7. Chapter 7
She's been running her mouth since we left.
She's talked about Bea's shitty apartment and her lecherous landlord, about books, about a succulent she swears she can keep alive this time despite a confirmed body count of eleven houseplants from her past that I can remember.
She talks about her classes, about how she wants to switch her major from business, what her mother wanted, to wildlife biology.
My girl talks when she's happy. Fills the frame edge to edge, no negative space.
When I turn onto University Drive, she stops. Her body goes tight. The jeans and very vintage black Metallica t-shirt of mine she picked out to wear making her look tiny as she tucks her body back against the seat.
I rest my hand on her thigh, feeling the tension in her muscles. "You don't have to go in."
"Yes, I do." Her jaw sets and it's so fucking cute.
I know that face. I've seen it a thousand times since I came into her life.
She's sweet, but she can give you a run for your money, be assured.
"He's still got my grandmother's quilt. And some of my books.
And my charger, which — whatever, but the quilt matters.
And the books, I doubt he can even read. "
I snort.
She's got fire and it's an old story and one she will never have to tell again.
A few things left at a boyfriend's place the way they accumulate in that way.
I fucking hate it, but that's behind us now.
But the quilt is hers and she wants it back and that's enough reason for me to drive her anywhere or kill anyone that wants to keep things from her that mean something.
"I'm saying I can go in alone. I know what you want, I get your stuff and it will be done."
She looks at me like I've insulted her dead relatives. "And miss watching you scare the shit out of him? Absolutely not."
There she is.
I pull into the lot biting back my smile, my dick hard as always when she's around.
The complex is cheap stucco like some new adaptation of Melrose Place. Dylan's white Audi is parked by the stairs. Daddy's money waxed into the clearcoat.
Wren unbuckles but doesn't move. Sixteen years in the Navy teaches you that patience is a weapon most people don't know how to use.
"He's going to say something." She whispers, fussing with her cuticles keeping her eyes down. "He always has something to say."
"Good." I shut down the engine with a push of the button. "So do I."
***
Two knocks and the door opens. The little fuck is waiting.
Dylan is lean, generically handsome in a way that'll go soft by thirty — the kind of face you'd cast as the best friend in a cologne ad, not the lead.
T-shirt that costs more than a utility bill.
Basketball shorts at noon on a weekday. His eyes find Wren first and that arrogance puffs his chest, then he registers me.
I watch him deflate.
I don't need to say fucking anything. He reads the energy in the fucking room. Then, a defensive hostility settles over his features like bad lighting. I make the guess that he knows who I am. Wren's step-father.
I'm so much fucking more than that now.
"Wren." He pins his eyes back on her. First mistake. "I've sent you like ten messages."
"I know." Her arms cross, standing behind my shoulder. "I'm here for my things."
"Can we talk first?" He leans into the doorframe. The stance of a kid who's won every argument by making the other person feel crazy. "You made this into something it's not--"
"She said she's here for her things." I keep my voice steady. We have a mission to accomplish here, and the faster, the better. "Step aside."
His eyes cut up to mine. Up. "I don't know what she told you, but this is between me and her."
"It's between you and me now."
He snorts with that particular entitlement of a boy who's never been in a room where he wasn't the most important person in it.
Wren touches my arm. "Grant."
As much as I love hearing her say my name, it doesn't change what needs to happen here. I push into the doorway and Dylan steps back. The alternative is my chest against his, and whatever's left of his lizard brain has done the calculation.
"Fine. Whatever. Your shit's by the bed."
The apartment is what I'd expect from a twenty-year-old with family money and no class. Big TV, gaming rig, protein shake bottles on the counter like a still life called Boy Who Thinks He's a Man.
Wren heads down a hall to the left. Dylan starts to follow, but I stop that shit hard stepping into his path with a sniff.
"It's my apartment." He musters some shaky courage but it's already crumbling.
"Sit. The. Fuck. Down." I nod at the closest chair and give him one breath to do as he's told.
Unfortunately for my ready fist, he sits with a scoff but for now, it's Wren I need to focus on.
"Stay." I add then follow Wren's path down the hall and to a bedroom.
The unmade bed takes up most of the space. Her things are tossed in a box. There are a few books, a phone charger, a wadded-up shirt. The quilt is in a lump under the bed like it's nothing.
"Hey." I catch her wrist. "I got you, baby. You need zero courage. I'm right next to you."
She nods and pulls the quilt from under the bed and folds it with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
It all fits in one bag. Not much to show for whatever she gave this kid, and the anger I've been filing away builds until it pounds at my temples.
Back in the living room with Wren under the crook of my arm, Dylan's on the couch, phone in hand, one ankle on his knee. He looks up as Wren slings the bag over her shoulder.
"So that's it?" Manufactured boredom. "You're really doing this."
"I'm really doing this."
"Over one mistake." He shakes his head and my jaw cracks.
Color climbs Wren's neck and I watch her teeth work her bottom lip, biting back what she wants to say because she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction. I wait ready to give her whatever she fucking needs right now.
"It wasn't a mistake, Dylan." Steel fills her spine with me next to her. "A mistake is, like, forgetting to text me back. You fucked someone else and then told me it was my fault."
Dylan shakes his head and stands. I step forward.
His eyes slide to me, then back to Wren. "Running to your big, scary stepdaddy? I told you you had Daddy issues."
Wren flinches.
Every rational thought in my head goes quiet. Fuck this. I lean down and tongue fuck her mouth in a kiss that leaves no fucking doubt exactly why I'm here.
"What the fu—" Dylan starts, dropping his phone but I break from her lips and butt his sternum with the base of my palm.
"Sit back down."
Dylan turns to me with the amplified bravery of someone who has never been hit. "Or what? You're, like five years older than her mom old man. And, speaking of your mom, I'm gonna give her another call and let her know this shit—"
He reaches for her arm.
Control no longer registers on my frontal lobe. One second his hand is moving toward her and the next his spine is flat against the wall with my forearm across his throat and his feet are scrambling for purchase on the floor below them.
His eyes go saucer-wide.
I lean in. "You don't touch her. You don't call her.
You don't text her. You don't say her name to any-fucking-one.
You don't drive past her on the street. If you think about her, I'll fucking know and your thinking days will be over.
" I exhale in his face. "She was never yours.
You just had proximity and she was kind and na?ve enough to let you fucking in.
That's my fault, but it won't happen again, I fucking assure you. "
His throat bobs. I can feel his pulse hammering through my forearm.
"Nod that you understand."
He does.
I hold him long enough for the memory to set permanently in his gray matter then release. He sags against the wall, hands on his knees.
I straighten my shirt. Wren is by the door, bag over her shoulder. Eyes wide, lips parted, chest rising fast. She's so fucking beautiful I want to spread her out right here and make this sack of cuck shit watch what fucking a girl like a man really means.
I think she'd be down for it as well by the way she's shifting her thighs together, a ghost of a smile on her lips. She doesn't think I notice. She blinks, trying to look innocent as her eyes catch mine.
I notice everything about this woman. It's a sickness I have no interest in curing.
"Ready?" I ask.
She nods. "Yes, Daddy." She tosses a smirk toward Dylan and walks out without looking back.
I follow. Mission accomplished.