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My thoughts from a moment before resurfaced. If I wanted to continue my games with Wren, I’d have to be more discreet. We didn’t have to fight for me to fuck with her head. So rather than hurt Wren or the customer who had already paid and remained flirting, I did what she least expected: I set down the last of my equipment and slipped silently through the door to the back office and behind Wren. I wrapped a hand around her waist, pulling her tight against my body.
“Wha -” I took the expression of surprise as a win, grinning widely down at her as her eyes narrowed, knowing she’d lost our game of who’d-speak-first.
“Hello, lovely,” the endearment slipped from my lips easily, the same term my father used to call my mother coming to mind without much effort. Wren tensed beneath me, but I knew at her core she was too kind to brush me off in front of a customer.Or, a darker part of my mind whispered,she enjoyed my hands on her body, even in her anger. I pushed the limit, bending at the waist to brush my lips over the curve of her exposed neck, smiling when goosebumps raised under my mouth, “I’m just about finished. You want me to pick up lunch?”
The customer blushed, her hand, which had been lightly touching Wren’s arm throughout various parts of their interaction, pulled away and remained firmly at her side. Her eyes dropped, refusing to meet mine, a clear sign of submission. The stranger caved easily when presented with any sort of challenge, and I almost scoffed aloud.
Wren wouldn’t get with someone unwilling to fight for her. Her romantic side wouldn’t allow it, if the shows she always watched were any indication. She wasn’t Korean, and yet her watchlist history was filled with K-dramas, each one revolving around some overly-dramatic romance. I didn’t see the appeal, but Wren obviously did, binging at least a couple episodes each night.
Wren still stood frozen in surprise, her acting skills not quite up to par. I honestly expected her to excel at improvisation, considering her constant jokes and quips, but I had clearly thrown her off. Rather than allow her poor acting to ruin my fun, I continued our one-sided conversation myself.
“I’ll get you a chicken caesar wrap,” I decided, naming what I knew was her go-to lunch when she was working. I brushed my lips across her cheekbone, enjoying the way she shivered at the touch. Then I left, shooting a sharp glare at the customer on my way out to make my false ownership clear.
I left breezily, as if I implicitly trusted my (pretend) girlfriend and hadn’t noticed anything amiss between her and her customer. But as soon as my boots turned in the direction of the sandwich shop, I pulled my phone back out, frowning at the screen until I watched the customer, eyes still on her feet as she picked up the arrangement sitting on Wren’s front counter, exit with red still staining her cheeks.
The lunch crowd was gone when I reached the sandwich shop, most of the office types taking their lunch breaks closer to noon, so the food came out quickly. When I got back to the shop, Wren stood in the same position she was in when I left.
“I flirted with her the other day,” Wren muttered under her breath as I got closer, and I felt the paper of the bag in my hand crinkle under my fingers as they tightened.
“And?” I gritted out between my teeth, not needing the reminder of whose business card I ripped up almost two weeks ago.
“She’s going to think I’m cheating on you.” Wren frowned, and I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my mouth. She glanced up at the sound, eyes wide as if my laugh surprised her. I supposed it could’ve been attributed to the fact that I had never laughed at her words before. At least, not a kind laugh, one of amusement rather than disdain.
“That’s what you care about? A stranger thinking you’re a cheater?”
“No,” The glare I expected finally made an appearance, and I smiled at the sight. It was always more fun when she played along, even if she was a liar. “What was that even about? I thought you were trying to get rid of me, not stake some weird sort of claim on me.”
I hummed under my breath, taking my time removing each item from the bag and sliding her food across the counter. I purposefully brushed my fingers along the hand that rested there, feeling the shiver she tried to suppress. She didn’t have goosebumps from the customer’s touches, I recalled with a small amount of satisfaction, touching Wren for a second time just because I could. “I realized it’s much more fun to play with you than ignore you. And that breaking you will be much more exciting than simply scaring you away.”
Unfortunately, telling Wren that I disliked our avoiding one another didn’t mean she was going to play along with my games. After the admission of my plans to break her, Wren reverted back to her silence, refusing to even glance in my direction as we ate.
I grew bored quickly, returning to the back office after I finished eating to check out the safe. With the door closed, my scuffed Dr. Martens almost touched the safe, either because the room was too small or my legs were too long. In fact, more than my size stood out in this room. My entire self didn’t belong here, my baggy camo-colored cargo pants and cropped t-shirt covered by a threadbare black flannel I had stolen from my sister’s closet. My outfit was better suited for a back-alley drug deal than a florist. And that wasn’t a dig at my clothing choices but rather a statement. A factual one, at that, considering I’d observed various back-alley drug deals in similar outfits but had never been in a flower shop save for my initial visit here with Dev.
Despite not caring, I knew how I looked to most people. Almost everyone - my old high school friends included, based on the short reunion we had months ago - saw the oversized, ripped, grunge-y clothes I wore and assumed I was a criminal. A failure at best.
And they wouldn’t be totally off the mark. I had barely attempted college, taking a few classes along the way without any real motivation to follow through. Despite my age, I had all too much experience with the unsavory parts of life. I seemed to attract bad influences, though even I could admit I was the common factor in all my relationships, romantic or otherwise.
There was a reason my sister hadn’t been surprised when I called her from a jail cell. My teenage years and early twenties had resulted in learning quite a few life skills. The most innocent included growing microgreens and piercing ears, but some of the more incriminating included basic lock picking, which I hadn’t excelled at, and hacking, which I had.
But even if most assumptions about me would be correct, I knew one wasn’t: that I was dumb. So rather than writing off the oddness of the safe and telling Wren she was lucky they hadn’t attempted to get inside, I pulled up a chair, straddling it backwards with my chin on my arms, narrowing my eyes as if I were working out a puzzle. And the safe definitely qualified as a puzzle.
The safe was old-school, with a spin combination reminiscent of a middle-school locker. Considering the types of people I usually spent my time with, I knew breaking into these usually involved brute force. But there was no evidence of that, which created an inconsistent picture of the break-in.
Anyone with even rudimentary lock-picking skills could’ve opened Wren’s door and deadbolt with ease, both locks basic contractor’s models. A broken window implied sloppiness, a lack of skill, but the absence of scratches or dents on the safe’s surface either spoke to the most durable safe I’d ever encountered or something strange.
Nothing else in the store had been missing, according to Wren’s report to Alex, and the store wasn’t large enough that the intruders could’ve missed the safe. Nothing added up: the brute force break in, the spotless safe, the lack of any further mess or missing items. Maybe someone had scared away whoever broke in before they could make it to the back room. But something about that felt wrong, making my gut twist until I focused a little closer on the dial that had seemed untouched at first glance.
Then I flicked my phone from my back pocket, shot off a quick text, and settled in for the fucking storm I knew was blowing our way.
Chapter7
Wren
It tooktwenty minutes before my heart rate slowed after Bex retreated back to the small office ofIn Bloom. She threw me off with the weird pissing contest with my customer, Paige, calling me “lovely” and generally making me speechless as she acted like she cared about me. She acted better than I expected, meaning that every dirty look she’d ever thrown in my direction hadn’t been due to a lack of a poker face but rather a lack of motivation to hide them.
That realization was a punch in the tits, and the only things helping to keep my shit together were sheer shock and the chicken caesar wrap Bex picked up while Paige ran from the shop as quickly as physically possible with the bouquet she’d ordered for her mother’s birthday. Stuffing my face allowed me the moments I needed to rearrange my face and re-commit to ignoring Bex the rest of the day.
I didn’t regret going off on her the other night, but I didn’tnotregret it either. I usually kept my anger on a tighter leash. To be honest, it usually didn’t need a leash, considering it took a lot to upset me. But Bex somehow pressed every single button I had with precision, excitement in her eyes every time she poked a sensitive spot. Either way, I knew I had the high ground, and I refused to apologize or speak with her without some sort of apology.
