Chapter 5 Ruger
Ruger
Around day four, Wrenley and I start to find a routine.
I leave for shifts at the conservation office while she’s still asleep, pouring some of the coffee I make into a thermos so it’s still hot when she wakes up.
I know Remi has been coming over when she can.
She writes while Wrenley sews. I always come home to find Wrenley spread across my living room couch with some sewing project.
The house feels less like somewhere I come between shifts or rotations or camping trips and more like somewhere people actually live.
But the biggest thing that hits me every time I see her work is that while her ex may have burned her career to the ground, he never managed to take the passion that built it in the first place.
It makes it easier to know I’m doing the right thing by helping her get a green card.
It’s my day off, and after being unsure of what Wrenley survived on while I was at work, I decide I want to make her an actual breakfast.
When I come down the stairs, I realize Wrenley never made it up them last night.
The TV glows softly in the dim room, Netflix cycling through previews of whatever murder show it thinks she’d enjoy next.
She’s curled herself beneath a blanket and some kind of fuzzy…
something. A pincushion circles her wrist, and beside her sits a floral sewing kit, big enough to fit her sewing supplies, but definitely not designed to carry fabric in.
She looks peaceful, and I like that she seems settled here. I don’t want her to spend her time here feeling like she’s walking on eggshells or like she can’t be comfortable.
I suddenly realize I’m staring at her and pivot toward the kitchen. Getting curious about Wrenley as a person is one thing, but letting myself linger in the doorway watching her like a creeper is another thing entirely.
As I pull out what I need for breakfast, I can’t help but reflect on how easy it’s been to go back to cooking for two.
Elk sausage hits the cast iron pan with a loud sizzle, the smell of sage and pepper filling the kitchen.
Then I start my mom’s waffle recipe, the one that insists on whipping egg whites separately.
She always claimed that was the secret. It’s not.
I learned from various cooks who come through the outfitter camp that it’s pretty common knowledge.
But I let the lie survive in memory of her.
A soft groan drifts from the living room. My body reacts before my brain catches up, which is deeply unfortunate because suddenly, my sweatpants situation requires management.
I clear my throat. Morning, I call toward the living room.
There’s a muffled response.
I turn the waffle iron on, check myself, and head toward the couch, trying to look normal despite the fact that hearing her wake up apparently activated my more primal instincts.
Can you repeat that? I ask.
She squints up at me through sleep-heavy eyes. I said, ‘Shit, I lost my needle.’
I stare at her for half a second too long. How? You have the little pincushion thing.
She’s already patting around the couch cushions. It’s the one I was actively sewing with.
Right. Makes sense.
I step further into the room, scanning the floor while she moves toward the other end of the couch. I pat the carpet, trying to feel it before—
Wrenley suddenly yelps and jerks upright, lifting one foot. I’m across the room in a blink.
Let me see. I squat down in front of her and gently rest her foot on my thigh. Sure enough, a silver glint peeks through the ball of her foot.
I think you found the needle, I say.
Please say it’ll come out.
I glance up at her face, scrunched in pain, and I don’t like it.
I think so. Hold still.
I grit my teeth and pull the needle out. Blood wells to the surface, and she lets out a hiss. She grips her calf, eyes squeezed shut.
Is it out? she whispers.
Yeah. You’re good. I grab a tissue from the table next to the couch and hold it out to her.
She exhales a low breath, and our eyes meet. Her hand brushes mine to take the tissue, and for some ridiculous reason, the contact is enough to ignite every nerve in my body.
I stand too fast. I’ll get a bandage.
I hustle to the bathroom and find the first aid kit, which I set on the counter before I grip the sink. My heart’s still hammering, my skin buzzing like I just sprinted through a blizzard in bare feet. I stare at myself in the mirror and try to reel it all back in.
What the hell is going on?
This is only supposed to look real for everyone outside this house, not start feeling complicated inside it.
I’m supposed to care about her because she’s living under my roof.
I do care about her. Anyone with a pulse would grab a first aid kit after someone stepped on a pin.
So why did seeing a little blood make my chest tighten?
Why did some stupid primal urge to fix it take over?
I shake my head, grab an antiseptic wipe and a bandage, then head back downstairs.
The kitchen smells amazing now—waffle batter and elk sausage. She’s limping around, one foot tucked behind her like a flamingo as she flips sausage and loads a plate with a steaming waffle.
I saved breakfast, she says as I walk toward her.
Sit, I say, more command than request.
Her lips part slightly, and unless I imagined it, her breath catches. She looks at me, her large brown eyes searching, as though she’s weighing whether to argue my demand. Then, without another word, she sets the plate of waffles down.
We go over to the kitchen table, where she lowers herself onto one of the chairs.
I kneel in front of her. This might sting.
More than the needle going in?
Fair point.
A tiny dot of blood still beads near the ball of her foot. I wrap one hand carefully around her ankle, steadying her leg while I swipe the antiseptic wipe gently. She jerks slightly, causing me to almost drop her foot.
Did I hurt you?
She shakes her head. Well, it did sting a little. More ticklish than anything.
I huff out a quiet laugh before pressing the bandage carefully over the spot. Her foot is warm and soft against my palm, which feels like information I absolutely do not need to be noticing. I smooth my thumb once over the bandage to make sure it sticks properly.
Wrenley’s gone quiet. When I glance up, she’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite read.
You should be more careful with your needles, I say.
The words come out sounding more scolding than I intended, and I immediately kick myself.
She lets out a breathy chuckle. Yeah. I’ll, uh… do that.
What are you making? I ask, mostly to stop thinking about the fact that I was just kneeling between her legs five seconds ago.
I found a wool jacket when I was in Vancouver, she says.
I’m working on lining it with some leftover fur I had, but recutting already cut fur into the right shape is kind of a nightmare.
Then I had to take apart half the jacket because the fit was wrong and— She stops abruptly and looks at me. This is boring.
Not at all, I say immediately.
The corners of her mouth turn up a little.
It kind of reminds me of being at camp. I walk over to the counter and start to plate breakfast for us.
How?
When you’re out on the land, you have to deal with what you’ve got. Get resourceful sometimes.
That’s actually… She laughs quietly. A very outdoorsman way to describe fashion design.
Well, I’m an outdoorsman. I set a plate of food in front of her. Did you always know you wanted to be in fashion? I ask as I grab some food for myself.
Not really, she says. When I was a kid, we didn’t have a lot of money.
My mom left when I was young, and my dad worked hard, but buying all the name brands just wasn’t possible.
I started learning to sew so I could add little things to my clothes—you know, patches, logos, trim.
Stuff that made them look like they came from stores I couldn’t afford.
That turned into altering thrifted stuff.
Then, designing my own things. I fell in love with the whole process.
I nod, taking a bite of my breakfast while she talks. There’s something different about her like this. She reminds me a bit of myself when I talk about conservation and sustainable hunting. The way she talks about it is calm and factual, but beneath it is a fire.
I think I fell in love with it when I learned how much control it gave me, she says.
I couldn’t control my family’s money problems, but I could control how I was perceived in high school.
Somewhere along the way, I started to find my style too, as well as a passion for making old pieces of clothing matter again.
Is that what you did in your old job?
Not really, she says. But I was always working toward making pieces that were worth the money people spent on them.
To me, the biggest problem in fashion today is that companies are trying to mass-produce clothing, and it causes workers to not have the time to put the clothing together properly.
And that’s not even getting into how underpaid and overworked those workers are.
Her voice is so passionate, and I find myself hanging on to every word.
The result is overflowing landfills and entire countries receiving discarded clothing faster than they can process it.
And those of us in the western world believe that clothes are disposable, even though there was a time when we didn’t own a million different shirts and shoes.
She stabs a piece of waffle. Once I learned that, there was just no unknowing it for me. Some people think I’m eccentric because everything I own is either thrifted or made by me, and I limit how many synthetic-based pieces I buy.
As I take a bite of sausage, I think about what she has worn since being here. It’s mostly the same handful of pieces repeated in different ways, but she’s always looked different enough for me to not think much of it.
It kind of reminds me of your hunting, she says after a moment.