out of the kitchen.
Bee stares after her until her footsteps are swallowed back up in the silence. When she turns back, her eyes are narrowed with accusation.
I get off my stool before she can start in on me. “You look like shit.”
