19. Epilogue - Soren
Epilogue - Soren
One Year Later
***
Sawdust in the hallway again.
It trails from the front door to the bedroom, golden in the evening light, like breadcrumbs from a fairy tale I got to keep.
A year ago, the only trails in this apartment were made by absence.
Jude’s room was empty, nail holes left where his posters hung.
Milo’s door stayed open because no one was there.
Benji’s combat boots were missing from the shoe rack.
Some nights, I walked from hallway to kitchen to living room until the quiet pressed down on me and wouldn’t let go.
Now there’s a tool belt hanging on the coat hook.
Muddy work boots sit next to my canvas sneakers.
Wren put up a shelf by the door while I was at the library, and now his chisels and gouges line up neatly, handles out like little soldiers.
Jude’s old room has a workbench squeezed in, and the door won’t close because Wren stuck a piece of oak in the frame to stop the squeak and never sanded it.
It’s our apartment. I still can’t help grinning every time.
Our nest is a bit much. I know it, but I don’t mind.
There are layers of blue and cream blankets from the thrift store, piled so high you can’t see the mattress.
My cardigans are mixed in like threads. Three of Wren’s flannels are tucked in just right so I can bury my face in them when he’s at work.
Even Knox’s lumpy creation sits at the end of the shelf, like a chaperone nobody invited.
Wren sits cross-legged in the middle of it all, shirtless, with a sketchpad on one knee. His pencil moves in small, confident strokes. His hair is messy from the shower, and there’s a smudge of graphite on his jaw.
He hasn’t noticed me yet. Or maybe he has, and he’s letting me watch, since he knows I like this—the moment before he realizes I’m here, when I get to see him unguarded and real.
“You’re tracking sawdust into the nest again,” I say.
He looks up. His mouth curves, slow and easy, and the pencil stills. “I swept.”
“You swept the hallway. The bedroom is a mess.”
“Adds texture.”
“Adds splinters.”
“You love splinters.” He tips his head, studying me the way he studies a piece of wood before he cuts into it. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know you’re drawing another bird.”
“It’s a heron.”
“It’s for me.”
“Everything’s for you.” He says it like it’s obvious. Like the sun comes up and he makes things for me, and both of those are how the world works.
I cross the room and pull something from behind my back: a tiny bookshelf I picked up from Benji and Knox’s place this afternoon, wrapped in a dish towel because I don’t own wrapping paper.
Ever since the disastrous attempt at a robin, Knox has been really into woodworking.
Benji says he thinks that Knox can’t accept that his tattooing skills don’t translate into physical art, but I think he’s been getting lots better at it. Not as good as Wren, though.
“Here.” I hold it out. “You deserve your own altar, too.”
Wren sets down the sketchpad. Takes the shelf carefully, turns it over, runs his thumb along the joinery the way he does with anything built well. His throat works.
“Knox made this?”
“I designed it. Knox executed. Benji supervised, which mostly meant he sat on a stool and insulted Knox’s router technique for an hour.”
“It’s perfect.” His voice is quiet, rough at the edges. He looks up at me and his eyes do that thing, soft, stunned, like he still can’t believe someone built something for the guy who builds everything. “Soren.”
“Don’t make it weird.” I climb onto the bed, knees sinking into the blankets, and take the shelf back to set it on the nightstand. I start arranging the birds on it. “There. Now they have a real home instead of just lurking on random surfaces.”
“They weren’t lurking.”
“Stumble was behind my alarm clock giving me a judgy look every morning.”
Wren pulls me into his lap before I can finish arranging.
His hands are warm and broad on my hips, and the touch sends a jolt of heat through me.
I settle against him, legs on either side of his thighs.
The warmth of his bare chest comes through my shirt, and so does his scent—clean from the shower, but underneath, still the workshop.
That mix is the one thing that makes my whole body go soft and hungry at once.
His mouth is right there. His lower lip is a bit fuller than the upper, with graphite streaked along the corner. I keep staring at that smudge, and my throat goes dry.
“Hi,” he says, his mouth almost on mine.
“Hi.” I kiss the graphite on his jaw. Then the corner of his lips. Then the hollow of his throat, pressing my mouth there until his pulse kicks. His fingers flex on my hips.
“You taste like pencil,” I murmur.
“You taste like Milo’s cookies.”
“He dropped off a batch. Said it was a housewarming gift, which is silly since you moved in four months ago, but he just wanted an excuse to check on us.” I rock my hips a little, just enough to feel Wren getting hard under me through his sweatpants.
“His and Callum’s lease is up in October.
He’s been looking at grad school programs, and Callum is pretending he’s not already job-hunting in whatever city Milo picks. ”
“They’ll figure it out.” Wren’s thumbs trace slow circles on my hipbones.
“And Jude texted me fourteen exclamation points yesterday about centerpieces. He and Rhys are going to have the most chaotic wedding in human history.”
“Aaron volunteered for the seating chart.”
“God help every single one of us.”
He laughs, low and warm, his chest vibrating against mine. I love that sound. I spent months imagining what the bird-carver’s laugh would be like, building a whole person from wooden wings and pine-scented fingerprints, but the real thing is even better.
I rock my hips again, harder, and Wren’s hands clamp on my waist. Not stopping me. Holding me. His cock is fully hard now, a thick ridge against my ass, and the pressure makes my brain go sideways.
“There’s sawdust in the bed,” he says.
“I don’t care.”
“You just said—“
“I changed my mind. Shut up and kiss me.”
He does. Deep and slow, one hand sliding up my spine under my shirt, the other cupping the back of my neck.
My body knows that Wren’s hands mean safe, good, and home, and I react right away.
His palm on my skin and I’m already getting wet, slick building between my thighs before we’ve even started.
I shift in his lap, looking for more friction, wanting more of him against me.
I pull back far enough to tug my shirt over my head.
His eyes drop down my chest, my stomach, the waistband of my shorts, and his jaw flexes in the way that means he’s barely holding back.
His pulse is hammering in his throat, and my mouth waters.
I want to press my teeth there. I want to feel him shake under me.
“I want to ride you,” I say. “In our nest. With all your ridiculous birds watching.”
“They’re not ridiculous.”
“Heathcliff is staring at me right now.”
“He’s a house finch. House finches are judgmental. It’s in the name.”
I laugh, and Wren’s face changes the way it always does when I laugh, like the whole room just got brighter and he’s trying to remember it.
We undress each other without rushing. Every other time we’ve had sex there’s been an edge to it: adrenaline, secrecy, grief, desperation. Tonight there’s just a crack of cold air from the window and Wren’s calloused thumbs on my hipbones as I push his sweatpants down.
His cock is hard and flushed, curving up against his stomach, and the sight gets me every time.
I wrap my hand around him, feel the heat and the heaviness, and his breath catches.
My thumb drags through the bead of slick at the tip, spreading it along where the head flares, and Wren’s hips lift off the bed.
Slick is already running warm down my thighs, soaking into the blankets before we’ve even started. Mine.
I sink onto him inch by inch, and we both go still.
It’s familiar now, but the first push always gets me, that thick flare moving past resistance, my body opening for him with a slick, easy feeling I feel all the way up my spine.
Wren’s hands are on my thighs, fingers spread wide, just holding.
His head tips back against the headboard and his throat is a long, beautiful line.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You feel—“
“I know.” I roll my hips, slow, finding the angle that drags sparks up my spine. “Tell me anyway.”
“Like the first time. Every time.” His voice is already wrecked. “Like I’m going to lose it before you’ve even—“ He breaks off when I clench around him, deliberate, and his hips jerk.
I set the pace. Slow, grinding, taking him deep.
His cock drags against the spot inside me that makes my vision blur, and the sound I make is almost a whine.
Wren’s thumb finds my claiming bite, pressing gently, and I shudder from the inside out.
My purr starts up on its own, a low, steady vibration in my chest that I used to be embarrassed by.
Now I let it happen, because Wren’s eyes always go dark when he hears it.
“There you are,” he murmurs. “God, I love that sound.”
“Possessive,” I manage.
“Yeah.” No hesitation. His grip tightens on my thigh, hard enough to bruise, and his hips roll up to meet my next downstroke. “Yeah, I am.”
“Say it, then.”
He doesn’t need to be asked twice, which is new, which is six months of practice. “Mine.” His hand slides up my back and splays between my shoulder blades, holding me down onto him while I grind. “This. The sound you’re making. The way you get wet before I’ve touched you. Mine.”
“You’ve touched me,” I point out, breathless, because somebody has to keep him honest. “You’ve had your hands on me since I walked in.”
“Before that.” His mouth finds my collarbone. “You were wet in the doorway. I could smell it from the bed.”