7. Soren
Soren
“You’re wrinkling your nametag,” Professor Hannover says, catching my hand before I can peel the edge off my chest again. “Leave it alone. People need to know who the anonymous-gift poet is.”
The nametag reads Soren Patel, Poetry: “Anonymous Gifts” Cycle in block letters, and my fingers keep finding the corner like it’s a loose tooth. Some people have nervous habits that make them look cool and mysterious. Mine makes me look like I’m tweaking.
“Stand up straight,” Hannover murmurs. “Deep breath. You belong here.”
“Sure,” I say, but she doesn’t seem to hear the sarcasm.
Inside, the gallery is all white walls and natural light, folding chairs in a loose semicircle, easels and pedestals around the perimeter. Maybe thirty people with coffee cups and festival folders. I’m scanning for familiar faces when my eyes catch on a carved tree across the room.
It’s amazing. The bark is so realistic I want to run my hands over it.
Then I catch sight of who’s adjusting the tree on its display table.
Wren’s wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves shoved past his elbows, forearms flexing as he adjusts the base.
It’s been a few weeks since the café incident, and we’ve texted a bit.
Nothing consequential, just the usual how’s it going and how about this weather we’re having.
Okay, maybe not that last one, but mindless small talk seemed a lot easier than saying what I was really thinking.
You were like one of those alphas from a romance novel, sweeping in to rescue me, and I bet if you let your hair grow out a little bit, you’d really look like one of those cover models.
Or, you smelled so good that I masturbated when I got home and had to turn the birds away because I was embarrassed about all the sounds I made.
So, none of that stuff. But somehow in all our not-conversations, nothing came up about Wren being an artist or us both being accepted to the Festival.
I’m about to walk over when Kendra Moss, who runs orientation for the Festival, steps in front of me and ushers all the student artists into a semi-circle.
She’s a beta in her mid-thirties with a clipboard she wields like a scepter, and opinions on everything from display height to font choice on our artist statements.
She talks fast, doesn’t smile, and calls the Festival “a commitment to artistic vulnerability, not a weekend craft fair.” Professor Hannover stands behind her looking serene, occasionally adding something encouraging that Kendra immediately steamrolls with a logistics reminder.
They explain the schedule: weekly “Meet the Artist” nights, a midpoint review, and the final showcase with public voting and a juried panel.
“Your work will be seen,” Kendra says, making eye contact with each of us like she’s issuing a personal threat. “Make sure it’s ready to be.”
I write dates in the margins of my folder and try not to look at Wren. I fail constantly.
When we line up for schedules, we end up side by side. I absolutely do not time my steps to reach the table at the same moment he does.
“Hey,” he says. That little half-smile that makes my stomach flip.
“Hey.” I’m grinning so hard my face hurts. “Nice tree.”
He looks down at his hands. “Thanks. It’s, uh. Not done yet. The base needs another coat.”
“Wren. It’s incredible.”
His ears go pink. He stares at his schedule like it contains nuclear launch codes. “Your poems. The cycle. What’s it about?”
I could deflect. I could say something vague about nature or metaphors.
But he asked, and my whole body does that stupid calm thing it does around him, like my nervous system trusts him without asking permission.
So I hear myself say, “It’s about someone who leaves me gifts.
Anonymous ones. I’ve been writing about what it feels like to be chosen by someone you’ve never met. ”
A muscle jumps in his jaw, and his thumb presses so hard against the edge of his schedule it bends the paper.
“That sounds...” He swallows. “Really good.”
“We’ll see. Kendra looks like she eats poets for breakfast.”
He almost laughs, this soft huff of air through his nose, and we’re just standing there grinning at each other like the rest of the room doesn’t exist, until a heavy hand lands on Wren’s shoulder.
“There he is!” A barrel-chested alpha whose nametag reads Mr. Ellis, Woodshop, appears out of nowhere, already dragging Wren toward a cluster of coordinators.
“Wren, come on, you gotta meet—this kid builds things most sculptors couldn’t dream of.
Wait till you see the full piece, the joinery alone—“
Wren shoots me a look over his shoulder that’s pure mortified apology, and I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing out loud.
Professor Hannover materializes at my elbow. “So that’s the woodworker Ellis won’t shut up about.”
“That’s the woodworker.”
“Interesting.” She takes off her glasses and cleans them off with her shirt. “He should hear you read.”
“Professor—“
“I won’t shut up about you, Soren. You should know that by now.”
She introduces me to Wren properly when Ellis finally lets him go, and the formality of it, “Wren, this is Soren Patel,” makes my neck go hot. Wren shakes my hand like he hasn’t already given me the best orgasm of my life and says, “We’ve met,” with a straight face that almost kills me.
During the last break, we end up in a corner with our schedules spread on a windowsill. Three overlapping “Meet the Artist” nights. Midpoint review on the same day. The final showcase.
“We’re going to see a lot of each other,” I say.
“Yeah.” His voice drops. “I’m okay with that.”
Late afternoon light catches the short dark hairs on his forearms, and I stare at the line where his sleeve is rolled, the way the muscle shifts when he adjusts his grip.
My brain helpfully replays that same forearm braced beside my head in the hallway, his body the only solid thing in the universe while I shook apart against his thigh.
I want his hands on me again.
“Come to Byrne’s tonight,” I say, the words rushing out before something dumb like logic can intervene.
“My friends want to celebrate me being a finalist, and they’re going to want to meet you.
I um, sort of told them about how you helped me out the other day.
” I clear my throat. “I should warn you, they’re…
a lot, but they’re mine, and I want you there. ”
He’s quiet for a beat. Two. His thumb runs along the edge of the windowsill.
“Okay,” he says. “Yeah. I’ll be there.”
***
The walk to Byrne’s feels like bringing a boy home for the first time to meet the family. , Wren’s slows down a little the closer we get, and I bump my shoulder against his arm because he’s too tall for me to reach his shoulder properly.
“They’re going to love you,” I tell him.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know them.”
Inside, our booth is packed. Jude and Rhys on one side, Benji slouched against Knox, Milo tucked under Callum’s arm, Shay sitting ramrod-straight with a spreadsheet open on his phone because apparently co-owning a bar means never having fun again ever.
“He brought the alpha!” Jude yells, practically vaulting over the table to get to me. He pulls me into a hug, then plants himself in Wren’s path, one hand stretched out like a bouncer. He’s like six inches shorter than Wren and looks ridiculous. “Wren, right? The hallway alpha.”
“Jude,” I warn.
“What? I’m being friendly.” Jude doesn’t move. He’s smiling but his eyes are hard as they sweep over Wren from head to toe. “So. You do maintenance.”
“Yeah.”
“And woodcarving.”
“Yeah.”
“And you stepped between our Soren and a handsy alpha.”
Wren’s chin comes up. “Yes.”
Jude stares at him for three more seconds, then breaks into the widest grin I’ve ever seen on him. “Okay. You can sit down. Rhys, move over.”
Rhys shakes his head, but he picks up his beer and slides down further into the booth. “Welcome to the audition.”
“It’s not an audition,” I say, pulling Wren toward the booth.
“It’s absolutely an audition,” Shay says without looking up from his phone.
Milo is already sliding a beer across the table toward Wren with both hands, like an offering to a skittish animal. “Hi. I’m Milo. Ignore all of them. How do you feel about brownies?”
“I—yeah. Brownies are good.”
“He’s so nervous,” Milo whispers to me, delighted.
“Milo. Please.”
Callum, who is clearly the only adult at the table, reaches across and shakes Wren’s hand, firm and brief. “Callum. Milo’s mate. Relax, it gets easier after the first ten minutes.”
It doesn’t get easier. It gets louder.
Jude wants to know everything: where Wren’s from, what he carved for the Festival, how long he’s been doing it, what his intentions are.
He actually uses the word intentions. Benji is quieter, watching from his corner with Knox’s arm draped over his shoulders.
His eyes are narrowed and suspicious-looking, and then suddenly they widen, and he pulls Knox down by his ear, whispering furiously.
Knox shakes his head, looks at Wren, then at me, and his eyes also go wide. He whispers back.
I clear my throat.
Knox comes back up, and says “So!” in way too loud a voice. “The tree. What wood?”
Wren blinks. “Um, ash for the trunk. Maple for the branches and the birds. Different grain patterns give it depth.”
“And the bark texture—that’s hand-carved? Not a Dremel?”
Does Knox know about carving wood? Since when does Knox know about carving wood?
Knox whistles, low. “That’s insane. What about the joinery where the branches meet? Mortise and tenon, or—“
They’re off. I have no idea what Knox is doing, but Wren’s shoulders drop for the first time all night.
He’s smiling. A real one, not the careful version he’s been wearing so far.
When I lean into his side to hear Knox better, his face goes soft and a little possessive and he shifts to make room for me automatically, draping his arm over the back of the booth behind me.
Shay rolls his eyes so hard I worry for his health. “We’ve collected another service-top alpha. Gotta catch ’em all.”
Wren’s thigh presses against mine under the table.
Not an accident. Deliberate. Solid and warm. And when I breathe in, he smells so good.
I press my knees together and take a very controlled sip of my drink. Wren doesn’t look at me. He’s listening to Knox talk about chisel angles. But his leg stays exactly where it is, and his pinky finger settles against the inside of my knee under the table where nobody can see.
Just the side of one knuckle. The contact is tiny and it goes everywhere.
My pulse hammers. I’m hyper-aware of how easy it would be for him to turn his wrist and slide higher.
Those blunt, careful fingers slipping under my clothes, tracing my skin, pressing the heel of his palm against the growing damp spot in my underwear until I have to bite my lip to stay quiet.
I want him to. God, I want him to.
Instead he keeps that single point of contact steady while my body riots. His warmth seeps into me. I shift my weight and the pressure of his thigh increases. My hole clenches around nothing and a fresh bead of slick slips free, warm and unmistakable.
He still doesn’t look at me, but the corner of his mouth twitches. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me and he’s enjoying every second of it.
The night goes golden after that. Tessa brings a round nobody ordered and says, “On the house for the new guy, don’t get used to it.
” Diego asks Wren if he could carve a dragon and Wren says “probably” with total seriousness, which makes Diego light up like it’s Christmas morning.
Milo produces cookies from somewhere, and Wren eats two and tells Milo they’re the best thing he’s ever had.
Jude makes me read one of my poems out loud.
I refuse before eventually caving and pick the shortest one: four lines about a pair of hands that build beautiful things in the dark.
My voice only shakes a little. When I finish, the table goes quiet.
Wren is staring at his beer, jaw locked tight.
Knox puts his hand over his heart. Jude says, “Soren, what the fuck, that was gorgeous,” and Benji says, “I swear to god this is a soap opera,” very quietly.
When the night winds down and people start peeling off in pairs: Jude dragging Rhys out by the hand, Milo yawning into Callum’s shoulder, Benji and Knox disappearing without saying goodbye because that’s their thing. Wren walks me to the door.
“That wasn’t terrible,” he says.
“High praise.”
“Your friends are...”
“A lot.”
“Yeah.” He’s smiling. The real one. “They’re really good, Soren.”
The way he says it, like he’s surprised people like this exist, makes my throat tight.
“They liked you,” I say.
“Knox liked me. The rest are still deciding.”
“Jude hugged you goodbye. Jude doesn’t hug people he hasn’t approved.”
“That was a hug? I thought he was checking me for weapons.”
I laugh, bright and too loud, and Wren’s eyes go soft watching me do it.
We’re standing under the green neon with the warm night pressing close.
He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch so, so careful.
His fingertips brush the shell of my ear and linger half a second too long. I lean into it.
“Thanks for inviting me,” he says.
“Thank you for coming.”
His hand drops. He steps back. I tell myself I’m not disappointed.
“Goodnight, Soren.”
“Goodnight.”
He walks away. I watch him go until he rounds the corner at the end of the street. Then I press my face into the collar of my shirt and breathe.
It smells like him. Faint, from where we were pressed together all night, but there. Then I pull Keats out of my pocket and cradle her in my palm. She smells the way she always does. Linseed oil and clean pine.
And just for a second, holding this tiny carved bird in one hand and breathing Wren’s scent on my collar, there’s this moment where I almost feel like something big is going to happen. It’s so intense that my breath catches.
Huh.
I close my hand around Keats and walk home through the warm dark, grinning like an idiot at nothing and everything.