Chapter 11
Wren
“You should tell them,” someone’s hands signed in front of his eyes, and he snapped his head up only to be met with shiny leather and even shinier jewelry that looked completely out of place in the tiny kids’ playground Wren had run to.
“Midas,” Wren signed, frowning. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” Midas said, leaning against the railing of the slide stairs Wren was sitting on and glancing down at him. “Thought I’d say hi.”
“I call bullshit.” Wren narrowed his eyes. “You don’t just say hi randomly.”
“I could. You don’t know me.”
“I literally know you better than anyone else. You don’t just drop by, and there is no way you were just around here when this isn’t even our territory.”
“Fine!” Midas rolled his eyes. “A little birdie found me and insisted I follow. Makes sense you’d find the only green surface that isn’t a posh golf course to sulk in.”
Wren gasped and turned his head to look at Blu, who very pointedly turned away, looking behind himself as if helping Wren locate whoever had dared to say such a thing.
“Cute,” Wren muttered. “Ineffective, but cute.”
Blu chirped and flapped a wing at him before flying off, not a care in the world.
“What’s happening?” Midas asked.
Wren shook his head. “Nothing. I have no idea why he’d track you down. I’m fine.”
“Clearly,” Midas said. “Yeah, no, you look absolutely perfect.”
“Shut up,” Wren said, kicking Midas in the shin with the toe of his ripped-up sneaker. He leaned back on his palms and looked up into Midas’s eyes before speaking out loud so he could read his lips.
“Nothing’s changed,” he said without looking away. Trying to emphasize the gravity of it. A decade of divide and they were still exactly where they’d been before. Adults now. With jobs and the type of freedom they didn’t have before, and yet none of it mattered.
He swallowed heavily and closed his eyes to shake his head. Saying it out loud made it seem like he was accepting it. The rejection. The denial. The impossibility of them.
And he wasn’t.
He didn’t want to.
It just…it felt like he had to and he hated being told he had to do something he didn’t feel like doing. Something that felt so fucking wrong.
“What hasn’t?” Midas asked when he opened his eyes again.
Wren shrugged. “Us. Him. Them.”
Midas actually nodded like it made all the sense in the world.
“So you’re giving up,” he asked, hand movements sharp and determined as he signed. The look on his face challenged Wren to say the words out loud.
It made him want to fight. Defiance was always his strongest trait. But this was Teddy he’d be defying. The one person Wren would listen to and follow to the ends of the earth if he told him to. It felt unnatural. It felt impossible.
“I…” He sat back up to sign again, his hands freezing mid-air because he didn’t know what to say. “He doesn’t want me to fight anymore.”
“I call bullshit,” Midas said.
“He said so. He said it’s too dangerous and he can’t risk it but we can be friends.”
“And it never occurred to you he might be…lying…a bit,” Midas asked.
Wren shook his head. “He doesn’t lie to me. He never did.”
“Right.” Midas was clearly not convinced.
Wren slumped back into the uncomfortable position he’d been in before Midas arrived, biting his lip to stop himself crying.
He hadn’t thought anything could hurt more than losing Teddy.
Turned out finding him, then losing him once again hurt twice as much.
He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to hold the fraying edges together so he wouldn’t fly apart.
“I hate seeing you like this,” Midas said.
“I’ve always been like this.”
“And I’ve always hated it. You’re so closed off and alone all the time.”
“Like you’re any better,” Wren said.
“I enjoy this. I opt to be alone because I find solace in it. You hide, Wren. And it’s not healthy.”
“Yes, well…”
“I think it’s time they found out,” Midas said, and Wren balked.
“Absolutely not.”
Midas actually pushed Wren’s hands aside to stop him signing. “I left you alone for ages because there was no point. But he’s back now. You know where he is, and you and I both know you won’t be letting him go again, despite what he said.”
“What does that—”
“You need a support system.” Midas cut him off again. “You need people in your corner and you need to show him that they’re there too.”
“And if they aren’t?” Wren asked, and Midas gave him a look that called him a moron without him lifting a finger. “Hart hates breaking rules.”
“Hart is fucking a convicted felon,” Midas said and Wren didn’t think his signing could get dryer.
“Reformed.”
“Please.” Midas waved that off and Wren bit his lip. “Now, if you’re done buying time, call them.”
Wren shook his head.
Midas nodded.
He shook his head again.
Midas gave another nod.
“I—”
“Call. Them.”
“Fine!” Wren threw his hands up. “Fuck, you’re annoying.”
“I do try,” Midas said as Wren took his phone out and video called the group they’d created for moments when they needed to talk as a team. It only rang once before Midas said, “Don’t tell them I’m here.”
“Wren.” Fix answered first, face screwed up in worry. “Is everything okay?”
The rest of the team picked up soon after.
“Whassup!” Ash threw a peace sign at the camera.
“Stop screaming, I’m trying to sleep!” Black said from his bed, cocooned in a mountain of pink and purple blankets, a tuft of golden curls the only visible thing.
“Its three p.m., for fuck’s sake,” Ash said.
“Language.” Hart shook his head.
“Midas says hi!” Wren turned the camera toward Midas, throwing a middle finger in for good measure.
“Fuck you,” Midas said.
“You two are together?” Fix asked.
“He had a case close by and Blu sniffed him out and dragged him over,” Wren said.
“Sick,” Black said, sticking one hand out to sign without ever showing his face. “Hey, we should totally all do a road trip together.”
“Pass,” Ash said.
“Hard pass,” Midas signed.
“The logistics would be quite complex,” Hart said, but Wren could see the corner of his planner already on his desk.
“Wren.” Fix ignored the road-trip mayhem and focused on him with that steely blue gaze of his that always felt warm, despite the cool color.
Wren swallowed and looked up at Midas, who just gave him a sharp nod before looking away again. As if giving him privacy. As if he didn’t already know everything Wren was about to say.
“I…” he said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Okay.” Fix nodded and Wren saw Hart putting his markers away. Black emerged from his blanket and Ash pulled a lollipop out from somewhere and put it between his lips.
He had their attention. Now all he needed was words.
“When we were in Nexus…” he started awkwardly. “Like, in training, Te—Damir and I were…we were together.”
The silence stretched too long. Midas shifted on his feet, Black’s eyes got impossibly round and wide, and Ash’s lollipop fell out of his mouth.
“Wooooooow,” Black said. “Tea!”
“Like…together together?” Ash made a weird meshing motion with his hands, twining his fingers in front of his chest.
“Yes,” Wren said.
“Ah. I must say I suspected something.” A sad smile flashed over Hart’s face. “So that’s why.”
“Why what?” Ash asked.
“Why Wren hated me when we got matched,” Hart said.
Wren shook his head. “No, Hart. I didn’t… I never hated you. I don’t hate you. I just…”
“You wanted him,” Hart said. “I understand that.”
“I was angry,” Wren said.
“Was?” Black yelled. “When have you stopped being angry, dude?”
“Muffin…” Fix said, and Black clamped his lips shut.
“I knew we wouldn’t be placed on the same team,” Wren said. “I wasn’t angry at you, Hart. I—you—all of you mean so much to me. I just…”
“You loved him,” Hart said.
Wren shook his head.
“You still love him,” Fix said softly, and Wren felt his eyes burn with the tears he refused to let fall.
“Oh, Wren.” Hart looked heartbroken. “All these years?”
“Dude,” Ash said, and Black nodded in agreement.
“I just…” Wren shook his head, blinking against the sand beneath his lids. “I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. And he was so close this whole time and I don’t know what to do now.”
“What do you want to do?” Fix asked, and Wren locked eyes with him. There was no judgment. No scorn. Just worry, kindness, and an open heart to hear what Wren had to say, just like he’d told him in the garden.
“I just want them to leave us alone,” Wren whispered.
“Nexus?” Hart asked.
“We…we were caught,” Wren said. “Instructor Kellan knew and…”
“Wait, Kellan the creep?” Black asked.
Wren’s eyes widened. “Only one Kellan at Nexus,” he said slowly.
“OMG that guy is the worst,” Black said. “Thinking he’s all that, offering suggestions to me about my process when none of his fucked-up experiments ever worked.”
“Your process does leave something to be desired,” Hart said carefully.
“Excuse me, I am an artist.” Black turned back to Wren. “Dude was fucking glued to my sparkly ass until I told him I’d glitter bomb him into oblivion unless he fucked off.”
Wren felt sick. “Did he…did he ever hurt you?” he asked, and Black shook his head.
“Hurt my aura to have him breathing down my neck,” he said before Wren’s question registered fully. “Did he hurt you? Because I will fucking FUCK HIM UP.”
“He didn’t.” Wren shook his head. “Other than some glaring and talking crap, he didn’t hurt me. But I’m not sure about Ted—Damir.”
“Call him by his real name,” Hart said.
“Damir is his real name.”
Hart shook his head. “Clearly not. What did you call him?”
“Teddy.” Wren said it out loud in front of someone else for the first time. It felt like a slice of freedom. A wall torn down between him and those he loved most. “I called him Teddy.”
“Then he’s Teddy,” Fix said.
“Damir is a weird-ass name anyway.” Ash shrugged, crunching his lollipop.