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She would’ve hosted the dinner if I had just asked, but I didn’t want her delving any further into my motivations when it came to Wren. She hadn’t said anything about my attitude, likely to prevent escalation on my part or embarrassment on Wren’s side, but I knew that courtesy wouldn’t last. Moving in with her without a fuss, plying her with coffee in advance, and making friends with her fiancé and her other BFF, Dev, would hopefully help to lessen any pain that came when Wren finally gave in and disappeared. I hated the person I’d become because of Wren, her presence a thorn in my side that had me twisting into a cruel - well, crueler - version of myself, but it couldn’t be helped.
Even though there was another twenty minutes left in the hour I gave Wren, I made my way back toward the shop. Imagining the annoyed look on her face when I showed up early and forced her into a car with me had a smile pulling at my lips, and I made the walk quickly, my long strides eating up the blocks in a handful of minutes. As I came up on the storefront, I noticed Wren speaking with a customer. The woman was attractive, likely a few years older than me, closer to Wren’s age.
She had her dark brown hair pinned up in a chignon on the back of her head, and her business clothes were fitted enough to show she had a nice figure to go along with her style. She wasn’t curvy or muscular like me, her lithe frame more akin to Wren’s. They matched well, the two of them with their petite figures and dark hair. The stranger didn’t tower over Wren at the counter, and a grin lit up Wren’s face as she tilted her head back in a laugh. I watched the woman’s eyes travel over Wren, interest clear as she wrote something on a business card and slid it across the counter.
Wren bit her lip, her shy pleasure evident as she nodded at whatever the woman said. I turned on my heel, fuming over how easily Wren was willing to abandon her so-called family. Flirting with strangers, pretending like she could invite some random into our group. For someone who acted as if the rest of us were everything to her, her attention was easily caught by someone so…normal. A polite businesswoman whose red-soled shoes would match the color she’d turn if she ever met the rest of the people in Wren’s life. Maybe scaring her away would be easier than I thought if she was so easily distracted.
I circled the block, trying to force down the anger that had so suddenly suffused my body watching that woman standing across from Wren. Only one block turned into two, until I found myself half a mile away, still just as angry as before.
“Hour’s up,” I called out ten minutes later, after I’d finally made my way back and found the shop empty once again.
“You're lucky I finished all my arrangements. And that I’m closing early today.” Wren finished off the arrangement she had been working on earlier, turning it in a circle as she examined it from all angles.
“You’re scheduled to close now this time of year,” I muttered, rolling my eyes when Wren looked surprised at my knowledge of her work hours. As if I didn’t work in information and secrets.
I reached the counter in a few long steps, my eyes catching on the business card that still sat on the counter. I flicked it with a finger, settling my hip against the counter as I tried to settle the rage the small handwriting invoked deep within me. “What’s this?” My attempt at casual came out gravelly, a threat undercutting my words despite my attempts to temper it.
“None of your business.”
“I disagree. You’re going to bring some random to the house? Explain why Dev has a gun tucked in the back of his jeans and a knife in his boot at all times? Give her the run-down on how Alex and Ames met?” I pressed my finger against the scribbled phone number, hoping I smudged the numbers as I pushed it across the counter. “Go ahead.”
Her jaw clenched as I waited for her response. Finally, she picked up the card, ripping it cleanly in half before throwing it to the ground behind her. “Like I said, I pick my family. Every. Time.”
A perverse sort of pleasure rippled through me as I watched the card flutter to the floor, but I adopted a bored look all the same. “Go start your car.”
She glared but followed my orders, hefting the arrangement in her arms and slinging her purse over her shoulder as she threw me the keys to lock up. I waited for the bell above the door to chime before I moved, leaning down to pick up the pieces of the business card and tucking them in my pocket. In case Wren changed her mind and decided to put it back together later.
I turned off the lights and locked the door behind me. Wren’s car idled by the curb, the bouquet buckled in back. Dev had built a special car seat to hold her creations in place. The car was minuscule, a black Volkswagen that matched Wren in size. I walked up to the driver’s side, pulling open the door.
I cut Wren off before she could voice her question. “Move.”
“What?”
“I’m driving.”
We held eye contact for a few moments, Wren wiggling in frustration while I stood stoic on the sidewalk, towering over her even more than usual. She eventually gave in, likely thinking that she was choosing her battles when in reality I was wearing her down until she caved. Learned helplessness.
She slumped in the driver’s seat, reaching down to adjust the seat so my long legs would fit before she went to stand up. Even when losing she was thoughtful, which only proved my point. She was too soft for us, for this type of life. I stayed pressed against the car as she attempted to stand, and rather than slide her body along mine to get by, she scrambled over the gearshift into the passenger seat.
“I’m glad you’re driving,” she said as I drove away from downtown, trees thickening as we got closer to Ames’s house. At my raised brow, she smiled smugly as she explained, “All the better to rest my hands for target practice.” She gave me finger guns, making pew-pew noises with her mouth, and I frowned at her gloating over the minor win that still stung like small pieces of glass under my skin.
“You’re not going to win this, you know.”
“See, there’s your problem. You’re making this into a competition, but for me, it’s my life. My family. You’ll never beat me playing that way.” I saw Wren shake her head in my peripheral vision, frown set on her face as if she were disappointed in me. I hated that look, so close to the one Ames constantly gave me when I was fucking up after high school, the one my lawyer gave me when she realized how deep I had gotten with my ex. It felt harsher coming from Wren.
“I’ll win the same way I’ve won everything else in my life. By playing dirty.” I shook my head when she opened her mouth, cutting her off with the only ounce of humanity I was willing to show her. “You’ll get hurt, Wren. You’re too soft for the games I play. The games your so-called family plays. I’m not lying when I say the people we work with are dangerous. And I don’t think you can take it.”
“I’ll tell you one more time, Bex.” Her using my name somehow made me angrier, the business card pieces in my pocket burning through the fabric and into my skin, her disappointed look running through my mind. I barely caught the next words leaving her lips. “I’m not scared of you, and I’m not scared of the people you work with.”
I flexed my fingers around the wheel as I let the anger rush through me. She thought she wasn’t scared, but I knew better. I caught her hands shaking when I mentioned the violence earlier today. I watched when she avoided my eyes because she worried I’d tear her down. If she was scared of a few angry looks and violent words, I couldn’t imagine how she’d respond to an actual threat.
The thought of Wren being unprepared for the actual danger that could come her way had me slamming on the brakes, my hand shooting out to catch her as she lurched forward in the seat.
“Are you okay?” The fact that she thought of my wellness before her own had me snapping.
“Get out.”
“What?” Her confused voice was paired with a glance to the darkening woods around us, the empty road with no sidewalk to lead her to our destination.
