She doesn't ask about Atlas.
I left him off the list on purpose. Margot, Richard, Zero—and a clean gap where the third brother's name should be. Because Atlas isn't going to be at this dinner, and the reason he isn't is a reason I'm not handing Wren tonight.
He's been traveling all week. The work has Talbot's name running through it, and anything that reminds her about the facility makes her face do a thing—a small, bad thing—and I decided on Tuesday, at her kitchen counter, that I wasn't going to put that into her week. Not before a dinner she's changed her dress over four times for.
She'll notice he isn't there. She'll be a little hurt I didn't warn her. Then she'll pretend she isn't, and I'll let her.
I've made a decision about her, on her behalf, without telling her.
It's the exact thing I hate that the brothers keep doing to me.
I drove past the turn for the estate a few minutes ago and have been pretending I didn't. I make a U-turn.
"What?"
"Took a wrong turn."
"You took a wrong turn? To your own house?" She gives me a dirty look like she sees right through my bullshit.
"Big driveway."
"Mm-hm."
She doesn't push it because she knows I did it for her. We pull onto the long gravel drive of the Graves Estate at six-twelve in the evening.
Her eyes go wide.
"Jeez Louise, Max."
"I know."
"You saidhouse. You let me get dressed four times for what you described, in the car, as a house."
"It is a house."
"It has a tower feature."
"It's not a tower. It's the stair turret."
"Oh, the stair turret." She says it with a slight accent and I bite the inside of my cheek. "Forgive me. The stair turret. Is there a wing?"
I consider lying. "There's a wing."
"For what, Max?"
"It was built for in-laws, I think. Nobody's living in it. Richard uses it for storage."
"Storage." She's still staring through the windshield. "You have an entire architectural wing."
"There's also a gym in the basement"
She shakes her head. “Insane.”
"I didn't build the place, Wren. I just live in a small little corner of it."
That gets her—the corner of her mouth goes, finally, and she looks away from the house and at me, and some of the white-knuckle leaves her hands. She makes a small sound that is half a laugh and half a wince. Neither of us get out of the car. We sit for one beat, her hands in her lap, mine still on the steering wheel, both of us looking at the front door.
"Wren."
