Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
WREN
The gears in my mind screech to a halt at the sight of him, even from twenty yards away. I can tell his do the same. His hands ball into fists at his side, the outline of his broad shoulders stiffening. He casts a yearning glance back at his truck and lets out a long exhale that curls silver through the cold air.
I don’t blame him for wanting to flee. Part of me hopes he’ll leave and save us what is sure to be an awkward exchange, especially given our last one.
My chest splinters at the memory of him falling apart in my arms in that hospital hallway a few months ago, knowing how terrified he had to be for Silas and how wrung out he must’ve been to let himself lose it like that. I grind my teeth and try to forget the way my heart thudded against my bones like it wanted to break out and get at his the moment he was in my arms. His warmth and the feel of his hair sliding through my fingers.
No. I can’t let myself think of those things, not when he’s pivoted and marching toward me now.
I’m pinned in place under his attention, getting worse the longer he refuses to look away. This obliterates our carefully constructed, unspoken rules. We are never alone together, and we rarely speak unless we have to regarding something with Sam. We definitely do not have prolonged, intense eye contact while he strides determinedly at me through mist and fog. His steps are silent, and yet I feel every one of them in my belly.
The closer he gets, the more I see… He looks like absolute shit. Eyes bloodshot, purple crescents underneath. No one would mistake him for gaunt or skinny; the man has never been able to sit still in his life and has the visible strength to show for it. But he’s too goddamn thin for my liking. His stubble-mustache combination has morphed into a beard, hiding the cleft in his chin I used to love, and he’s in dire need of a haircut. Ellis is never beautiful, per se. His nose is maybe a degree too strong, his jaw and brow are all hard lines. His eyes aren’t big and clear like his siblings’, but they are the same signature, striking gray, with striations of brown up close. His mouth, though. His mouth is what I have to avoid at all costs. Framed in all his unyielding hardness is a mouth made for smiling. For pressing whispered jokes and leisurely, drugging kisses into skin. His mouth contains a billion secrets, including how funny and charming he’s capable of being. It always felt like my secret to keep. Ellis is the kind of handsome that you absorb in pieces before you notice something new and get the thrill of starting all over again. Even looking as rough as he does now, he’s devastating.
I hate it. I’m irrationally upset by it.
“Hey,” I say. What an idiotic, pathetic word compared to the emotional anarchy in my head.
“Hey,” he mutters back. His voice is hoarse, and lines pinch around his eyes.
Silas is careful to not talk much about Ellis—a well-respected condition of our friendship. But he let it slip the other day that Ellis has been giving him space. Seeing him now, it’s clear to me that it’s costing him to do so.
Sometimes I wish Silas would try to remember that Ellis’s fretting is just as much about him as it is his siblings. He had to raise them; straddling the roles of brother and father, all while becoming a young dad to Sam, too. I can’t fathom what it did to him to watch Silas go down in flames.
“I, uh,” Ellis says, pulling me out of my swirling thoughts. “Bud.”
God, I would have died for this man, once. Now we’re reduced to single syllables and stilted silences. “Right. He due for new shoes?” I’ve told him at least ten times that I would happily pay a farrier. “I was actually here to take him for a ride. I’ll come back another time.”
“Sage didn’t tell me you were here, and I didn’t see your van,” he says.
“What?”
“Your car. It’s not out front.”
Oh. He’s explaining why he would subject himself to being alone with me, as in: he wouldn’t. He didn’t think I was here. Got it. “Sage and Fisher borrowed it. They have some furniture samples for Starhopper to pick up but didn’t want to use the truck since it’s supposed to rain.”
He nods in understanding, avoiding my eyes and scratching his bearded jaw.
I know better than to ask, but I do, anyway. “You okay?”
A myriad of things pass across his face in a heartbeat, most notably something like terror. Over one simple question from me. I can’t do this with him. “I’ll come back another time,” I say again, and step around him to leave.
“Stay,” he rasps. There’s a commanding edge to it that makes my shoulders pull back, awareness running down my neck like a fingertip. Ellis doesn’t ask for what he needs, let alone make demands. “It won’t take long. Get a ride in before the rain,” he explains.
“All right.”
I proceed to putter around awkwardly while he starts heating up the forge and getting Bud set up. I keep my hands occupied in the dog’s coat or hauling out any of the tools I see. Bud nods his shaggy head up and down and neighs in excitement before he starts flapping his gums against Ellis’s Carhartt vest. His low chuckle is a spear through my ribs.
“Be good,” he murmurs, and my body shivers involuntarily. He pulls a sugar cube from his pocket and lets Bud nuzzle it out of his palm.
“You still give him those?” I ask.
He slides a big palm down the horse’s neck lovingly. “They’re not real sugar. They’re healthier treats I got from Serena’s office.”
I make a noncommittal noise while he slides over the hoof stand.
Serena’s the vet in town, who also happened to carry a torch for Ellis when we were young. She was his first girlfriend, back when he and I were only friends, and she’s the only other girl he took to a dance. She was his first… everything, actually. It’s strange that I can still recognize the chalk outline where jealousy might have been before, even though things between Serena and me long ago became cool. But I idly wonder if there’s any spark between them again, which is when I recognize that jealous twinge trying to flare up, and I force myself to brush it aside. It’s like the old me is gone, but the new me hasn’t quite shown up yet, either, and I’m distressingly confused by it. All I know is that I at least want to get to a place where I could be happy for him moving on, which in itself is a huge step for me, and I feel a fresh wave of gratitude for those letters.
Still, I’m obviously not so well adjusted that I’m interested in chatting it up with him about his dating life.
“So… Silas is doing good,” I say to fill the silence.
He lifts one of Bud’s hooves between his legs and looks up his brow at me. “Yeah?” He removes the nails and starts clipping off the edges of the old shoe. “I worry he wouldn’t say anything to anyone even if he weren’t.”
Where do you think he gets that from? I nearly blurt. “He’d say something to me,” I assure him instead.
He grunts and finishes removing the old metal, and I think that’s that. There’s only Bud’s rumbling noises and the soft hiss of the hoof rasp for a few minutes, until he makes a point to look at me again. “I’m glad you’ve stayed his friend, Wren,” he says. “Thank you.”
The sound of my name on his lips and the strange finality in his tone scramble my thoughts. I wonder if there’s been a shift for him, too. Maybe his breakdown in my arms was some kind of catalyst for us both starting to move beyond this limbo between us. “It’s not as if it’s some huge undertaking. He’s a good friend to me, too.” I reach for a light subject. “Did he mention what’s going on with Walter and Martha yet?”
He gives Bud a hearty pat on the rump before he grabs the hot shoe with the tongs. His face is inscrutable before he hauls up the hoof between his thighs again. “No, but I’m grabbing a beer with him tomorrow. I’m sure he’s rehearsing his dramatic soliloquy in the mirror now.” Steam billows up in a cloud when he places the glowing metal against the hoof. He makes quick work of hammering in new nails and finishing, the rounded muscles at the tops of his arms working beneath his shirt. A small grin slides across his face when he’s done, and he gives me a conspiratorial look. “Unless you want to ruin it for him and tell me first?”
I roll my eyes and feel the apples of my cheeks pull up. “No. I know how you boys love your gossip.” Oh no . Did I just flirt with my ex-husband? Time to rein it in. “He’s the one who had to suffer finding them in one of the O’Doyle’s fitting rooms doing… things.” I mime something obscene with my hands, and his boot catches on the ground.
His mouth twists. “He’ll be unnecessarily detailed about it,” he complains.
“Mm-hmm,” I confirm. “He will. I’ll never look at Walter the same. Didn’t know he had it in him.”
I wait quietly while he finishes the rest of the shoes. It’s hard to ignore how tired he looks. He always overdid it when he had time off, unlike me and my intentionally slow days. With him and his crew all taking time away, he’s probably tackling a thousand projects around our old house, over on the other edge of town. There’s a small stable where Bud once lived, but only for a short while. Looking back now, it’s easy to see that getting a horse was a foolish, last-ditch attempt at filling the gap between us.
Horseback riding was my only extracurricular when I was younger, though, and I think I was searching for the same feeling it once gave me. The trust and partnership, maybe. The feeling of freedom and limitlessness that comes with depending on a creature who cares for you as much as you care for them. The easy, simple communication and the clear understanding.
“Did Sam finish his applications?” Ellis asks me quietly when he helps saddle Bud.
“Yeah, he did.” And I’m instantly too close to that edge of space where nothing links us anymore—where even the son between us is off on his own. No more direct connections. Not even the shared college fund account we’ve been militant about since we were eighteen. Just our mutual friendships and a quiet expanse. Friendships that still belong to him more than they do me, since they’re all his family.
I need to get away from this feeling, clamor back to that hopefulness I had this morning when I was trying to look ahead instead of reaching back.
I swallow hard and kick myself up onto the saddle. Ellis passes me the reins. He looks like he wants to say something else, but he reaches over and squeezes my calf instead. I hate that my breath catches over that tiny bit of contact. I hate how I know I’ll imagine it later, how I’ll replay it in my head and try to re-create the sensation. His palm through my jeans and the strength of his hand.
“See you here on Thanksgiving?” he asks. I nod before I pull Bud around and ride away, holding my breath as long and as far as I can manage, before I let it and one single tear escape.