Page 49 of A Pizza My Heart

It’s so perfectly Wren.

I push my legs as fast as I can muster and blow past her, barely able to stop myself before skidding into her front door.

“Beat ya!”

She glides to a stop about four seconds behind me, raising her arms above her head, breathing hard from that last push.

“Good lord, you run like a cheetah.” She starts laughing, and I know the dad joke is coming before she even tells it. “Because you are acheat-uh.”

I raise my brows. “Did you really just go there?”

“What? That washilarious!”

“Riiight,” I drag out, but I feel my lips betray me anyway.

“See!” She points to my grin. “Told ya!”

“Dammit.” I try to wipe my smile away, but seeing her laugh so hard at the stupid joke just makes me smile bigger. “I do just want to point out thatyou’rethe one who cheated, therefore ruining your already horrible joke.”

“Semantics. Now step aside.”

She pushes me out of the way, stretches up on her tiptoes, and pulls her key down from the top of the doorframe.

“Please tell me that’s not where you keep your house key.”

She looks at me. “Well, do you want me to lie to you, Foster? I thought we had a rule against that.”

“Jesus, Wren. You can’t be serious right now. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”

“Sure I do, but do you know how uncomfortable it is to run with keys in your pocket?”

I point toward my waist. “I do. Why do you think I wear this ridiculous fanny pack?”

“Aha! So you admit it—itisridiculous.”

“You’reridiculous.”

She pushes the door open and heads inside, leaving me to trail behind her. Mike doesn’t care and pads his way through the house like he’s been there a thousand times.

“Quit your bitching and get in here to clean me up. I have things to do today.”

“That’s an odd way to say, ‘Thanks for coming to take care of me, Foster. I really appreciate it.’”

“I only need help because of you and your dog.”

I click her door shut behind me and look around the famous blue house.

The walls are painted a soft gray, and the big bay windows facing the street are uncovered, allowing the natural sunlight to filter through. There’s a massive gray couch sitting against one of the walls, a TV opposite it. The tables and cabinetry are all whitewashed wood, the furniture a mishmash of things I’m certain she’s collected at local thrift shops. There are pops of color throughout the room, mainly oranges and yellows, in the form of vases and bowls. She’s arranged her books carefully, all the spines perfectly blending with the flow of the room.

Nothing matches, yet it does. It’s bright and cheery and perfectly Wren.

“So this is the famous blue house, huh.”

“This is it. I had to do some painting and remove some horrendous carpeting from the floors, but other than that, it’s all original.” She waves her hands around as she talks. “Mr. Carlton is a pretty cool landlord and doesn’t mind me doing whatever I want, probably because I’m doing a rent-to-own thing, but still. It feels good to make it mine.”

“You’ve done good. It looks nice. Very…you.”

“Which is your way of saying what?”

---