Chapter 11
Sawyer,
Fine, you were right about—
“Yo, Cap! You home?”
I drop Wren’s letter into an open drawer on my desk, sliding it shut with my knee seconds before Gus fills the doorway.
“No,” I drawl, leaning back in the chair until the first two legs lift off the ground. “Someone kidnapped me and left my truck outside for the cops to fight over.”
They wouldn’t spend much time searching for a Bennett.
“If you got kidnapped and—I’m presuming—murdered, wouldn’t you gift your truck to your best friend?”
Gus’s mode of transportation is a bike. He’s earned as much at the marina as I have, but unlike me, he plans to go to college.
Every cent he earns gets deposited into a fund that should get him through a couple of semesters at the local community college Cammie attends.
Unless you want to pile the expense of room and board on top of tuition fees, it’s the best option around here.
“Sure, after I haunted you for being happy I was murdered since you got a free car out of it.”
We share a quick grin before Gus’s attention shifts to my desk. “You’re doing homework? For real?”
I’m what teachers like to refer to as “wasted potential.” I’m smart.
School has always come easily. I can ace tests based on paying attention in class, even if I never bother to study the material at home.
But right when grades started to really matter, it felt like nothing in life made sense, and my scores on everything skydived.
Sympathy and pity only stretch so far before people stop making excuses, and my GPA was unsalvageable by then anyway.
I do enough to ensure I’ll graduate, and that’s about it.
I doubt Gus or my other friends even remember the days when I wouldn’t skip occasionally or was the sole student to make High Honor Roll each semester.
When I shrug a shoulder and say, “Not really,” Gus doesn’t look the least bit surprised.
He would look shocked if I mentioned what I was doing—reading Wren’s latest letter.
We’ve been writing back and forth for weeks—months. Before September, I hadn’t written a letter since the final Christmas I believed in Santa Claus.
I could have included my number in any one of the dozen or so letters I’d written Wren, but I haven’t.
She hasn’t sent me hers either. If we want to communicate with each other, we have to write it and rely on postal workers to transport it between my house and her penthouse, which is weird and rather ridiculous and also strangely fun.
I like watching the ink shimmer and dry on the paper as I scrawl out random thoughts.
Like covering the page with a stream of consciousness rather than typing a one-worded text between classes or at a red light.
Like decoding where Wren was when she wrote me based on the paper she used.
Lined paper means school; pink stationery is from home.
If I mentioned any of that to Gus, he’d be incredulous or laugh uproariously. Probably both. He hasn’t mentioned Wren since she left in July, and while I’m glad he’s over his crush, I’m unsure how he’ll react to mine.
And that’s all this interest in Wren Kensington is.
Attraction, mixed with a little intrigue, because our lives are so fundamentally different from each other.
Talking to her is like reading a book or watching a movie—escapism into another world.
Do I roll my eyes when Wren mentions attending premieres for TV shows my classmates at school talk about?
Yes. Or when she goes to concerts for artists who sing the songs my truck’s crappy radio occasionally picks up?
Yes. Or how she spent a weekend shopping for the perfect Thanksgiving outfit—whatever that means—when I’d bet my savings that she has a clothing collection that would make most department stores envious?
Yes. But I’m entertained by it all, too, so I keep writing back, and although I don’t know what Wren finds the least bit interesting about my life, so does she.
Something hard hits my left arm.
“The fuck?” I glower at Gus, the only baseball-throwing possibility in the room.
My best friend just grins. He knows me too well to shrink from the glare most people would look alarmed by. “What’s with you tonight? I asked three times if you wanted to hit Lucky’s.”
“You mean, if I’ll be your chauffeur to Lucky’s,” I correct, avoiding his question.
Lucky’s—the only bar in the area with reasonable prices and no fancy cocktail menu, plus a lax carding policy, even if you can’t afford a bad fake—is outside Gus’s biking range.
Especially this time of year. It hasn’t snowed yet, but the temperature has been hovering around freezing, so it’s just a matter of time.
“Everyone’s going?” I lean down, retrieving the baseball from the floor and running a thumb along the knitted seam on the worn leather.
“Yep,” Gus confirms.
“Yeah. Sure.” I set the baseball down by my laptop. Stand. Stretch. Better than spending the evening reading a letter from a girl who’s probably getting hit on by a bunch of surfers right now.
Wren is spending Thanksgiving with her mom’s family, who live in Los Angeles. An insignificant detail I shouldn’t even know.
“Just gonna change,” I say, heading for the closet.
Gus nods. “Cool. Do you have food?”
“Have at the fridge,” I tell him, knowing there’s not much to have at. Because I haven’t bothered grocery shopping lately—not because I’m the oldest of four boys, like Gus is. My mom left last week for a monthlong deployment, and I haven’t readjusted to being fully responsible for food again.
I swap my wrinkled T-shirt for a navy henley that smells clean, then pull an old windbreaker from baseball on over it. Move Wren’s latest letter from the desk drawer to the old shoebox, replacing it on the shelf in my closet before grabbing my phone, keys, and wallet.
I find Gus in the kitchen, munching on a jar of pickles.
I make a face as the smell of vinegar burns my nostrils. “That’s what you’re eating before we go to Lucky’s?”
“All you had,” is what I think Gus mumbles around a mouthful, capping the jar and sticking it back in the fridge. He walks over to the sink, flipping on the faucet and drinking straight from the tap.
I roll my eyes. “I’ll be in the truck. Lock up.”
My parents swapped keys with the couple down the street when they moved into this house fifteen years ago.
Now, it’s how Gus solicits rides and how I let Gus’s family’s dog out after school since both his parents work and he and his younger brothers participate in just about every activity the local school system offers.
Once I’m in the truck, I roll the windows down as a preemptive necessity, certain water isn’t going to do much to diminish Gus’s pickle breath.
I’m not sure the gauge on the dashboard is entirely accurate—it reads 41—but it doesn’t feel inaccurate either.
Midday on Thursday nearly reached fifty; Gus’s youngest brother suggested we eat our turkey outside.
Sure enough, I smell salty brine when Gus climbs in. But the evidence of his snack fades—or I just become used to it—as I drive toward Lucky’s, groaning when I spot the crowded parking lot ahead.
The busyness is predictable—there’s not much to do here in the winter, and it’s a holiday weekend to boot, but still annoying. I have to park a half mile down the road, right before a guardrail, and I wish I’d worn more layers, as my windbreaker does nothing to block the chilly gusts.
Then, as soon as we enter the bar, I rip it off and shove my sleeves up. The air in here is humid and sticky, sweetened by sweat and smoke. Like most of the bar’s rules, no smoking isn’t strictly enforced.
Lots of familiar faces surround us, but Cammie’s is the first I spare more than a passing glance.
This is the first year we haven’t attended the same school, and it’s felt weird, not having her be part of our everyday crew.
Between driving back and forth to her classes and working part-time at the hotel by the country club, I’ve hardly seen her all fall.
Cammie glances this way a few seconds later. She spots Gus first, smiling, then sees me, and it grows wider.
My stomach caves in, and my steps slow automatically. Shit. I was hoping some distance would help our friendship return to normal.
I glance at Gus, but he didn’t notice. He’s striding toward Wade, hand outstretched to slap his back.
I exhale, hoping I’m misreading.
I greet Ricky first, who’s growing out his buzz cut for the winter, ribbing him about the spiky strands.
I hug Cammie next, my, “Good to see you,” genuine. We’ve been friends since elementary school.
After greeting everyone, I announce I’m grabbing a beer. “Want one?” I ask Gus, who’s looking at something on Wade’s phone. The Knicks game, I think.
“Yeah,” he replies, pulling a ten out of his pocket and holding it out to me.
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
I know he’s stressed about money for next year. I made a decent amount at the marina this summer, and I’m saving up for … nothing.
“Gas money at least,” Gus says, holding the bill closer to me. “Or your chauffeuring tip.” He glances at Wade. “Do drivers get tips?”
Wade doesn’t take his eyes off the game. “Dunno.”
Wren would know. The thought is random and unwelcome.
She’s literally on the opposite side of the country. I haven’t seen her since July. We’re fucking pen pals, not normal friends, and she’s definitely not my girlfriend. It’s ridiculous that I’m out at a bar with my closest buddies and I’m thinking about her.
I stride toward the bar, resolved to keep my thoughts Wren-free. I order from Owen, one of the usual bartenders, who doesn’t even bother to ask for my fake.
While I’m waiting for the beers, Emily Stone sidles over.
And my ban on thinking about a certain blonde becomes a spectacular failure. Because I’m sure not focused on the girl beside me as she asks how my Thanksgiving break has been, “accidentally” brushing her boobs against my right bicep.