"I'm also a little excited," she says. "Which is going to sound stupid."
"It doesn't."
"It does to me." She finally turns her head from the window. In the gold light coming through the glass she looks younger than usual, the vulnerability on display. "I feel like I’m not good at meeting new people, Max. Reeves doesn't count—she's paid to tolerate me." She blows out a long breath. "Tonightcounts,you know? I don’t want to mess it up. It just counts, and I wanted you to know I know that."
I knowexactlywhat she means.
Not the way she'd guess—I have the brothers, I have a whole roaring three-way weather system in my chest that she will never have to navigate unless she finds her own set of alphas—but the other thing. The walking-into-a-room thing. The being-unsure-whether-you're-allowed-to-be-here thing. The standing-in-someone-else's-kitchen-rehearsing-your-own-name thing. I have done all of that. I am, in some quiet permanent way,stilldoing it. Wren and I never needed a bond to recognize each other. We are two twin souls who only know how to be nervous without letting it show, and tonight Ican feel hers anyway, plain as weather, because it used to be mine.
"They're going to love you," I tell her.
"Don't." She points a finger at me without heat. "You'll jinx it."
"Wren. They are going to love you."
She doesn't answer that. She looks back out the window. But her thumb has gone still in her palm, and she lets the sentence sit there in the car with us instead of arguing with it, which for Wren is the same as saying thank you.
A half-mile of trees goes by.
"Tell me their names again," she says.
"You know their names."
"Tell me anyway. In order. I do better when I've rehearsed a thing before I have to do it live."
I smile. I can’t help myself.
"Margot," I say. "My mom. She'll get to you first, she always opens the door herself. Dark hair, warm, talks with her hands. She's a hugger. If it's too much you can step back and she will not be hurt, she'll just adjust."
Wren nods slowly, taking it all in .
"Richard. My stepdad. Tall, glasses, a little far away behind the eyes. He's kind. He's stiff. He might ask you something sharp and then back off. He'll probably ask you about a book and then have feelings about your answer."
"Books I can survive."
"I know you can."
"And the brothers." She says it lightly. Her thumb has started the slow circle in her palm again. "Tell me the brothers."
She’s met one of them. Bane has been the steady hand behind every good thing in Wren's life for months—the apartment, the bank account, Reeves parked outside—and thetwo of them have built a gentle relationship I have only ever seen the edges of.
"Right." I keep my eyes on the road. "So you've got Bane already. That leaves Zero."
"Tell me about Zero."
Jesus. How do I describe the tornado that is Zero…
"He’s the middle brother. Dark. Quick. He'll make you a drink the second you walk in because Margot will have assigned him to, and he'll take the assignment far too seriously. He looks dangerous and he is, a little, but never at you. If he likes you he'll insult you. That's the tell."
"That's the tell."
"If he's polite to you, something's wrong. If he's a menace to you, you're in."
She nods slowly. Then, asks: "And Bane will be there?”
"Bane will be there."
She smiles at me softly. "...okay," she says. "Okay. Then it's only really two new ones. Margot and Richard. And Zero." A breath. "I can do three."
