36. Stone
STONE
I think I underestimated how long Wren would stay pissed at me.
After she tried to hide—a pathetic attempt if I’ve ever seen one, in which she gave a startlingly accurate impression of a disgruntled cat, claws and all—she then thought sleeping in the Harry Potter closet was her best option.
Needless to say, that didn’t fly.
But it’s been five days of nothing , and I’m about at my breaking point. She’s given me blank stares—if she deigns to look at me at all. Otherwise, she avoids me until she climbs into our bed at night, and then she spends the next hour avoiding my touch.
Like now, she’s asleep next to me, so far away her arm is touching the wall. And I’m nearly on the opposite edge, trying to be nice and respect her boundaries.
Sort of.
I heave a sigh, and she responds by elbowing me in the ribs.
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“Your silence is so loud it woke me up,” she replies.
Ouch.
She pushes the blankets off her legs and shimmies to the end of the bed. I watch her move around the dim room, gathering clothes off the floor and out of her dresser. And I stay where I am as she gets dressed robotically. There’s no expression on her face.
As soon as her shoes are on, she’s out the door.
The bathroom door closes down the hall with a little snick , and I throw my arm over my face for a moment. A moment to allow my frustration to bubble up, to nearly choke me.
But a moment is all I get. On the next inhale, I force myself up and down the hall to Grant’s room. I knock twice and enter.
His room is darker than mine, the blackout shades he installed over the windows pulled down into place. He’s flopped in the middle of the bed, and there’s a girl curled into his side.
Naked.
Lovely .
“Grant,” I call.
Nothing. Ah, well, I tried. I grab the glass of water on his nightstand. I don’t feel the slightest bit bad for dumping it on his head.
He and the girl both wake up almost instantly. He roars, swinging, and I leap out of range. His soaked hair is plastered to his head, and he looks ridiculous. I burst out laughing before I can stop myself.
“Fuck, Foster,” Grant snaps groggily. “What the hell are you doing?”
The girl is barely covering her tits with the sheet. Not that I care for her tits. They’re not Wren’s, so I ignore her and focus on my housemate.
“Wren’s going to class early. You need to go with her.”
We stare at each other for a long minute.
“ Fine ,” he grumbles. “Just because you somehow fucked up with her…”
I wave him off. “Better get dressed. Pretty sure the university has some policy about shoes and a shirt.”
He waggles his middle finger at me. “Get out.”
“Gladly. I’m going back to bed.”
That’s kind of a lie. I hurry back to bed before Wren gets out of the bathroom, hoping she’ll come back in. But she doesn’t. She breezes down the stairs, and a second later, Grant’s heavier footsteps follow.
Good .
The front door closes, and I’m back out of bed. I get ready for the day and wake Evan up. Luckily, he rolls over as soon as I say his name. No water over the head necessary.
“Is there a reason you’re waking me up at the crack of dawn?”
I huff. “It’s seven. The sun is up.”
Okay, maybe it’s six-thirty. And the sun was rising, last I checked…
“Whatever.” I kick his leg. “We’ve got shit to do.”
Evan eyes me. But he’s a better sport than Grant in more ways than one, and he only takes five minutes to brush his teeth and pull on fresh clothes. He meets me in the kitchen, where I slide him a toasted bagel and the tub of cream cheese.
“Uh-oh. Are you trying to…well, fuck, the butter pun would’ve worked better if you didn’t offer me cream cheese.”
“Coffee.” I snap my fingers. “That’ll make you make sense.”
He agrees.
I pour us cups and sit across from him, then take out my phone. I set it down. Pick it up. Set it down again.
“What?” Evan finally asks.
“You talked to your parents, right?”
I mean, it’s been five days. I overheard Wren and Ally talking about it at the restaurant in hushed tones, whispering about the worry she has for her foster family.
He nods. “They know about the break-in, that someone has their address. That her dad is out.”
Out . That was definitely a bomb my father dropped last weekend. And I didn’t even have a chance to prepare Wren. How the hell was I supposed to break that to her, though? And then force her to make small talk with rich strangers until we could interrogate my father?
“I didn’t want to have that conversation in front of her,” I admit. “And then she was there, and I couldn’t stop it.”
Evan eyes me. While I’ve taken the brunt of Wren’s cold shoulder, she hasn’t been speaking much to any of the guys. Especially Evan.
“Okay, okay.” I guess we’re going for honesty. Maybe that will make me feel better. “I didn’t want to stop him. It was either that or he would’ve reverted to a wall.”
Kind of like how Wren is right now.
I rub my face. “You should’ve seen the look on her face. And then I dragged her out of that little hut in your parents’ backyard…”
He winces.
“I know . It was your safe place. And I know you only told me about it because I snuck in there that one time…”
Oh, man, I had never seen Evan so mad. Sputtering, red-faced.
He said it was private, which obviously meant it was something between him and Sticks.
I kind of hated their relationship when I was fourteen.
Everything was changing. We started high school, a new hockey team, Wren was flitting back in and out of the Mitchells’ lives.
Evan’s attention was being pulled away, and selfishly, I just wanted him to be my friend while everything else was rocky.
And she was just so… irritating . I couldn’t help but watch her. Where she was. What she was doing. All cataloged and filed away for later, like the stupid tree fort that never made it off the ground.
It’s later now.
I pick up my phone again.
Set it down.
Fuck.
“What?” Evan snatches it up.
“Don’t—”
He unlocks it and stares at the screen.
At the app that tracks Wren’s phone.
It currently shows her in class, for the record.
“What the fuck, Stone?”
I grind my teeth together.
Evan sighs. “I know you’re doing this to protect her, but—”
“There’s no but,” I snap. “There’s no second chance here, man. If her father gets his hands on her, I think that’s it. No coming back from it. I just have this feeling he’s going to do something terrible to her.”
That’s my fear realized.
Out loud.
And suddenly I want to take it back. Snatch the words out of the air and stuff them back down my throat, erasing the shocked expression from Evan’s face and dulling the spike of adrenaline crashing through my chest.
I don’t want to be afraid. It’s a stupid, useless emotion.
What I need to do is channel it into something productive—like figuring out where Wren’s dad is and what his plans are.
The only problem is, we haven’t fucking seen anyone.
“They have to be watching, don’t you think?” I glower at my phone in Evan’s hand. “They were in her room.”
“Well…” He shifts.
“What?”
Guilt crosses his face. “You know me. I’m the first to believe Wren. But she can be a little paranoid, and…”
I narrow my eyes.
“And she accused me of going through her stuff once. When we were, like, thirteen.” He looks away. “I didn’t. No one did as far as my parents could tell. But she had a meltdown anyway, insisting that someone had. That they left her an obscure little note in one of her books.”
Well…fuck.
“What happened?”
“She showed us the page, and it was nothing. A drawing of a freaking pumpkin in pencil. And not a very good one. If she hadn’t said that’s what it was, I would’ve guessed an apple.” He sighs. “I just… I’m not sure if she’s so wound up, she’s more likely to cry wolf.”
Interesting.
“Well, there’s one way to find out, right?” I shove back from the table and head upstairs.
Evan trails me to my room, and we both stop and stare at the disaster.
“Okay, it’s messy,” I mumble.
And it’s kind of killing me. I like neat and orderly, and ever since Wren moved in, it’s been chaos.
Wordlessly, I start cleaning. Picking up dirty clothes—hers, mine, doesn’t matter—and tossing them in the bigger of the two hampers.
I pile up textbooks, trying to keep them separate, on opposite ends of the desk.
“I’m gonna leave you to this,” Evan says on a laugh.
I wave him off.
Once the floor is clean, I move to the bed, changing the sheets, acting like an actual human being.
An hour later, my phone chirps that Wren’s leaving campus—a feature of the location-sharing app I didn’t think I’d need but now insanely appreciate. My room—no, our room—is spotless. And all that’s left is…
I move to the stack of notebooks and flip through them one by one. Looking for anything that’s not Wren’s bubbly handwriting.
How girls have such neat, cute handwriting is beyond me.
I’m on my fifth notebook when I find it. And my blood runs cold.
Your father says thank you for all of your help, Pumpkin.
“What are you doing?”
I slam the notebook closed just as Wren reaches me. She yanks it out of my hand, tossing it on the floor like it’s burning her.
“You can’t just go through my stuff,” she scolds.
I scoff. “No? Why didn’t you tell me about your father’s henchman’s little note? This could’ve been helping our case. Instead, you hid it.”
She flinches.
I stare at her. Her hair is up in a bun. She’s not wearing a speck of makeup. There are dark circles under her eyes, and she’s too fucking pale.
“Why are you scared of me, Sticks?” My voice is so low. I don’t want to scare her off. I just want her to understand that I am going to do anything and everything to protect her.
How she wormed her way into my heart is a fucking mystery.
Taylor bangs on our open door, popping his head into the room. “Why aren’t you ready, Foster? We’re leaving for the bus in twenty.”
Fuck .
I nod without tearing my gaze away from Wren. We’re locked in a staring contest, and I don’t know what will happen to the loser.
“Did you not believe me?”
It’s my turn to wince. “Sticks…”
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t act like you care when you thought I was crazy. I knew someone was in my room. And you needed proof ?”
“No—”
“God, stop LYING! ”
I jerk back. “I hate you so much it’s going to kill me.”
“The feeling is mutual,” she bites out.
“I know.” I stalk forward.
She goes back, bumping up against the wall. Her breathing hitches, and she tilts her head back to keep her gaze on mine. She’s so angry she’s practically vibrating with it.
“All this fury,” I murmur, tracing her jaw. “So fucking beautiful.”
She smacks my hand away.
This has gone on for too long. She’s been icing me out, but inside she’s been burning up.
I grab her wrist and drag her closer until she collides with my chest. “Show me how you really feel, Sticks.”
Her fingers curl in my shirt. Instead of shoving me away, she moves her hand up to the back of my neck. Her nails dig into my skin, and she pulls my head down to hers.
Finally .