Chapter Two – Reese
Wren is so cute when she’s a little confused. She’s even more cute when she’s trying to sound cool. After these last few months, I like to think I know her pretty well. I spent a lot of time with her in the hospital, and I played errand boy between her and her other professors.
That’s not to mention the cameras I still have in her place. Sneaking in while everyone was asleep to replace them was not the easiest thing, but I’m a Scott. Sneaking in where I don’t belong and doing things that aren’t so legal is in my blood.
Of course, she doesn’t know that, but she will. Now that she’s back, this semester I have plans for her, for us. I spent so long planning things, so much of my free time watching her, that I simply cannot wait any more.
She thinks she ran into me accidentally, that it’s the motherload of coincidences, but the truth is, I knew she planned on running her schedule today, and I made sure to cross paths with her while she was doing it. Accessing her schedule this semester was easy.
As we walk to my office, I ask her about her Christmas break. The past three weeks were ones that I had to unfortunately spend away from her. Going without my Wren fix was harder than I thought it’d be.
“My parents act like we’re all still little kids,” she’s busy saying as we walk along. “Have to watch the same movies, have to make sugar cookies and decorate them together. Like, I get it, but sometimes it’d be nice to just relax, you know?”
“I think it’s nice to have traditions,” I say as I glance at her. Walking so close to her, she’s within reach, but I can’t throw all caution to the wind just yet. I need to make sure she’s as receptive as I hope she is. “My family never really had anything like that.”
“Do you have siblings?”
“I have brothers. They’re… pretty eccentric. Believe it or not, I’m the most normal one in the family.” That is not an exaggeration. I like my mazes and the outcomes of them, but my brothers? A different story entirely. We each have our own thing.
Wren says, “So you have brothers, but your parents never made any traditions for you guys?”
“My parents are… also eccentric. My father’s a collector of the finest things in the world, and my mother—” I stop myself.
I don’t know how to explain my mother to someone who might not understand.
Let’s just say the story of how they got together is one that would raise many red flags if told to the average, everyday person.
And Wren? I don’t know if we’re there just yet.
“My mother likes my father’s peculiarities. Let’s leave it at that,” I say.
“Huh. Sounds like a weird family, but who am I to judge?” Though she says it jokingly, I’m glad she’s not spending too much time thinking about it. Explaining my family to her would probably send her running for the hills, and I don’t plan on chasing her just yet.
Yet is the most important word there. The chasing will come soon enough.
She comes with me to my office, where I drop a few things off, and soon enough we’re at the student union, grabbing lunch.
Since the semester hasn’t officially started yet, the union is as empty as it can be.
Only a few of the off-brand restaurant fronts are open; some will remain closed down until Monday.
Pizza, salad, a place that makes sandwiches much like Subway. There is something for everyone here, along with a giant food court with rows and rows of tables in front of a big wall of windows that let in an ungodly amount of natural light.
She goes for a turkey sub, and I get my usual. When it comes time to pay, I offer to pay for hers, catching her off-guard in the process. The way she looks up at me, with her cheeks slightly flushed, as she breathlessly asks, “Are you sure? You don’t have to—”
I grin at her. “I’m sure.” I pay for our subs and our drinks, and we take them to an empty table near the windows.
Since it’s so dead, we pretty much have our pick.
Sitting down across from her, I can’t help but watch as she shrugs off her coat and drapes it over the back of her chair before she sits down.
Me? I don’t bother. My jacket is pretty thin, but that’s because I tend to run hot.
“Thank you,” she says. “You really didn’t have to.”
I have the feeling she’s not used to being taken care of—as in, really being taken care of.
She might’ve been in a years-long relationship with her shitty ex, but as big as those rose-colored glasses of hers used to be when it came to that guy, she never saw the truth until it came and smacked her in the face.
Until she saw him naked with her best friend.
So, no, I really don’t think her ex treated her right at all. I might have my dark side, certain kinks that might make most people cringe, but when push comes to shove, I’d never harm a hair on this girl’s head, and I’d do anything I had to in order to make sure she’s treated right.
“So, besides not watching where you’re going,” I start as I unwrap my sandwich, “how have you been doing? How’s your arm?”
She rolls her shoulders, like she has to feel it before she can answer me.
“It’s good. I’m good. Sometimes I get a twinge in my elbow every now and then, but good.
” She smiles, though that smile isn’t directed at me; it’s aimed at her sandwich.
“I used to get excited at the start of new semesters, but after last semester… is it wrong I kind of don’t want to be here anymore? ”
“No. You went through a very traumatic event.” Anyone who gets caught in a hit and run would have some not-so-nice memories associated with the nearby area, and unfortunately for her, the police never caught the suspect.
The cameras in the surrounding businesses weren’t so good, and the footage from the girls who drove behind said vehicle only helped so much.
Of course, what Wren doesn’t know is that I’ve been busy conducting my own investigation into that night.
Assuming the driver was indeed a student here, all freshmen and anyone who commuted had to register their vehicles so they could park in the big southern lot.
The police had that same list, and they exhausted it before giving it up.
I, on the other hand, refused—which is why I spent a lot of time these past few months stalking the nearby streets of rentals to find that car.
It took a while, but I’m pretty damn sure I found it underneath a not-so-stealthy car cover a good ten blocks away from campus.
As much as I want to enact some swift vengeance when it comes to its owner, I have to take it slow. Baby steps. Right now, my main focus is on Wren and making her mine.
I’ve waited too damn long as it is already.
“I love learning,” Wren is busy saying, “but… I don’t know. It just feels different now. I feel different.” She heaves a heavy sigh, and those shoulders of hers slump. She looks and sounds like she’s in a funk, and I wonder if it’s because she hasn’t seen or spoken to Logan since that night.
Logan… don’t get me started on that guy. Thanks to the cameras I installed in his place, I’ve learned a hell of a lot about him these past few months.
“Give yourself some time,” I say. “There’s bound to be some adjustment. Trauma does things to people, even to the best of us.”
“You say that like you know firsthand.”
Now it’s my turn to shrug. “I might not have gotten hit by a car, but my past isn’t spotless, either.
What matters more than the trauma is how we get back up again once the dust settles.
Some people decide to never try, but I don’t think you’re one of those people, Wren.
You can get back up, dust yourself off, and be better than you were before. ”
She blushes an adorable shade of pink as she takes her first bite of her sandwich. “I don’t think I thanked you enough for helping me so much last semester. I honestly don’t know where I’d be now if you weren’t there that night.”
Wren doesn’t have to thank me. Not ever. I tell her, “I’m sure things would have worked out fine.”
She shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. I’ve never been in a situation like that before, so it was all new to me.
I barely remember what happened, but… I remember you.
You were so calm. You knew exactly what to do, and you helped me out so much with my other professors.
Last semester would’ve been torture if it wasn’t for you. ”
“Well, you still don’t have to thank me. I only did what was right.” Not something I could say often, and it’s also not fully true. My actions that night were guided by the fact that helping her would ingratiate me into her life and get her to trust me.
Selfish reasons, of course, but in the end, I’m confident it’ll all work out like I plan.
While we eat together, I can’t help but memorize every little detail about her. Sitting this close with her is everything I want, and yet still we’re not close enough. Now, if she was on my lap instead—if we were somewhere private—then it’d be perfect.
Patience. I’ve waited this long, I can wait a bit longer.
We chat while we finish eating, and I even make her laugh a few times.
When I hear that bubbly laughter rise from her throat, I want to lean over the table and take those lips as mine.
Such an easy sound, so alluring. That laugh is how she should sound.
If I have my way, she’d never know another day of anxiety the rest of her life.
As we wrap up our meal, I know I can’t let things end there, but I also am well aware I need to be cautious in how I approach what I plan on saying next. Don’t want to go too hard too soon and scare her off, but at the same time, something must be done.
I need to be closer to her.
“You know,” I start with a grin, “the sub was good, but it’s no replacement for an actual meal off-campus. I’m pretty busy this weekend, but I would love to take you somewhere else—maybe next weekend?”
I think, out of everything I could’ve said, me asking her out is the last thing she anticipated. She stares at me with wide eyes full of disbelief, and her lips part ever so slightly. The wheels turn in her head the same moment that adorable shade of pink returns to her cheeks.
I wonder how flushed she gets when she’s losing herself in the throes of ecstasy.
“Um,” she says, tripping over her words a bit, “are… are you sure? Is that, uh, are we allowed to do that?”
“You’re not in any of the classes I’m teaching this semester, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Though I have the feeling I already have her hooked, I still offer her a way out of this: “But if you’d rather not, I understand.”
“No,” Wren says quickly with a single shake of her head. Her brown hair is a few inches shorter than it was when she left for Christmas break; newly cut, its length looks fuller and still somehow falls past her shoulders. “I just… I don’t want you to get in trouble or anything.”
I flash her another grin. “For you, I’d get in all the trouble in the world.” She blushes, but in the end she doesn’t say anything, so I hedge, “So, is that a yes? Or a raincheck, at least?”
“If you want to,” she says, her voice soft, hesitant. Clearly she’s not used to being asked out. “I mean, if you have better things to do, I totally get it.” I don’t know if she’s trying to convince herself not to get her hopes up, or if it’s something else making her hesitant.
Like Logan.
“Why don’t you give me your number, and I’ll text you once I know when I’m available next weekend? The beginning of every semester is always touch and go.” It’s not a lie, not really. It’s just, you know, this weekend I already have plans, plans I can in no way, shape, or form miss.
Still blushing, Wren says, “Okay.”
I pull out my phone and she rattles off her number.
I add her as a contact, and then give her another smile that I hope puts her at ease.
“Great. I’ll text you right now so you have mine.
” I send her a message that simply says, Hey.
I wait until she checks her phone before I add, “If you need anything, you know I’m here for you. ”
Can’t lay it on too thickly, not yet. Need to be careful still. Last semester we were in touch through official channels using our college emails, so this is new to us both.
Wren gives me a shy smile. “Thank you. Really, thank you. You’re the only reason I got through last semester.”
“I don’t know about that. You’re stronger than you think you are.”
The smile she gives me after that sticks with me, even after we say our goodbyes and go our own ways.
That beautiful, shy smile lingers in my head the rest of the day and well into the night.
I am riding cloud nine, happy that I not only have her number, but that we also have tentative plans next weekend.
And this weekend? Like I said, I’m going to be busy. Little miss Wren is going to a party with her roommate. I’ll need to be there to make sure Logan doesn’t make any appearances.
Oh, yes. I’m going to be very busy this weekend.