Page 37 of Hating Wren

I brought both over to her, watching as she held up groupings of flowers against the vases until she settled on the black one, beginning the process of clearing stems of their bottom leaves and trimming them at an angle.

“They weren’t surprised I wanted to start a business,” she carried on with her story as if no time had passed, glancing up at me as if making sure I was still listening. Catching my eyes on her, she continued, “You might already know from one of the background checks you probably ran on me, that I double majored in business and communications.”

I just smiled, making Wren shake her head in exasperation. “My parents were so proud when I graduated, thinking I’d work for some huge corporation or start a ‘reasonable’,” she threw up air quotes around the word, “business. And for a few years, I worked for a fortune 500 company in their marketing department and made good money. I did arrangements on the side, gaining a following and saving enough money to open up my own shop.”

“Sounds like Ames,” I noted the similarity to Wren’s story and Ames’s, both of them unhappily pursuing corporate jobs before starting their small businesses.

She laughed, agreeing, “Yeah, they’re eerily similar. It’s something we bonded about when we first met. Lamenting about small businesses and marketing. Even Alex and Dev get it, though their business is a lot different. My parents,” she frowned as she continued her story, “they didn’t get it. When I decided to make the switch, we argued. They thought flowers were only good enough for a hobby, not a business. I moved out here against their wishes and started the business on my own. Eventually we made up, but they still don’t really get it.”

“Who cares if they don’t get it?” I grit out between my teeth, softening my voice when Wren startled at my tone. “What you’ve done is impressive. Plus, you would have never met Alex or Dev or Ames without going against their wishes.”

“Or you, Bex,” she reminded me softly, as if I’d ever forget. But my stomach warmed at the thought that she remembered me, and felt the need to point out our meeting, as if it meant something to her. I’d make sure it would. I planned to make sure that I was the most important person in her life, since she’d already risen to that spot in mine.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, little bird. I think I would’ve run into you even withoutIn Bloom,” I told her as I grabbed my computer, worried any more time in her presence would force more truth out of my mouth that I wasn’t yet ready to give.

But as I walked back toward the small back room, I muttered it anyway, under my breath, “I would’ve made fucking sure of it.”

Chapter17

Wren

I was freaking out.The surprise tickets to the haunted house had been thoughtful enough to have me on edge and wondering about Bex's goal with her unexpected kindness. But she didn’t leave me behind to be overrun by evil dentists or zombie clowns or push me into a heap of manure, none of which I would have been fully surprised by. Instead, she showed me her childhood home and held my hand when I got scared. I wasn’t sure if it was some new tactic she’d employed to get my guard down, and if it was, she’d been successful. My guard was down.

And in the maze…I shivered just thinking about it. Bex’s kisses left bruises on my skin that I was still covering up three days later, getting by with high-necked sweaters and leaving my hair down.

It was the best sexual experience of my life. It was also the roughest, and I wasn’t sure what it said about me that I felt those two were connected, but I liked it regardless.

But it wasn’t the Maze Incident - clearly, Bex and I couldn’t be left alone without a capital-I incident happening - that had me freaking out. Sure, as my orgasm faded and the hazy night air at the farm faded into the familiar landmarks of the city, shock hit me hard and fast. I could barely make eye contact with Bex, my churning stomach and racing heart at odds with one another as I tried to process everything that happened.

No, what freaked me out was how Bex acted afterward. I woke up late the next morning, having tossed and turned most of the night as my brain replayed our time in the maze in excruciating detail. Still half-asleep, I walked out of my bedroom to find Bex standing by a stack of pancakes, the scene tickling a memory in the back of my mind.

It took two bites before it hit me like a ton of bricks: our first morning together in my apartment. My attempt at friendship through a stack of pancakes and Bex’s brutal rejection afterward. I got Bex’s message instantly: she wanted us to remain friends.Justfriends, despite what had happened the night before. Despite wanting to repeat history by throwing a fit and tossing the pancakes in the trash, I refused to break down at Bex’s not-so-subtle rejection.

I was prepared for the heartbreak. At least, that’s what I told myself during my conversation with Ames, claiming I could fuck Bex and maintain my dignity. I could use her to scratch an itch, suffer some metaphorical (and apparently literal) bruises, and prove to her that I belonged. We’d both move on, and I’d eventually get to a point where seeing her with another partner wouldn’t destroy me.

But as I sat there eating pancakes, I realized that wasn’t going to work. Because for a moment, I’d thought Bex had been just as into me as I was into her, and it had been glorious. It felt like we connected, and here I was eating “let’s be friends” pancakes. Her regret over our tryst hit me harder than I expected, shattering my heart into more pieces than any previous breakup had. Bex was going to end us before we even started, and it would still break my heart.

I managed to guilt Dev into spending time with me, calling him while I sat on my bed and tried not to cry as the pancakes turned to lead in my stomach.

“Good morning, good morning,” I sang cheerily into the phone, hiding the hitch in my voice with a cough, “I know you’ve been missing me, so I thought I’d be magnanimous and offer my companionship for the day.”

Dev barked a laugh, and I could imagine the smile on his face as he asked, “That bad of a date with Bex, huh?”

“Very funny,” I deadpanned, “But it wasn’t a date.”

I didn’t mention how I’d also thought it was a date up until this morning, when Bex’s choice in breakfast food made her intentions clear. Which brought me back to the intention behind my phone call. “Anyway, I didn’t call to talk about Bex. I thought I made it very clear in my avoidance of the topic that I called tonottalk about Bex. So are you in or are you out?”

“I’m in,” Dev answered smoothly, warning me with a teasing tone, “But I want to make it clear that since I’m allowing you to drop this topic now, you’re going to owe me one.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. “You heading over now?”

“Be there in twenty.”

I crept past Bex twenty minutes later, feeling a slight pang of guilt as I watched her clean the dishes from making pancakes this morning. I stopped next to the sink, wringing my hands as I told her, “I can do that, Bex. You made breakfast, I can do the dishes.”

“I don’t mind,” she smiled, and I took a moment to appreciate how it lightened her face. I’d seen Bex smile before. She didn’t hoard them like Alex, but these soft, warm smiles were never aimed toward me. Those were usually gifted to Ames or occasionally one of the guys. The smiles she gave me were usually smirking twists of her lips or menacing grins implying more to come. These smiles, the sweet ones, were a new experience for me, and I wondered if this was her plan. To let me down easy by making me breakfast, cleaning the kitchen, and smiling at me.

So when she opened her mouth to say something, I cut her off, blurting, “Dev is here! We’re going to hang out today, so you’re off the clock. The bird is flying the coop, and all that,” I attempted to joke, but it fell flat given the shrill, manic edge of my voice.

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