43. Wren
Dis Dimitri. How I didn’t put two and two together and get four is beyond me, but I’m going to blame the stress of the day.
What I don’t understand is how he’s going to help. If anyone was going to be of help, I would have thought it would be Julian, but aside from his advice to avoid hot water when we dyed it, he doesn’t seem to have anything else to offer. Well, minus the anxious looks he keeps tossing my way.
I also didn’t expect us to go to his apartment. I knew all the teachers had them, but I’ve never seen them or really thought about them, well, other than the occasional naughty thought, but that’s not important right now.
“What!?” His door flies open, and he’s mad, madder than I’ve ever seen him before, if the look on his face is anything to go by.
His eyes jump from one person to the next before they land on me and go wide.
Yeah, I probably look awful.
“Wren,” he breathes my name with more emotion than I would have thought possible, and with the looks from Gavin and Titus, I’m not the only one who hears it.
“What’s wrong?” Dimitri asks, looking back at Gavin, who’s currently looking between us as if we’re aliens. Julian elbows him and nearly knocks him over, but he seems to get a grip.
“Wren needs help,” Gavin says, holding a hand out toward me as if he’d possibly missed me.
This time, Dimitri seems to keep himself in control, not so much as glancing my way.
“And?”
“For fuck's sake, let us in, and we can figure it out, asshole.” Julian pushes past Dimitri, and with a sigh, Dimitri moves.
That’s not what I expected at all. I didn’t exactly think he would turn us away, but mostly because of me.
Julian and Dimitri usually get along like oil and water.
I’d have put money on Dimitri shoving him out of his apartment and them getting into an all-out fight before I’d have thought he would just give in.
“What is going on?” I mumble as Nolan moves past Dimitri and Gavin, who argue in hushed tones right outside the door.
“Oh shit, you don’t know?” Julian asks from the spot he’s taken on the couch.
“Don’t know what?” I ask, feeling like my head is going to explode, and not from a headache this time.
“You’ve been kissing my Pookie and didn’t think to tell her you're related to the guy who has been treating her like shit?”
Whoa, what?
Titus?
“You’ve been kissing her!?” Gavin’s voice is about seven octaves higher than usual, his eyes wide and…
Oh my god!
“You two are related?”
“Shit.”
As if I didn’t have enough bullshit in my life, my rival's older brother is not only my professor but the guy I’ve been kissing… or one of them at least.
“D! What the hell? I tell you I can’t stand her, and your first instinct is to fuck her?” Gavin roars, his face red as he points an accusatory finger damn near in my face.
“Don’t talk about her like that!” he snaps back. “And it’s none of your business what we're doing, but I’m not fucking her.” His face is serious, and his posture rigid, as if daring Gavin to keep going.
He doesn’t, but he sure as hell looks like he wants to. He silently fumes, clenching his jaw so hard I worry he might crack a tooth in his attempt to keep his mouth shut.
Does that mean Gavin knows everything I’ve ever told Dimitri? I know if it were me and Jordan, I probably would have told him, but I also can’t imagine us ever being like these two are; they look one wrong word away from an actual fistfight.
Maybe it’s a boy thing, or that’s just how they are together.
Either way, Gavin doesn’t hide how much he dislikes me, something he clearly told Dimitri about…
I look to Dimitri to find him already looking my way, a pleading look on his face that I’ve never seen before. Dimitri is always sure and confident, but not right now. No, right now he’s looking to me for an answer to a question I don’t even know.
I’m so far removed from this that I don’t even feel like we're in the same book, let alone on the same page. Not with the fear of what my aunt might do looming over me like ?impending doom.
“Wren needs help with her hair,” Julian says, bringing the conversation back to what really matters.
“What kind of help?”
“The get the purple out kind,” Felix grumbles from beside Nolan, where I can’t see him. A second later, I feel his now familiar touch as he runs a gloved finger over my cheek, and when I look up, all I see is concern in his eyes.
“And what is he doing here? I thought the point was to keep him away?”
I turn back to Dimitri so fast my neck cracks, but I ignore it.
“You were a part of that?” I demand, curling my hands into fists to keep from shaking, tears burning the back of my eyes at each new thing I learn about this man I thought was perfect just hours ago.
His face answers my question even if he doesn't, and it doesn’t take long for me to think back and see it. The questions, wondering where Julian was, keeping me back in class.
Things I thought he was doing because he wanted to talk to me or steal time together.
I should have known better.
“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not like that, Wren. I was just trying to help keep you safe.” He takes a step toward me, and I look away, down at my hands where they rest in my lap.
“Can you help or not?” I hate the way my voice trembles, hate that I need his help, but here we are.
“Of course, anything—” I hold my hand up to cut him off, and thankfully, he stops talking because I’m not sure how much more I can take.
Today’s already been so much, too much. I just want to go to sleep and have all of this be a bad dream, but I know better.
Life is cruel, and this, while painful, isn’t the worst thing ever.
I already lost the most important person in my life. What’s one more person and a little more heartbreak?
Reaching up, I grip my necklace and take a deep breath to settle my racing heart.
“I’d appreciate your help, Mr. Adler.”
“Wren…” I hear the emotion in his voice, and I almost cave, but he did this, not me. I don’t have the time or energy to do this with him now, or maybe ever.
I force my gaze back to his and see the emotions, but whatever he sees looking back at him makes him stop.
“Come on.” He nods for me to follow him before he turns and heads down a hallway, leaving me no choice but to follow.
Well, if I could, that is.
I turn to look at Nolan and find his gaze on the empty space Dimitri occupied a moment ago, a deep scowl in place of his usually neutral expression.
“I need his help,” I tell Nolan, unsure if I’m trying to make him feel better or myself, not that it matters; it doesn’t seem to do any good for either of us.
“I’m going with you.” Both Nolan and Felix say at the same time before they turn to glare at each other, and I let my eyes fall closed with a groan.
“Is your head still hurting?” I crack an eye open to look up at Nolan and find him watching me with a look of concern that makes my face feel warm.
“No, my head feels great, actually. I’m just tired. It’s been a long day, and something tells me it’s only about to get longer.”
“And you two aren’t helping,” Julian says, coming to stand at Nolan’s other side near my feet. “That’s what she was thinking but is too nice to say, right, Pookie?”
I don’t answer, feeling like keeping quiet is the best choice here, given how my day is going.
“Nolan, you take her to Dimitri and stay with her so they aren’t alone. He doesn’t deserve alone time with her after his shit.” He shouts the last bit, also glaring down the hall toward where Dimitri disappeared a moment ago, and I get the feeling he wants him to hear.
“Ah, that’s better,” Julian says to me, reaching out to cup my cheek, brushing his thumb over it before he pulls back and gives me an almost sad smile.
“Felix, I need a word with you and your brother. If you don’t mind.” His voice is nice enough, but something tells me Julian isn’t really asking.
I look up at Felix, and it looks like he does, in fact, mind, but when he glances down at me and back at Julian, he grumbles but nods.
It’s not until we’re nearly down the hall that I realize Gavin is gone.
I imagine that if I’m feeling betrayed by a guy I just met a few weeks ago, he’s probably feeling it worse.
Damn, the last thing I needed was to feel guilty for a guy who claims to hate me…