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“And how does Bex feel about you? Underneath the sexual tension?” Her voice gentled, a twinge of sympathy already present in her voice as if she knew the answer wouldn’t be a good one.
“She hates me,” I whispered, embarrassed as the backs of my eyes stung at the admission. Nyx must’ve sensed my rioting emotions, because the black cat slunk out from under the couch and jumped into my lap, allowing me to dig my fingers into her fur to help manage the tears that attempted to spill over my eyelids.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” she told me, but even her voice lacked conviction, “Haven’t you guys become more friendly over the past few days?”
“Yeah. I mean, she has been trying to be my friend. She’s started asking me things about myself, trying to get to know me. We have the same taste in music. She’s trying to teach me how to bake, though I haven’t gotten much better. But even when we’re getting along, I still feel like she can’t stand me. Like she has one foot out the door of our friendship, and as soon as my safety isn’t a concern, she’ll go back to ignoring me.”
I knew Bex wanted me. That much was undeniable after last night. But anything past that? Bex seemed to put up with my presence due to a combination of obligation (both to her sister as my best friend and now as part of her job) and some amount of attraction. I knew our little games had piqued her interest in me, but I also knew that would soon fizzle out, the same way it had in all my past relationships.
My flirting and innuendo would grow old, my over-the-top attitude annoying, and things would stall out just as I got attached. It had always been that way, with all my friendships and romantic relationships, even with my relationship with my parents, who never vibed with my personality. Alex and Dev and Ames were the first ones who not only put up with my overbearing presence but enjoyed it. I held no hope Bex would feel the same way in the long-term.
So I would stick to sex. Surface level attraction. Treating Bex like a scratch I needed to itch would help us both in the long run. Or at the very least, it would protect my heart from shattering even further than it was already bound to.
“Wren,” Ames started, the pity in her voice enough to force the tears closer to the surface. But before she could finish her sentence and cause the sobs caught in my throat to escape, I heard the familiar voices of Dev and Alex rounding the corner into the kitchen.
I knew what I would find if I turned around: a narrowed, blue-eyed stare that I felt deep in my bones, making me want to cower in fear while also heating my blood. But despite knowing, I turned anyway, meeting those eyes and signing myself up for the heartbreak I knew was coming.
Chapter14
Bex
“We need to talk.”Those words, when uttered by my sister, never meant anything good for me. Ames had never been overly dramatic, which meant that she didn’t mince words with me. If she needed or was upset about something, she expressed that directly, without caring who was present. Those four words had been spoken only a couple, terrible times in my life. When our parents died and Ames had to break the news. When Ames found out the police had concrete evidence of my illegal hacking activities and links to a terrorist organization.
So when she cornered me a short while after our business meeting ended and said those words, I knew I was in trouble. I also knew exactly what we needed to talk about, if the sheen of tears in Wren’s eyes earlier was any indication. When we emerged from Alex’s office and came downstairs to join the two, I’d expected them to be tipsy and laughing, not stoic and upset.
Wren’s tears had been a punch to the solar plexus. These weren’t her scared or angry tears, the ones I loved bringing to her face. No, these tears had been mired in sadness, a look of defeat on her face that I had never seen before and hoped to never see again.
I tried thinking back to what had happened between us over the past few days, anything I could’ve said or done to make Wren so upset. Did she feel like she was in danger? Was I not doing my job well enough?
I had been trying, since my promise to be her friend, to show her I could do it. I’d been asking her questions, things that I couldn’t know based on her online habits or by reading through her emails. I’d watched her shows with her, even though I couldn’t stand the melodrama of most of them. We’d talked about music and movies, and I’d only made her beg on her knees for a couple minutes before I agreed to teach her how to bake.
The only moment that came to mind was the incident the night before, and I knew deep in my bones that Wren wanted it. She hadn’t asked me to leave, but it wasn’t just her lack of rejection that had me confident she wanted me. It was the way her breath hitched when she caught me watching, the way she tumbled over the edge so quickly after I commanded her to say my name, goosebumps visible on her skin when she heard my voice.
But despite knowing - with every ounce of training in observation Alex had been drilling into me - Wren wanted what happened between us the night before, a small worm of doubt wriggled into my brain and took hold.
So instead of prolonging my torture, I asked Ames, “Lunch?”
But the tightness in my chest didn’t loosen even when she agreed.
A few hours later, Ames sat across from me as we waited for the sandwiches we’d ordered at the shop down the street fromIn Bloom. I ran my fingers through the end of my ponytail, trying to untangle the knots from where I’d twisted my fingers through my hair all morning.
After breakfast, I’d driven Wren to work, sitting at the back counter watching her organize Halloween-themed gift baskets and put together a few arrangements. I’d imagined never coming back into the shop, never watching Wren cut the ends of flower stems and biting her bottom lip while she organized a particularly difficult bouquet. Imagined Alex firing me for failing to make Wren feel safe. Imagined going back to the unstable, nomadic life I’d lived for the past four years.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this anxious. The days I’d spent in jail while I waited for Ames to post bail, the days leading up to the trial before Alex had saved my ass and destroyed the evidence against me. None of it compared to this. I’d fidgeted with my hair all morning, only pausing when Wren would glance my way, worst-case scenarios running through my mind.
I’d done the anxious gesture since we were children, Ames often braiding my hair away from my face in an attempt to save me from split ends. I watched as her eyes caught on the tangles I was desperately trying to loosen, and I attempted to still my fingers, hoping to hide how much nervousness had built up over the last few hours as I imagined what this conversation could be about.
“You know,” she started casually, stirring her iced tea with her straw as she gathered her thoughts, “When I first met Alex and Dev, all I could think about was how much you’d like them.”
I sat up straighter in my chair, feeling myself frown at the unexpected start to this conversation. I expected a confrontation about Wren, not a dialogue about how she thought I’d become friends with my now-coworkers.
“They reminded me of you when you were younger. Slightly reckless, breaking the rules if you thought they were unfair. Pursuing things you were passionate about, everyone else’s opinions be damned. Enjoying dangerous people and places and things.”
“I did that when I wasyounger?” I snorted, recalling the string of reckless decisions that made up my life for the past couple years.
Ames smiled softly, explaining, “When you were younger, you were reckless but passionate. You pursued things you enjoyed, no matter the consequences. Remember when you snuck into that frat house because I told you they had a rabbit mascot in a dirty, too-small cage? I was too scared of heights to climb up the fire escape, so you did it at sixteen.”
Ames had come home from college one weekend, upset over the poor animal she’d seen. I’d proposed saving it, and while Ames distracted them by pretending a member of the frat had given her chlamydia - she had gone all out, yelling and screaming on the front lawn, throwing a sweatshirt we’d bought from Goodwill and pretending it was his - I’d climbed up the narrow set of stairs on the back of the row house.
