Chapter 14 WREN
WREN
I don’t check the peephole.
There’s a knock and I just—open it. Force of habit.
Jace is standing in my hallway with a toolbox.
I have seen this man almost every day for weeks. I know what he looks like. I have been very carefully not thinking about it.
None of that prepared me for this. Jeans and a gray t-shirt that does nothing to hide the fact that this man is built in a way that should come with some kind of warning.
The forearms I’ve been pretending not to notice, corded and inked.
Thick biceps, the right one wrapped in tattoo work I hadn’t fully seen until now.
He’s looking at me the way he sometimes does—something moving behind those green eyes before he locks it down—and then his gaze drops, just for a fraction of a second, and comes back up.
And I suddenly remember I’m in ripped jeans and a white tank with bare feet on the hardwood and I haven’t looked in a mirror since this morning and I genuinely cannot tell you what state I’m in right now.
“You didn’t check the peephole.”
I blink. Look at his face. Which is not safer, as it turns out, because that jaw and those eyes are doing nothing to help my situation. “I—it’s the third floor.” I’m aware that makes no sense. So is he, judging by his expression.
“That’s not—”
“Of a building with a locked entrance.”
“Wren.”
“No—okay. I get it. I will.”
He looks at me, unimpressed, and I feel it the way I always feel it when he uses that particular silence on me—like being held still by something that doesn’t touch you.
He taps the peephole with one finger. “Every knock, Wren.”
I look at the toolbox. “Why do you have tools?”
“Your apartment lock needs replacing.”
“I thought you were sending someone.”
“Faster myself.”
I step back and let him in.
He sets the toolbox down just inside the door and crouches over it, pulling out hardware I don’t recognize, and I lean against the door with my arms crossed.
“You could have texted,” I say.
“Would you have said yes?”
“Probably not.”
He pulls out the new hardware and stands, and there’s maybe a foot of air between us. The hallway’s too narrow for this.
He could ask me to step back, but he doesn’t. He just holds my gaze for one long second.
And then his hand comes to my waist and shifts me to the left. One hand, big enough that his fingers span nearly all of it.
My breath catches.
I watch his forearms flex as he installs the new latch, the tattoo shifting with the movement, every part of him locked in on what he’s doing, and I make a very mature decision to stare at the ceiling.
It doesn’t help.
My attention drifts right back to him, and I’m still standing exactly where he moved me, not letting myself think too hard about it.
“Why tonight?” I ask.
“New hardware came in. Alarm sensor built into the frame. Better than what you had.”
He tests the new latch, checks the deadbolt, steps back. Done.
“Something’s going to burn,” he says.
I turn around. The pasta is fine. The pasta is absolutely fine, but I go to it anyway because that gives me somewhere to be that isn’t facing him.
“I made too much,” I say to the stove. “If you haven’t eaten.”
He doesn’t answer.
“Jace.”
“Yeah.” A pause. “Okay.”
He sits at the island and I put a plate in front of him before taking my stool at the corner—near enough that when I reach for my wine glass, the side of my hand nearly brushes his arm.
Our knees are four inches apart.
We eat. The music plays. The kitchen is small and warm and this is—this is fine. This is normal. Two people eating pasta.
“Your mom used to make this,” he says.
I look up.
“Sunday dinners.” He’s looking at his plate. “The whole house smelled like garlic.”
Something warm moves through me. He remembered that.
“Your dad still do that thing with the bread?” he asks. “Where he’d tear it apart and leave crumbs everywhere and your mom would give him the look?”
I laugh before I mean to. “Every single Sunday.”
He almost smiles.
“You were at our house so much.” I keep my eyes on my plate. “You’d think I would’ve gotten used to you being there.” I pause. “I never did.”
He sets his fork down.
I look up.
He’s watching me in a way that makes the room go still. The music fades into the background. Neither of us says anything.
“How old were you?” he says finally. “The first time I came to one of those dinners?”
“Fourteen.” I hold his gaze. “You were twenty-five.”
Silence.
“Eleven years,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
“You were a kid, Wren.”
“I know that too.” I don’t look away. “I’m not fourteen anymore.”
He doesn’t answer. He’s still looking at me, and I’m still looking back.
Then he clears his throat.
Picks up his fork.
“Your mom still make it on Sundays?” he asks.
“When I visit.” My voice comes out almost normal. “She’s been experimenting with adding sausage. I have opinions about that.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
I smile despite myself and look back at my plate.
My knee is touching his now, and neither of us has moved away. The kitchen smells like garlic and white wine, and I am in so much trouble.
* * *
The wine runs out somewhere around nine. The music cycles through twice. At some point I tell him more about Tyler than I planned to—not everything, but enough—and he listens without interrupting, without trying to fix it.
When I finish, he just says it quietly.
“You did the right thing.”
I’ve been telling myself that for months. It’s never sounded quite as believable as it does coming from him.
When he finally stands to leave, I walk him to the door—with the new lock he installed two hours ago—and he tests it once more out of habit before turning back toward me.
We’re in the hallway again. Same narrow space. Same nowhere useful to look.
“Next time someone knocks,” he says, “check first.”
“I know.”
“Wren.”
“I will, Jace.”
He goes quiet after that. Just stands there looking at me, like neither of us knows how to end this night without making it something.
He should leave.
I should let him.
Neither of us moves.
And then, before I can think better of it, I rise onto my toes and press my mouth softly to his. Barely a kiss. More question than anything else.
He goes completely still.
One second. Two.
His hands come to my arms automatically, like instinct more than decision, and when I pull back his eyes are already closed.
“Wren,” he says quietly.
I know what he means before he says it.
This is a bad idea. Dawson. The age gap. All of it.
Heat crawls up my neck.
“Sorry,” I whisper, already stepping back. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
His eyes open.
Something shifts in his expression then—something rougher, like watching the last of his restraint snap.
His hands slide from my arms to my face, holding me there for one suspended second before he kisses me again.
For real this time.
Deep and certain and nothing like the careful brush from before.
My breath catches against his mouth as one of his hands moves to the back of my neck, drawing me closer while he walks me back a step until my shoulders hit the door.
The kiss deepens. One hand settles at my hip, pulling me against him while the other stays at my jaw, holding me there like he’s forgotten every reason he shouldn’t be doing this.
My hands find his arms, fingers curling around his biceps just to hold onto something.
He tastes like wine and restraint finally giving out, and it’s so much better than anything I imagined at fourteen, or twenty, or last Tuesday when I told myself I wasn’t thinking about him like this.
I was.
I grab the front of his shirt, pulling him closer —
And that’s when he stops.
His hands fall away and he steps back.
He’s breathing harder than usual, jaw tight in that way I’m starting to recognize — the one he uses to put himself back together.
Neither of us says anything.
“I should go,” he says finally.
I don’t answer. I’m not sure I could.
His gaze flicks to the door, then back to me before he turns and leaves.
My heart is pounding hard enough to hurt. The apartment still smells like garlic and wine, and I just kissed Jace Carrington.
I check the peephole.
The hallway is empty.