Chapter 29 Wren
WREN
The clanging of iron on iron wakes me, and it takes a few seconds to realize where I am.
The cabin.
Memories of the previous evening filter through my brain. The way I felt riding River. My eyes flutter open, and I watch him, shirtless in spite of the cold, tending the embers of the fire that has died down overnight.
He crouches, the muscles pulling tight across his shoulders as he loads in more wood. His movements are efficient and yet, lazy. Like he has all the time in the world. In times of stress, my heart rate accelerates until I can barely breathe. River seems to be the opposite.
He slows.
And thinks.
And acts.
He pours some water from the large pot into the smaller one on top of the fireplace, and I sigh. Realizing that for all my thoughts about how I react under pressure, I feel relaxed.
I guess great sex and no internet connection will do that to you.
When he stands, he brushes his hands against his jeans and turns to face me. “Morning,” he says when he sees me watching him.
“Morning.” I lift up the sleeping bag we’d put over ourselves to keep us warm so he can climb back underneath it.
“Warning, my hands are cold,” he says seriously.
“Why does that—ah!” When they touch the skin beneath my hoodie, I wriggle to get out of his hold. “You asshole.”
His laughter fills the cabin, and I can’t help but join in as we cuddle up closer. When we’re face-to-face, I cup his cheek and kiss him tenderly.
Something heals me when he wraps his arms around me and holds me close. And I think about the way sex felt, in the moment, with him.
There have been days when I have looked at my body in the mirror and felt…nothing. Not shame. Not hate. Not love. Not pride.
Just…static.
I’ve tried using a strap-on, not because I wanted to feel more masculine, but because I was in a situationship with someone who liked it.
It hadn’t felt wrong, exactly. Just foreign.
Like wearing someone else’s clothes and trying to make them fit.
But I wonder what it would feel like to try it again with River.
Whether he’d be open to it. Whether I would be able to make it enjoyable for us both.
Being with him has been eye-opening. It’s made me realize that I’ve been in a few relationships with people who just fetishized me for being non-binary instead of treating me like a human deserving of love and comfort and…this.
With River, I don’t feel the need to perform.
When he touches me, when he brings me to orgasm, it’s not about the parts I have.
It’s about how my body meets his in the moment, and how his responds to mine.
He didn’t shrink back from me. He looked. He touched. He asked.
And nobody has ever made me feel like my skin and the content it holds was enough.
Not even me.
Maybe there’s a lesson there.
I wrap the sleeping bag tightly around the two of us, his cold feet mingling with my warm ones. “This would be a nice life, wouldn’t it?”
River looks up at the ceiling. “Maybe upgrade the location a little. Put a proper mattress on the bed and some clean bedding. Then, I might say yes.”
“I meant we’re here. Together. Warm.” I tip my head toward the fire. “We’re safe.”
River tries to wriggle us so I have my head resting on his chest, but I resist.
“Why do I always have to be the one snuggled into you?” I ask.
“That matters to you?” River asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know. I said it without really thinking, but it feels a little bit overprotective.”
River grins, then flips us so his head rests heavily on my chest, and I can already feel the blood supply to my fingers diminishing, such that I’ll likely have that pins and needles sensation in my hand.
“Sooner you get it into your head that I’m easy as long as you’re within reach and we’re wrapped around each other, the better. ”
I thread my fingers through his hair and kiss the top of his head. While I have a feeling his strong tendency is to dominate, I love that he’s flexible enough to ensure we both get what we need.
His hand cups my chest, his thumb rubbing over my nipple. I take a breath and remind myself that the way he reveres my body is healthy. That the way he makes me feel in my own skin is positive.
That he’s in my arms and it’s possible to feel so much for another person that it’s okay to let go of old thoughts and embrace different ways of self-acceptance.
“We can’t hide here forever,” he says, his breath warm on my chest.
“I know. But maybe for another day. I feel like a new person after just the few hours we’ve been here.”
River pushes himself up to rest on his elbow and lazily runs his fingers across my collarbone.
“You wanna run, we can run. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.
We’ll take our chances. We’ll weapon up.
We can go off grid somewhere. For you, I’d do it.
But trust me when I say, we’re safer with my brothers. ”
I sit up, and the sleeping bag drops away. “Then, how come we are here?”
“Because the trouble got a little too close. And I didn’t want to risk anything going wrong that would result in you being taken from me. But on our own, there would be no warning issued that the Feds were about to find us. There would be no time to run. There would be no club to hold them off.”
While I understand what he’s saying, I feel…deep concern. “If it was so normal, so okay, why didn’t we tell a soul where we were going?”
“Because desperate men sometimes do desperate things. And while I trust my brothers, there were people at the club last night who aren’t them.
Old ladies. People’s kids. A brother gets arrested, he ain’t saying anything no matter what they threaten.
But a woman threatened with being deported from her kids?
A prospect who might not have properly thought through what it means to be a brother?
A kid who blurts shit because they overheard Mom and Dad talking about something they shouldn’t have?
I didn’t want to risk you with that. And if any of those people got arrested or questioned, they’ve got nothing to tell the Feds about your whereabouts. ”
There’s an intensity in River’s eyes that I can’t quite put my finger on, but I trust him. I trust him more than anyone I’ve ever trusted in my life.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what? You wanna run? You wanna stay?”
I look up at the brown ceiling. “I want to stay where we’re safest. But if I could find a way for us to disappear, a digital way, with new identities and a chance at doing something good in life together, would you disappear with me?”
River brushes his lips over mine. “I said I’d go with you. But I can never disappear. I got Maddie and Mason, two beautiful kids who need an uncle. And a mom who’s as independent as they come and yet, needs me. I can go with you. But I can’t stay away forever. And I can’t disappear for good.”
I’m not sure I truly believed in the idea of being able to disappear for good either, but I feel as though it’s being taken away from me as an option. And yet, how could I make him choose between me and his family? I know I’d lose because he’s such a good man, he’d put his family first.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in a situation to answer that.”
He swallows deeply. “I’ll help you. I’ll hide you. I’ll drive you. Whatever it takes beyond disappearing permanently, sweetheart. That’ll have to be enough.”
“It is,” I say, but I can tell I did damage with the question when he slips out of bed and tugs on his clothes. He bundles up as I replay how the conversation just went, and despite the roaring in my head to just say something, I watch as he puts on his coat.
“I’m gonna go make contact with the club. Let them know we’re okay. I’ll pick up some breakfast. But I’m coming back. I promise.” And with that, he closes the door to the cabin, and I’m left alone with my thoughts.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
He didn’t need to leave to make contact with the club. If it was bad signals he was worried about, I have ways of connecting us to any means of satellite or other connection.
I run to the door and yank it open. “River, wait,” I shout as he tugs the truck door open.
He pushes the door closed and walks back to me, his eyes searching my face, as if trying to guess what I’m about to say. And I’m not about to make him wait.
“I messed that up. I’m sorry. Of course, you have to stay connected to your family.
And I want to stay with you. Wherever that takes us.
And if it takes us back to the apartment above the garage at your sister’s, I’m cool with that.
And if you feel like we need to live miles away from them, so we don’t bring trouble to their door, I’m okay with that too.
I just…you and me…I want to be alone to enjoy what we’re going to become, and I lost sight of that for a second. And—”
“Stop talking,” River says, pulling me to him so he can kiss me.
He lifts me off the ground and walks me back into the cabin before kicking the door closed with his boot.
Once back inside, he lowers me to the floor.
“The apology was enough. For a second, I saw a world where you made me choose, and I panicked, because I couldn’t see a way to keep my family safe if we were off grid a thousand miles away. ”
I wrap my arms tightly around his middle. “I didn’t mean to make you choose. I’m sorry.”
He kisses the top of my head. “We can figure this out, together. I promise, Wren. The two of us are bigger than whatever is happening. Just…don’t run.
I want a promise that, no matter what happens, you won’t run from me, you’ll run to me.
Because I’ll be forced to spend the rest of my life trying to find you instead of enjoying it with you. ”
“That’s romantic, River. And I promise I won’t run from you, only to you.”
He smiles, then winks. “Only for you. Now, you do what you do best, find us a lead to act on, while I make those calls.”
But when he opens the door again, we find ourselves looking down the barrels of a dozen weapons.