15. Wren
WREN
By the time we make our way back to the table, we’ve acquired two new tablemates: Ronan and Silas.
I pause at the edge of the stacks, blinking at the way they have completely taken over the remainder of the table like it belongs to them.
Textbooks spread out, laptops open, steaming coffees in the center of the chaos.
They are working in silence, oblivious to my watching eyes, as if this were any regular day.
I hover for a second too long.
“Come on,” Lucian encourages, lightly pressing his large palm against the small of my back. The heat of his touch bleeds through my shirt, grounding and disorienting all at once. “They won’t bite.”
He moves to step past me, glancing back over his shoulder. That twinkle is back in his eyes again, and I find it even more impressive than I did before—the fact that he can find humor after all he’s been through. His mouth tugs up. “Unless you ask them to.”
I roll my eyes and force my feet to move, though every step feels uncertain.
The guys barely glance up as I lower myself back into my seat. No greetings. No teasing. They just continue with whatever work they were doing, as if I belong here too.
It throws me.
Because I don’t. Isolation is a significant part of my existence.
The only time when I haven’t been truly alone is for that brief period last year when I met Dylan and we became fast friends.
She’s the only person I’ve ever let in. When she walked into my library that day, I’d seen myself in her.
I’d recognized that need for an escape. A sanctuary.
Somewhere away from the world where you could just shut off.
Even though she hadn’t known who I was back then, she understood a lot of my pain.
Understood the inability to trust the people around you.
That feeling of being an outsider. Of not belonging but desperately wanting to.
I saw myself in her—or the version of myself I wanted to be because Dylan Callahan isn’t like me.
She’s stronger. She’s a force to be reckoned with.
She took all her pain and heartache and used it to build herself up.
Whereas I let mine shatter me.
Starting over at Valehurst, that isolation had crept back in, and I’d welcomed it like an old friend. Familiar. Comfortable, even.
Now…
I chance a look across the table. Silas is scribbling something in a notebook, his head bowed, blond hair hanging just enough to hide his eyes. Ronan is typing steadily, earbuds in, nodding along to something only he can hear.
There’s a rhythm to them. The kind that comes from knowing each other well, like instinct.
Lucian pulls his chair in opposite mine and nudges my laptop with a knuckle. “You gonna contribute or just keep staring at us like a creeper?”
Heat rises to my cheeks. “I was just…thinking.”
He grins, leaning in with a mock-conspiratorial whisper. “Thinking about how hot I look when I focus? It’s okay. You’re not the first.”
I scoff and open my mouth to fire something back, but before I can, Silas slides a notebook across the table. The page is already torn out, his slanted handwriting neat and direct:
Get on with your own work instead of harassing her.
Lucian snorts, but I miss whatever his rebuttal is as Silas quietly pushes a to-go coffee cup toward me, along with a brown paper bag.
Flicking my gaze his way, I use a finger to peer inside the bag.
Inside is a cinnamon roll that smells delicious.
Wrapping my fingers around the hot coffee cup, I bring it to my nose. Oat milk honey latte.
My eyebrows jump as I snap my gaze to him.
“It was you who left me that coffee.”
He simply stares back at me.
Brows furrowed, I stare at the pastry and coffee until Ronan’s voice interrupts my thoughts.
“We haven’t done anything to them.”
Lucian makes a noise that’s half-surprise, half-amusement. Reaching over, he takes a gulp from the coffee before helping himself to a bite of the pastry.
“See?” he mumbles around a mouthful of food. “Not poisoned.”
They don’t push further though. They go back to talking to one another or getting on with their work. I watch them for a while, and only when the coffee is borderline cold and Lucian hasn’t passed out or fallen off his seat do I chance a sip. It still tastes good.
I move on to the pastry, and as I rip a mouthful out of it, I catch Silas smiling to himself.
Covertly, I continue to watch him as I eat my pastry and pretend to work. It clicks then. Silas didn’t answer me verbally just now. Nor when we were outside the bar. I’ve never seen him speak when we’re at the sports center.
He doesn’t talk.
At all.
Not because he’s shy or because he’s quiet, but because he can’t. Or he won’t.
I glance at him again, curiosity rising like a tide as I recall every time he communicated through looks and gestures…and now notes.
My gaze drops to the notebook lying open in front of him. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, he scribbles something quickly, tearing the page out before sliding it toward me across the table.
We all survive something. We just do it differently.
I re-read the sentence, each word landing with a hard blow to my chest. It’s deafening to see Silas’s damage written out before me.
When I look up, he’s already focused back on his coursework.
The note trembles slightly in my hand before I carefully fold it, tucking it into my pocket.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s not purely coincidence. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to them: Lucian, Ronan, and Silas. Because my pain mirrors theirs.
The next hour passes in quiet harmony. As we progress through our project, Lucian and I occasionally discuss ideas for what comes next, and he makes the odd asinine comment that earns a side-eye from Silas or a roll of the eyes from Ronan.
Otherwise, there’s just the tapping of keys.
The scritch of pen across paper. The turning of a page in a textbook.
The shuffling of chairs and occasional cough or whisper from nearby tables.
It all feels…almost normal, and I’m surprised to find myself feeling as relaxed as I do in their presence.
And maybe that’s the real shift.
Because I’m trying. Trying not to look at them and see that night.
They’ve all told me, in their own way, that they weren’t involved.
Until now, I couldn’t even entertain the idea that they were telling the truth.
I think my brain has been trying to tell me for days now, but I didn’t want—I couldn’t—acknowledge it.
However, Lucian’s confession in the stacks has cracked something open in me.
Not because he told me I could trust him, but because he let me see why.
He didn’t offer me comfort. He offered me truth.
The raw, unvarnished truth.
He showed me the wreckage he’s still crawling his way out of, and somehow, it made me feel like maybe I wasn’t the only one still buried. The only one clawing their way to the surface. To freedom.
Looking around at the three of them, at the strong bond of friendship that unites them—on and off the ice—I wonder if maybe what they each have been through individually hasn’t twisted them. It’s tethered them.
And maybe…
Just maybe…
That’s why they see me.
Not as a name with connections.
Not as a ticket to something they want.
But as someone who already knows what it’s like to bleed.
Eventually, the sun sinks low in the sky, and the overhead lights flicker on. One by one, the guys give up on work and instead start discussing what they’re going to have for dinner. It’s not long before I call it quits, too, and we pack up.
Before I can hoist my bag onto my shoulder, Lucian swoops in and snatches it from my grip.
“Jesus,” he curses, making a show of hauling it onto his shoulder like he would an oversized boulder. “What the hell do you keep in here? Bricks? It weighs a damn ton!”
I arch a brow, amused. “If it’s too heavy for you, I’m happy to take it back.”
He shoots me a look, deadpan. “Don’t insult me.”
Ronan snorts while Silas just smirks, shaking his head as he tucks his notebook into the side pocket of his backpack, where it is still easily accessible for when he needs it.
Lucian is still grumbling about the weight of my bag as we approach the library doors. Ronan reaches them first, grabbing the long brass handle to pull it open. Standing just to the side, he gives a faux chivalrous bow. “After you, Winslow.”
I roll my eyes and step through—
—and crash straight into a broad chest.
A hand shoots out to steady me.
“Careful there,” a voice chuckles, half-amused. I don’t immediately recognize it, but I do recall the face I’m staring up into. It’s the guy who approached me along with his buddies during my first day on campus, thinking he could butter me up for some Serpents tickets.
He must recognize me, too, because his smirk reforms itself into a scowl. “Look who it is. Hope I didn’t bruise the princess.”
My own mood shrivels.
“Good to see you still don’t know my name.”
“Good to see you’re still a bitch,” he hisses venomously before shoving past me. He deliberately knocks his arm against my shoulder, sending me off balance.
I barely catch myself against the doorframe, teeth gritted, shoulders tense.
“You know it,” I call after him, only he hasn’t disappeared into the library like I’d expected.
Instead, he is standing face-to-face with a wall of human muscle.
Lucian, Ronan, and Silas stand side-by-side, wearing matching expressions of fury as they glare the football player down.
As my eyes bounce between the four of them, I can sense the air thicken around us, growing charged, like the crackle of a storm just before the first strike.
Time seems to slow down and speed up all at once.
Lucian steps forward with a look in his eye that promises hurt. When the guy goes to duck around him, Silas slides into his path. His expression is the polar opposite of Lucian’s. Ice-cold fury to his fire.
Ronan’s hand shoots out and grabs the neckline of his jacket. Half strangling the guy, he yanks him backward like he weighs nothing, keeping him caged between the three of them.
The guy swallows when Ronan releases him, eyes flicking between the three towering hockey players as understanding dawns. “Hey, man—” he begins.
“No.” Just one word from Ronan, and it lands like a crack across the concrete step. He’s not all pent-up fury like Lucian or stone-still like Silas. He’s calm. The kind that makes your skin crawl with that inherent sense that something truly dangerous is coming your way.
With his hands tucked in the front pockets of his slacks, Ronan tilts his head and studies the guy like he’s a bug being squashed beneath his shoe. “You want to try that again?”
His voice is low. Pleasant. Deadly.
“I didn’t—I didn’t mean—”
“Oh, I think you did.” Ronan’s tone never changes. His gaze flicks to me, then back. “So now you’re going to apologize.”
The guy shifts on his feet, pale. “Seriously, it was just—”
Lucian growls, a sound low and rough in his throat. He steps forward another inch, his shadow falling over the guy. That’s all it takes.
“I-I’m sorry,” the guy blurts, wide eyes snapping to me. “Okay?”
I should say something, shrug it off, but I’m frozen. Because I’ve dealt with jerks like him my whole life—people who want something from me and turn vicious when they don’t get it.
However, not once has anyone ever stepped in to intervene. To call these assholes out on their entitlement.
No one has ever stood in front of me like a goddamn firing squad and said no.
“Apology accepted,” I respond flatly. What he said was really no skin off my back. Not like I haven’t heard it a hundred times over by now. My years away at BSU might have dented my armor somewhat, but it’s not as if I could ever really forget what people like him are like.
“Really, I’m fine,” I assure the guys when none of them move to let the guy pass. “You can let him go.”
None of them move, of course. Lucian’s and Silas’s steely stares remain locked on the guy before them. Meanwhile, Ronan is looking at me, his eyes scanning my face. After a moment, he must see that I’m fine, because he steps aside. “You heard the woman. Let him pass.”
Only then do the other two move, giving the guy enough space to squeeze between them. Wide-eyed, he scurries off, never once looking back. In his absence, the silence lingers for a beat before Lucian turns to me. His expression is still storm-dark. “Does that happen a lot?”
I shrug. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“That’s not what I asked,” he snarls, his lip curling.
I can see the same question written on Silas’s face. Even Ronan’s head is tilted slightly, awaiting my answer, although I get the impression he already knows.
“It’s not all that different from how people treat you three,” I say with exasperation, gesturing toward them.
“You’re the most sought-after guys on campus.
People throw themselves at you, hoping some of that power rubs off on them or, at the very least, hoping they’ll get something out of it.
I have the same problem, only mine comes from a last name, not talent. ”
A long, heavy pause follows my words.
I fix my sights on Ronan. “I’m sure it was the same for you growing up as the son of a senator.”
“It was,” he agrees curtly. “Except currying favor from me didn’t interest children my age, and there were limited benefits for adults.” Again, that head tilt. “However, I’d surmise kids had more to gain from befriending you.”
I smirk; however, there is no humor in it. “Who doesn’t want VIP tickets to an NHL game, or to sneak into a closed practice, or a behind-the-scenes peek?”
Lucian’s face distorts into something wretched. Even Silas appears disgusted. Ronan is the only one who doesn’t react—at least not outwardly.
“That’s fucked up,” Lucian eventually spits.
Silas’s head nods vehemently in agreement.
I shrug, ‘cause of course it is, but that has never—nor ever will—stop people from trying.
Ronan mutters, “That doesn’t mean you should treat people like shit.”
The three of them exchange a look. One I can’t read. But it’s heavy. Quiet.
In a silent hand-off, Lucian passes Ronan my backpack before Ronan turns to me. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
Frowning, I glance between the three of them. Lucian simply stares at me in that deep, transfixed way that I don’t know how to interpret. Silas gives me a brief nod of encouragement before Ronan nudges me into action. He falls into step beside me, and I let him.
Because, for once, it’s nice not to be alone.