chapter thirteen
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“Just do your own laundry and buy your own food. Otherwise… good luck,” Hawk says and slaps me on my shoulder twice.
I can hear the clacking of expensive shoes before I hear her voice. “Oh, Blue Jay!”
With a deep breath, I steady myself into my stoic mask. Today, I’m allowed to speak to her, but I am going to miss the quiet. She rounds the corner with her deranged parrot on her shoulder. Angelica croons out a greeting of “Hey, big boy.”
“I’m ready to move!” Wren says with a beaming smile at me and Hawk.
“And I’m ready to move you,” Mr. Taylor’s voice rings from down the hall. “Well, accompany you to the security walk through and buy you lunch, I mean.”
Fifteen minutes later, we are in two separate cars and heading toward the new house. It’s closer to my mom’s house and about ten minutes from the hospital where she gets her treatments. I’m happy to be out of the city. Wren lets me drive, citing she is too excited to drive the speed limit. But I suspect she enjoys being passenger princess. I don’t complain because it’s an amazing car and drives like a dream. Wren messes with the radio most of the drive, driving me insane. Again, I don’t complain because I know if I did she’d just turn off the radio and be a brat the rest of the way. I need to pick my battles with this woman. She says she’s excited, and I believe her, but she’s biting the corner of her plush pink lower lip and has a slight crease in her brows. She’s nervous, too.
I drive carefully, not only because this isn’t my luxury car, but because every time I speed up or brake, Angelica screams in the back seat. Wren covered her cage with a sheet, per her vet’s advice, but Angelica does not like any second of the trip.
“Are you excited about homeownership?” I ask as I pull onto her street.
“Yes,” she says in a hoarse whisper.
I park in her driveway at the door to her garage and get out. A large maple tree stands proudly in the front yard and a bright red cardinal makes little chirping sounds in a low branch.
Next to me, Wren scoffs at it and gives it the middle finger. Tears gather in her lower lashes and I stare down at her, massively confused. “I thought you loved birds.”
“Not cardinals,” she mutters.
“You know, I heard once a cardinal is-”
“A dead loved one back to visit. I fucking know!” She snaps. “Well, if she wanted to be here when I get my own house, she shouldn’t have fucking died!”
I pause for a moment as I look her over. Hawk and Mr. Taylor have pulled into the driveway behind me, but Mr. Taylor is on the phone, delaying them. I use the moment to take in Wren. The strong-willed woman in front of me is actually a hurting little girl in stilettos. Her mom has never really come up in our brief conversations, so I’d never seen the far away hurt in her green eyes.
“Hey,” I say in what I hope is a soft, calming tone. “That cardinal is a male.” The urge to reach out and brush the tears from her lashes makes my palms itch and I curl my hands into fists. I can’t touch her. It’s forbidden unless I’m saving her life. And even then, there would be paperwork.
She lets out a giggle on an exhale and wipes her own tears. “I always knew that man who owned my favorite bodega and died last year would haunt me after the bagel incident.”
“Alright, let’s get the security show on the road,” Mr. Taylor says with a jovial clap as he and Hawk approach.
First stop is the garage code. It, like all the exterior doors, has two factored authentications to get in. We set up PINs for me and Wren that will unlock the garage door and the exterior doors of the house. The beauty of being anonymous is I can use my birthday, and nobody knows. A retina scan is also set up. It feels higher tech than it really is. Apple uses facial recognition on the average person’s iPhone. This isn’t much different. That fact doesn’t take away from it feeling like something out of Spy Kids .
With our eyeballs scanned and PIN codes entered, we have access to Wren’s new home. And, I guess, mine as well. It smells like wood polish and something sharply herbaceous. Wren, carrying Angelica in her cage, rushes through the front door. I had gotten a brief glimpse of the place last week, but it’s finished now and we’re the only ones in it.
Hawk and Mr. Taylor remain on the front doorstep while Wren spins around in the foyer and I stand just inside. I can’t help but smile at Wren as she runs Angelica from room to room on the first floor. I follow at a slower pace behind them, watching her explain each room to her bird.
“My room,” Angelica says.
“It’s upstairs we can go loo-” Wren says but stops when she realizes her dad and Hawk aren’t following. “Where’s Dad?”
“On the doorstep,” I reply.
She stomps to the foyer again. “Why aren’t you inside?”
“I wanted you to invite us into your home,” Mr. Taylor says with a grin.
“Why? Are you two vampires? That would explain so much. Come in!”
“What would it explain?” Hawk asks in his quiet, even tone. But he goes unheard by Wren. Or at least unanswered.
“This is my library.” Wren gestures to the room to the left of the hallway. “It leads to the sunroom, and both rooms have access to the big patio and backyard.”
“Very well decorated,” Mr. Taylor praises his daughter. There are bookshelves lining the walls floor to ceiling and a ladder on wheels rests against the far shelves. In the center of one shelf is the rose from Beauty and the Beast , and I smirk under my mask. If Wren thinks she is Belle, then… well, she is kind of correct. I want to say she’s wrong, but having an eccentric inventor dad, separation from the normal townsfolk, a healthy reading habit, and a terrible track history with men kind of qualifies her as Belle. She just needs a Beast.
I turn to leave the room after Wren and my hip knocks into the Tiffany lamp on the small end table. Hawk’s quick reaction time saves me from the headache of Wren’s bitching by reaching out and steadying it. Wren and her dad are already in the living room, chattering about something, so they didn’t see me almost destroy her home in the first ten minutes of co-habitation.
“Watch your ass,” Hawk seethes before we follow the Taylors.
The living room is plush and inviting. The colors are warm and soft, and the couch looks like something I want to take daily naps in. There are, of course, more plants in this room. Leaves of a hanging plant trail along the entertainment stand.
“Is that an Xbox and a PlayStation?” I blurt.
Wren turns and smiles at me. “Yeah, I figured you would miss warfare, and I didn’t know which one played Call of Duty, so I got both.”
“You got those… for me?” I ask, ignoring her bad joke. It may be a small expense for Wren, but two of the newest gaming consoles is no small gift in the world of non billionaires. I haven’t gamed in what feels like decades but my fingers itch with excitement to play. I can’t help but gawk at Wren.
She shrugs, a blush staining her smooth skin. “I might enjoy gaming, too. I’ve never really tried it.”
Mr. Taylor clears his throat, breaking me out of my rising giddiness. I gotta get it together in front of the boss.
“Okay, so through here is the kitchen. Top of the line, but still cute, right?” Wren continues her tour.
The living room leads across the hall and into a brightly lit kitchen. Butcher block counters, a white farmhouse style sink, and stainless-steel appliances line the space. It’s clean and smells like lemons. I think of my mom, who doesn’t cook often, and how she would feel uncomfortable in a space like this. Mrs. Stewart, on the other hand, would say this isn’t a kitchen until it’s stained with tomato sauce and has cooked a Thanksgiving dinner.
Through the kitchen is a dining room with a built-in bar and access to the walk-in pantry. There’s a small, half bathroom off the kitchen. A smaller patio sits behind the garage and is visible through the double doors. It has a large grill and a smoker against the railing. My stomach almost rumbles just thinking about grilling out in the summer.
“And then upstairs are our bedrooms,” Wren says and leads us all back out of the kitchen and to the stairs. The wooden stairs creak slightly under the weight of all of us as we head upstairs. “On the left is my room, and on the right are both Jay and Angelica’s rooms.”
Her bedroom is the largest, featuring a huge wooden fourposter bed, a walk-in closet, a lavish en suite bathroom, and the smallest of the panic rooms. The room doesn’t smell like her yet, but I see her favorite products lined up on the dresser and in the bathroom. Sparrows from Mr. Taylor’s house were here yesterday, setting it all up for her.
I hadn’t been particularly excited to see my room, but I am now. Seeing Wren’s joy at her new space was infectious. “Show me my room,” I say and leave her bedroom.
“It’s the one on the right. You and Angelica share a bathroom between your rooms,” Wren says from behind me. She brings Angelica into her new room, and I hear her showing the bird around. My room is decorated in warm wood tones and soft ivory-colored fabrics. Navy blue sheets peek out from under the white comforter and the artwork on the wall above the bed is a watercolor of a blue jay. I smile at it before seeing the abomination that is the knitted balaclava she had made for me resting on the dresser. My smile falls into a grimace.
A Sparrow had placed new containers of the products I had in my room at Mr. Taylor’s on the counter. The bathroom is beautiful and has a huge, glass walled shower. Double sinks and a long cabinet cover one wall. I can see Wren and Angelica in the bird’s room through the adjacent door.
“She’s hiding,” Wren says to me as I emerge from the bathroom.
“Didn’t the vet say she would need time to adjust?” I ask and look down at the gray bird. Her feathers are puffed up, and she is hiding her face under a wing.
“Yeah,” she sighs. “I was just hoping she’d be different.”
“She’ll get used to it,” I assure Wren, and stroke a finger down Angelica’s back. She bristles at the touch but doesn’t swear at me.
After a quick tour of the basement where there is a fantastic home gym, a shower, the laundry facilities, a panic room, and access to the garage, Hawk teaches us how to use the wall-com system. It looks and functions like an intercom, but it communicates with the Crow’s Nest in Mr. Taylor’s penthouse, not just within the house. With a button, we can speak directly to the Crows working the desk. And they can speak back to us.
Hawk explains how the panic rooms work for a bored-looking Wren. Neither one is very large, only built to fit three people at the maximum and one person in the one in her room. It opens with a PIN code and only Wren, me, Mr. Taylor, and Hawk have a code to get into them. I listen, but Wren is right to be disinterested. With all the other layers of security in the house, it’s unlikely a threat would get far enough onto the property to need a panic room.
Mr. Taylor takes us to lunch at a local restaurant to celebrate after the tour and security walk through. The staff and other patrons here in the suburbs are not as forgiving when they see two large masked men as New Yorkers have been. But Mr. Taylor requested a private room, so their terror is cut short when we are seated out of view.
Mr. Taylor orders champagne for the table and demands Hawk and I get the most expensive things on the menu. “You both do so much for our family, and I want to treat you.”
A fantastic steak and two glasses of champagne later, Mr. Taylor looks across the table at me with a serious expression. His green eyes are identical to Wren’s, though his lashes aren’t as full and fluttery. The sense of mischief that often lives in Wren’s eyes is missing, too, replaced with a serious expression. I set down my water and wait for whatever he’s about to launch at me. “Now, Blue Jay, this is the first time I’m not living under the same roof as my daughter.”
“Yes, sir,” I acknowledge, not exactly sure where this is going.
“You are a man, and she is a beautiful young woman,” Mr. Taylor states. My stomach lurches at the implications.
“Oh, my god, Dad,” Wren snarls. “He’s my bodyguard! And if you were so worried, you could fire him… no offense, Jay.”
I spare her only a glance before returning to my eye contact with Mr. Taylor. “Sir, I know the job I’ve been assigned to. Nowhere does it include taking advantage of your trust. Or hers.”
“I’m right here,” Wren mutters.
“I know the anonymity of this job prevents you from knowing much about me, but I can assure you I did not fight overseas for the freedom, rights, and safety of our country just to steal that from your daughter,” I say in a low, serious tone.
Mr. Taylor’s stern expression is one that could easily make anyone sweat through their shirt. It remains for a good five heart beats before a smile curves his lips. “Good,” he says and leans back in his chair. “Is anyone up for dessert?”
“Dad, are you kidding me?” Wren seethes.
“I thought the chocolate cake sounded good,” Mr. Taylor continues.
“Shut the hell up about dessert for a second,” Wren says and holds up a hand. “Did you really just give my bodyguard a lecture about not touching me?”
“I did. Now, chocolate cake- yes or no?” Mr. Taylor asks, looking at Hawk and me.
“You know my answer is yes, Geoffrey,” Hawk says.
“Sure,” I say.
“Ugh, okay, fine. I want mine with vanilla ice cream,” Wren says and crosses her arms over her chest.
****
Later, when Mr. Taylor and Hawk left the house, Wren spent the afternoon reading to Angelica. She hoped it would coax the bird out of hiding with a taste of normalcy. I don’t see Wren until late in the evening when she calls me down for a frozen pizza she made in the new oven. I had finished sending Mom money to pay the bookies when she came to get me from my room.
Something about her looks different. The lighting in the kitchen is warm hued. Maybe it’s cooler at the penthouse.
“Lunch was so big I didn’t think I’d get hungry. But I figured if I was hungry then you were, too,” she says and gestures to the freshly cut pepperoni pizza on the counter. “Eat up.”
“Thank you,” I say and we both reach for a slice.
We both lean against the counter and chew in silence. I take a moment to notice she’s in pajamas. That’s what is different about her. She’s in pajamas and not wearing any makeup. I’ve never seen her in her pajamas before. Her legs are bare underneath her baby blue cotton sleep shorts and the matching tank top does very little to hide the shape of her breasts. I swallow the pizza hard and look away. While her nipples aren’t hard, I can see where the fullness of her breasts come to a point, and it’s almost too much for me to see without ogling her. Her skin is clear and dewy, like she’d maybe put on lotion before coming down for a late-night snack.
We chat a little. Small talk only, and I check in on Angelica’s progress. But most of what she says flies through my brain without sticking. I process almost none of it. I’m too distracted by her long eyelashes and almost invisible freckles. She’s beautiful. I’d always known she was pretty. I’d be an idiot not to see it. But here in the moonlight, eating cheap pizza, while talking about how she’s planning to care for a beloved pet, she’s breathtakingly beautiful. If she was just another girl and not the daughter of a paranoid billionaire, she would surely have her pick of any man she met. Though, any man would be lucky to have a woman who could brute force her way to as much independence as she has in her situation.
If she was just another girl and I was just another guy, she’d never choose me to see her like this.