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“True.”
He shifts and I glance over at him, only able to make out a vague profile. Although we now have a flashlight, we agreed to conserve the battery and only use it when necessary.
“Oliver, will you tell me what happened between you and Dot?”
Chapter6
Oliver
“You don’t give up, do you?” I hook an arm around Wren’s shoulders and bring her head to lean against me.
“Nope. But honestly, you wouldn’t want me any other way.” She turns her face into my chest, and I swear she breathes me in.
Fuck, does this mean I can have her? I’ll take her anyway I can get her.Thank you, Coach Bell and the faulty gym door.
My lips lightly brush the top of her head and her scent—the one I first inhaled earlier when she tripped over my shoe, fresh and subtly floral, the one I can’t name but want more of—fills my nostrils.
“What do you want to know?” I ask into her glossy hair.
“Everything. Anything.”
Something loosens in my chest at how blunt and honest she is with me. Finally. I’d missed this easy and open Wren.
When she told me about Kellen, I wanted to beat the shit out of him. Back then, in high school, it had taken me a while to figure out he was bad news. A liar and a cheat. We parted ways before college, but if I’d known what he’d done, how he’d sabotaged my chance with Wren… Fuck, it makes my blood boil.
I can’t think about that. That’s the past, and she’s here with me now.
Though I can only make out her silhouette, I sense she’s waiting for me to go on. It isn’t easy to think clearly, especially about something so messed up as Dot and when exasperation and longing are all tangled together in my mind.
“I called off the wedding two years ago.”
Her head snaps up, and she pushes away from me. Still I don’t release my hold on her. She has been too far from me for far too long. Not going to let it happen tonight.
“Two years? But…I-I don’t…” Clearly puzzled, she flounders for the words. “But you live together. Your wedding date was set. Why?”
“You know Dot.” I lightly bang my head against the wall and groan, if only to punish myself for all the things I wish I could change.
When I look back on those years we’d faked it for everyone, half of the entire time we’d been together, I question why I stayed so long. Why we got engaged in the first place. Dot picked out the ring, even set the date and time for the proposal—all I had to do was show up. She was even the one to ask.
By then, Lane was a permanent fixture in Wren’s life. People were talking like they’d be soon walking down the aisle. I’d lost all hope and didn’t see any kind of future with Wren. That realization made me careless. Stupid.
Wren rubs at the center of my chest and brings me back to Coach’s dark office.
“Let me start by saying, I wish I could have a do-over. I would’ve made a clean break. She cried and begged me for another chance, and at first, I agreed.”
Deliberately, I don’t elaborate on how she lashed out, nearly had me arrested for stealing my own car, and how staying seemed easier.
The only woman I’d ever wanted was with someone else, and all I had or cared about was tied up in being with Dot. I had a lot to lose if I took Dot on by leaving her.
Wren’s question cuts through the haze of those disturbing days. “So this was going on for more than two years?”
“Yeah. More than I care to remember. We should never have been together. I wouldn’t say this to just anyone, but it’s you.” I find her hand and interlace our fingers. “She’s manipulative and conniving and used to getting her way.”
Wren snorts. “That’s an understatement. I still remember what Pop said when…” Her breath hitches and the pause, to catch her breath or rethink what she’s going to say, takes way longer than it should. “You know what? Forget it. You don’t need that.”
My throat tightens. Pop is important to me. I never hid my feelings for his daughter from him. And now, I see him around town, say a few words here or there, but I miss our long talks, hanging out with him.
When I was younger, he’d take me fishing at the crack of dawn on Sundays with his girls, Wren and Percy. He included me in a lot of their family gatherings, including Wren’s birthdays since we shared the day, and I worked at his diner all through high school.
