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But Alex was too focused on whispering sweet nothings - or sexual nothings, if her blush was any indication - in Ames’s ear to notice anything amiss. Usually Dev would be the one to drive Wren home, tossing her over his shoulder and into his truck while she blew kisses in everyone’s direction. But he was gone, leaving half an hour earlier after taking a phone call, whispering quietly to Alex before making his exit.
I made my way over to her side, where she stood alone in the living room looking at a few of the pictures Ames had decorated the house with. A few were older, pictures of Alex as a baby, then as a child, standing next to his grandmother, who raised him after his parents died. Next to those, childhood and teenage versions of Ames and me with our parents. A couple of pictures just of us after our parents died. And then a slew of recent pictures: Ames posing with Alex next to a bouquet that Wren had clearly arranged, a picture of Ames and Wren elbow-deep in dirt in the garden, Ames and I laying on her couch, our feet entwined as we laughed, a picture of Alex and Dev working out in the gym, Ames slumped on the floor behind them while the men both benched more than her bodyweight with ease.
My lips curled downward as I smelled the sweet floral scent that usually lingered for hours after Wren left the house. After a few moments, Wren must have sensed my presence, because she squinted up at me as her eyes attempted to focus on my facial features despite her drunken state. She had to tilt her chin back to look up at me, both because I stood over half a foot taller than her and because I wore platform boots. I tended to wear my taller boots whenever we had these get-togethers, solely so I could look further down on Wren in moments like these.
“Let’s go,” I ordered her, my tone leaving no room for argument.
Unfortunately, that didn’t stop Wren, who narrowed her eyes as she slightly slurred her words. “Go where?”
“Home.” I looked around for a purse or a jacket that I could wrangle onto her body in an effort to get us out of the house quicker but was interrupted by an incredulous snort.
“You’re going to take me home?”
I huffed out a sigh, hating that when I had a single moment of decency toward this woman in the past two months, she immediately felt the need to call me out and dissect it. I tilted my chin up slightly, forcing Wren to work harder to meet my eyes. The small power move made my lips twitch into a tiny curve. “That was the plan, yes.”
“I don’t need you to drive me home.”
Now it was my turn to let out a laugh as I ticked reasons she needed me on my fingers. “You’re drunk, Dev is gone, and Alex is about to fuck Ames on the patio.” I tipped my chin toward the couple, who were sneaking out the back door, their roaming hands making it clear they didn’t care who was around.
“I can get an Uber,” Wren responded, but I could tell she was losing steam, eyelids drooping along with her shoulders as she walked over to the bag that was hanging on an armchair and slung it over her arm.
“You think Alex wants you uploading his address into a public phone app?” It actually wasn’t a bad idea, and Alex would be insulted if he heard me imply a rideshare app could undercut his security. But I had already offered my help and would rather suffer through chauffeuring Wren’s drunken ass home than admit my oversight. Not to mention the idea of her getting into a stranger’s car while drunk had my insides twisting.
I walked out the front door without another glance in Wren’s direction, smothering a pleased smile when I heard an angry huff followed by quick, heeled footsteps hurrying to keep up with me. I opened the passenger door of my Jeep but didn’t offer to help her climb into it, her heels and dress making her stumble as she jumped into the raised seat. I hopped easily into my own seat, starting up the car and making my way toward downtown, where Wren lived in one of the nicer, high-rise apartment buildings.
The drive was quiet. The two of us hadn’t spent time alone since our last time stuck in a car together, when Dev and Alex broke into Peter’s house to rescue Ames, which was weeks ago. There was usually another person keeping a buffer between us, a job Dev and Ames had actively taken on.
It helped that Wren had mostly given up trying to get to know me after I harshly shut down any inquiry the first few times she tried. The only interaction we had these days were the hopeful looks she sent me, as if I’d suddenly change my mind and decide to be her best friend. And the occasional indirect texts sent in the group chat she had set up. She had likely begrudgingly added me on Ames’s account, too nice to refuse. Or more likely, she added me because despite my continued disinterest in anything she had to say, she was too nice to call me on it.
“Why don’t you like me?” Wren’s quiet voice caught me off guard, making me wonder if she somehow knew what I was thinking about, and my fists clenched around the steering wheel at the thought. I made sure to smooth out my expression before responding, unnerved that she may have read anything on my face.
I didn’t bother playing dumb. “It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s that I don’t think you belong here.”
“Belong here? What do you mean?”
“I told you back when Ames was kidnapped. You don’t belong here with people like Alex and Dev. Like me. People like us. You’re too soft. You’re going to get yourself hurt.”
“I didn’t ask your opinion.”
Wren’s harsh voice caught me off guard, my eyes flicking toward hers. I expected some relief at my indifference toward her as a person, but instead Wren’s eyes were lined with fury that attempted to peel the skin from my bones.
“You think I don’t belong here, why? Because I don’t break the law and threaten to kill people in my spare time? Well guess what? Neither does Ames. She just likes being chased down by Alex before he fucks her, and no one blinked an eye when he brought her around. Or is it just because I don’t dress in all black with Doc Martens?”
I frowned down at my outfit when I realized it was indeed all black. I had on a pair of black cargo pants, cuffed just above my black boots. My shirt was a cropped black band t-shirt of my sister’s. It was slightly oversized on her, but fit me perfectly, so I’d stolen it years ago. Before I could defend my clothing choices, we came to a stop outside the building that housed her apartment.
Wren flung the car door open, standing up so she could gesture angrily at her outfit in a clear contrast to mine. She wore a light pink dress, tight around her chest with thin straps that tied into bows at her shoulder and flared out around her slim thighs. Her nude heels were slightly paler than her skin tone, something I remembered her complaining about to Ames - the lack of nude-colored shoes for women of color. I hated that I remembered that conversation, every word I’d ever heard Wren utter seared into my brain in her sugar-sweet voice. It drove me crazy, all of it. Her voice, her shoes, her dress.
It was the type of dress a woman would wear to her friend’s engagement party. A normal engagement party, where the couple had met in college or at work and fell in love over months. Not an engagement party for a woman who fell in love with her stalker. Where the groom-to-be worked in cybersecurity and did hacking jobs for a long line of dangerous people.
She huffed angry breaths through her nose, her chest rising and falling so heavily one of the bows tied at her shoulder came loose. I watched the knot unravel and fall as Wren continued to yell through the open car door, my eyes fixed on the extra inches of skin it exposed.
“Just because I like skirts and color and fun doesn’t mean I’m any less a part of this family. Alex and Dev -”
“Are not good people. They break the law, regularly, and work with dangerous men and women. They’re not as nice as they play with you. My sister understands that. Do you?”
“I don’t care! They’re my family, the first family that has ever understood me. I don’t care if the people they work with are dangerous mobsters or murderers or unethical businessmen. I. Don’t. Care. I won’t let you take them away from me, and nothing you do or say will change my mind.”
The conviction in her words pulled my eyes back to hers, a smirk pulling at my lips as I finally sensed the first bit of backbone in her small form.
