Chapter 4 #2
“Beer?” I can’t help it, I shift the tiniest bit to get a glimpse at her. Her focus is on Colt still, and she shrugs, giving him a small, self-deprecating smile.
“It’s what the table voted on.”
Colt gives her a look as he reaches for a pitcher and turns toward the tap as if he knows it’s no use arguing with her.
“You don’t drink beer, Wren.”
“All good, I’m not going to be here much longer, anyway.” She bites her lip and looks back at the table. “Can you also put it on my tab?”
I should shut up.
I should pretend she doesn’t exist.
But I don’t. “So you’re not going to drink it, but you’re paying?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. She turns her focus back to me, a playful gleam in her eyes, hiding the utter exhaustion that lingers on her face, before she shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“It’s my turn.”
“But you’re not going to drink it.”
“The table voted on it, and Maxine paid for the last round. I’m not going to be selfish and not pay just because I won’t be drinking it.”
I tip my head. “You didn’t get here all that long ago—I can’t imagine you even took part in the last round.”
A blush blooms on her cheeks, and it’s sweet. I like that I’ve caught her off guard, a small win in our battle of wills, but it only lasts a moment before she lifts an eyebrow and the corner of her lips tips up, clearly moving to the defensive.
“Nice to know you were watching me, I suppose.”
I sit there stunned, realizing I walked right into that one. My jaw flexes as I try and figure out how to counter, but my new…friend? cuts in.
“Hear you’re on a mission to get your new neighbor to decorate his house?”
I turn my head toward him, and he gives me a shit-eating grin in return.
No, definitely not my friend.
“And you’re talking to people about me?” Wren asks with a smile just as wide as Colt’s. “One might think you’re obsessed with me, Adam.”
“No,” I say, trying not to seem as flustered as I feel.
“I was simply complaining about my annoying neighbor who keeps leaving her junk on my lawn.” It’s bait, my own effort to get her riled up, but unfortunately, she doesn’t give in to it easily.
Instead, she pulls her shoulders back, triumph taking over her face before she explains to Colton.
“Well, as you know, as head of the decorating committee, it’s my mission to maintain the thirty-year tradition of every house in Holly Ridge being lit up for the holidays.
Our new neighbor is adamant that he won’t be decorating, but I’m working to make sure he doesn’t disrupt our streak.
” It sounds like a speech, like she’s running for office instead of trying to get me to put up some lights.
“I don’t like Christmas. I don’t like decorations.”
Colton lets out an entertained laugh, watching our back-and-forth.
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have moved here. This town is lit up from Halloween to New Year’s, so you’re in for some misery,” Wren says with a tight jaw.
“I have no problem with other people decorating. I just don’t want my house lit up like you can see it from outer space.”
Colton slides the pitcher in front of her, and she gives him a sweet smile that slides off her lips when she turns back to me.
“A few strands of lights won’t make your house visible from two streets over, much less space.”
“The same way that one house going dark won’t make yours shine any less brighter.”
“But it’s a tradition,” Wren says, throwing her hands and nearly whining now. I bite back the way it makes me want to laugh and shrug instead.
“Your tradition, maybe. Not mine.”
“It’s the town’s tradition. You’re in the town, so it’s now your tradition, I would think,” Colton adds. When I look at him, there’s an entertained look on his face, and he’s clearly enjoying my irritation.
This entire town is wack.
“That’s not how that works,” I say.
Someone calls Wren’s name from the table she came from, and she stands, giving them a one-second gesture, before turning back to me.
“Well, I’m taking it upon myself to ensure that you have holiday spirit this year.”
“You can’t make me decorate my house, Wren.”
She stares at me, taking me in for a moment before a grin spreads across her face. “I can’t?”
It’s less of a question and more of a challenge, something that settles somewhere deep in me. Not in a bad way, either. That’s when I come to the complete realization I’m in for it with Wren King. She is going to push my every button in her mission to get her way.
If that hadn’t already been obvious, I might be surprised. But I’m not.
What surprises me is that I might just let her.
“No, you can’t.”
“Hmm. Well, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” And then she walks off, pitcher in hand, and I tell myself not to stare at her ass as she does, at the way the edges of her sweet dress sway with each step across the backs of her thighs.
I realize I completely lost the battle when Colt starts laughing loudly, snapping my attention back to him. He’s shaking his head at me with a wide grin.
“Good luck with that, man.”
I flip him off but don’t argue.
How can I, really?
Instead, I watch her as she pours drinks for her friends, then sits in front of an empty glass, smiling and nodding to whatever they’re saying.
“Does she do that a lot?” I ask without really thinking.
“What?”
“Ignore what she wants for the greater good?”
“Oh, yeah. She’s best friends with my little sister, and the two of them couldn’t be more different.
Hallie? That girl will knock over any and everyone to get what she wants.
But Wren wants everyone around her to be happy, even if it means she never gets what she wants.
Youngest of three, but you’d think she was the responsible, self-sacrificing oldest sister instead. ”
I turn back around, staring at my half-empty glass and letting his words sink in. A part of me doesn’t like that—Wren never getting what she wants.
A sweet, gorgeous woman like that should always get her way. She has to know that if she just smiles and flips her hair, she could get anything she wanted. It’s the playbook she’s been using on me, after all.
Seemingly unable to control myself, I glance over my shoulder, catching one of the women she’s with handing her a glass of beer. Wren lifts her hands and shakes her head, but her friend must insist, so she accepts it with a small nod. Although she sets the glass before her, she doesn’t take a sip.
“What does she drink?” I ask, continuing to watch the table like a fucking creep.
“What?”
I turn back to him. “What does she normally drink? You said she’s not gonna drink the beer, right?” He takes me in for a long moment before he looks at me, assessing in a way I don’t necessarily like.
“Anything sweet.” Of course, the woman who is all sugar plums and fairy lights likes sweet drinks.
“Though it’s late and she’s volunteering bright and early tomorrow, so she probably won’t even have a real drink tonight.
If she weren’t humoring her friends like she is now, she’d probably have ordered a Shirley Temple.
But she won’t want anyone to feel bad for getting beer, so she’ll just nurse that for the next hour before she leaves. ”
A fucking Shirley Temple.
I take her in, then, in a way I haven’t let myself yet.
She’s in a white turtleneck with a burgundy dress over top, a pair of translucent, dark tights covering her legs, and little boots on her feet that are hooked into the railing of the stool she’s sitting on.
As she always seems to do, she finished the outfit with a matching burgundy bow in her hair, tying back her loose chocolate brown curls that float down to the center of her back.
She looks like a woman who would unabashedly order a Shirley Temple at a dive bar.
She also looks like the kind of woman who, if asked, could tie the stem of the cherry and not even know what it implied.
I am so completely fucked.
That fate is even more evident with my next words.
“Put one on my tab.”
Another pause before he lets out a loud laugh, shaking his head.
But he doesn’t ask any other questions, not as he puts the grenadine and ice into a tall cup, not as he tops it with a handful of cherries and then some ginger ale.
Not even when he leaves the bar and carries it over to her.
I watch her until he taps her on the shoulder and she turns to him, not wanting to see the interaction.
I should have told him to tell her it wasn’t from me. I’m not sure why I even did it at all, especially since when she puts two and two together, she’s probably going to be even more of a pain, thinking I’m nicer than I actually am.
“She’s staring at you, man,” Colt says when he’s back behind the bar, forearms leaning on the polished bartop, a shit-eating grin on his lips.
“Good for her,” I say, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder. Is she happy? Annoyed that I stepped in? Confused?
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself.
Even my subconscious doesn’t buy it.
I stay, chatting with Colt, much longer than I intended, switching to a soda after my beer is gone.
Despite myself, I enjoy sitting at the bar, the casual atmosphere.
It’s low pressure, with Colt coming over to have small talk with me between customers, introducing me to various people as if I were actually part of this town now, instead of the interloper I feel like.