Page 164 of Lose You Twice

Wrenley Mae: Do you want to come over?

Kai: want to? yes. but the guys are over right now and i’m supposed to be playing a video game with them yet somehow i keep getting distracted.

Wrenley Mae: I’m sure we could come up with a much more entertaining game.

I smile before I can stop it.

“Mercer,” Weston says.

I lock my phone again. “What?”

“You are making me uncomfortable with your happiness.”

Grayson laughs under his breath, but when Weston and Asher start another round, he leans closer. “If you’re trying to play it cool, you’re not. You’re checking your phone every fifteen seconds.”

I rub a hand over my jaw and lean back against the couch. There’s no point pretending with him. Grayson has been around for too many years and seen too many versions of me: quiet, pissed off, locked down, worried sick about my sister, who now owns a large piece of him.

He also saw what I was like without Wren, and now sees what I’m like with her back in the picture.

“I don’t want to mess this up,” I say.

He nods like that makes sense. “Then don’t.”

I give him a flat look.

His mouth quirks. “You want something more helpful?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Don’t make helping her into something else that you have to control.”

I stare at him. “You call that helpful?”

He chuckles. Across the room, Weston yells at Asher, calling him a coward, and Asher tells him walking into enemy fire isn’t bravery; it’s stupidity.

My phone lights up again.

Wrenley Mae: Justin wants to know if you can explain slope-intercept form in a way that doesn’t make him want to put his head through a window.

Kai: sure.

Wrenley Mae: You seem overly confident.

Kai: I’m good at math.

Wrenley Mae: I remember.

My chest twinges at that because I remember everything to do with her. In my mind, I’m fifteen again.

I’m sitting with Wren at my parents’ kitchen table with her knee pressed against mine, pretending she doesn’t understand an equation so I’ll lean closer. I’m pretending I don’t know exactly what she’s doing because I want the excuse.

Her freckles are darker from summer, scattered across her nose and cheeks like she’s spent every day outside. Her hair keeps falling into her face, and there’s a pencil tucked behind one ear, even though she already has another one in her hand.

“I still don’t get it,” she says.

“You did the last three correctly.”

“Those were easier.”