Wren nods. “Yeah, that’d be fun.”
We walk them to the door, and wave goodbye. With how dark it is outside, Angel doesn’t put on her baseball cap. They make it to their car in the driveway, and soon enough they’re gone, leaving me and Wren to clean up the little mess dinner made in the living room.
Only after everything is cleaned do we sit on the couch together, Wren practically in my lap. She leans her head on my shoulder and says, “That really was nice. I’m glad we had them over.”
“Me, too. It went better than I thought it would.”
“The guys seem cool, and Angel’s pretty nice. She reminds me of me, a little bit. Just a small-town girl who got super lucky.” She sighs. “Did you know her sister is the one who sent in the audition tape?”
“I heard something about it.”
Though I don’t see the smile, I can detect it in her voice when she says, “Now that we’ve checked that off the list, there’s only one more thing we have to do before classes start next Monday.”
Ah, right. How could I forget? Reese has a little something planned for the three of us. He’s kept pretty tight-lipped about it, so I’m not sure exactly what the plan is, and knowing the guy, he’s going to keep it a secret until right before.
“He didn’t tell you what we’re doing?” I ask.
“Nope. He wants it to be a surprise, although I think I have an idea.”
I shift the way I’m sitting so I can look at her. “You have an idea and you won’t tell me? Fuck that. What’s your idea? Do I need to mentally prepare myself for some weird shit?”
Wren chuckles. “No, I think you’ll be fine. You might actually enjoy it.”
Now that… that doesn’t help narrow things down. If anything, it only makes me more confused. What the hell would I maybe enjoy that I haven’t done before? I have no idea, and it doesn’t sound like Wren is going to tell me.
Knowing Reese like I do, it’s definitely going to be some weird shit.
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Reese
I pick Wren and Logan up that Friday night. I figure it’s best to do it on Friday and not Saturday, just because I know Wren will want to make sure she’s ready for the fall semester, plus she’ll probably need to rest a bit.
Tonight… tonight’s the night.
Out of all the times I imagined it, though, I never thought I’d share it with another guy, let alone share her. I still catch myself wondering sometimes if I made a mistake, allowing Wren to have Logan, but so far he’s proven himself. He hasn’t hurt her, hasn’t touched any bottles or drugs, and hasn’t so much as looked at other girls.
As long as it stays that way, Logan and I will be cool. If, however, it should change, Logan will be subjected to the impossibly hot fires of hell.
Logan has to sit in the back, and he chooses to sit in the middle. Wren sits in the passenger seat, allowing me to steal glances at her every now and then as I drive us to our destination. It’s not exactly close by; being a college city, you have to go pretty far to find land that hasn’t been built up over the recent years.
But it’s there. It’s there and tonight we will make use of such deserted forests.
“So,” Logan huffs from the backseat, “you going to tell us what the hell we’re doing tonight? Please don’t say you’re taking us out to the middle of nowhere so you can kill us or something.” He’s half-joking, I can hear it in his voice, but at the same time, the other half is definitelynotjoking.
“If somehow you die tonight, it would be purely accidental,” I deadpan. “But on a more serious note, you’re worrying for nothing. Tonight is going to be fun.”
“Just to clarify that, will it be fun for all of us, or just you?”
I meet Logan’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “All of us, I promise.”
He harrumphs, and I can tell just by the sound he made he doesn’t quite believe me, but that’s fine. I wanted tonight to be a surprise for everyone, although I suspect Wren may already know, since I did bring it up to her in the past. It was a while back, but she’s smart. She doesn’t forget things. She’ll remember I told her I wanted to chase her in the woods.
At the time, I assumed it would be just me chasing her, but seeing as how Logan is a part of this, I figure it might be nice to include him. I even made him a little something to mark the occasion.
The world outside the car is dark once we pull off the highway. We take some backroads, where streetlights are simply not a thing. This has, in part, taken so long to set up because I had to find the best location to do it, where we wouldn’t be interrupted, where we would have as much space as we needed. Scouring places like that takes time. Lots and lots of time.
Once I find the right spot, I pull off the road. I have to weave us through many old trees until we’re far enough off the road that no one driving by would see a parked vehicle. Of course, I don’t think we’ll have to worry so much about that, seeing as how we are literally in the middle of nowhere.
I park the car and shut it off, and right when I do, Logan mutters, “Ah, the middle of nowhere. Perfect place for a bit of murdering, if you ask me.”
