6. Gavin
Gavin
I knew Bree well enough to know she wasn’t going to spend her day sitting at home sulking.
So when I pulled up outside the deli early the next morning and saw her through the front window, standing behind the counter, I actually felt this weird flicker of hope.
I figured I’d walk in, explain the whole thing had been one big misunderstanding, tell her she’d read way too much into it, and we’d be fine.
Then I actually got a good look at her face, and I realized this was going to be a lot harder than I’d let myself believe.
“Good morning, Bree,” I said.
She looked at me for half a second, then looked away, going back to whatever she was doing behind the counter like I hadn’t even spoken. Her dad was on the other side of the deli, pretending to restock something, but I could feel him staring holes into the back of my head the whole time.
“What do you want, Gavin?” Bree said.
“Can we just talk? Please?”
She turned to Erica working the register a few feet away. “Can you handle the counter for a minute please?”
Then she walked past me, out the back door, into the little yard behind the deli, and I followed her.
Standing there, looking at her, all I wanted to do was pull her in and hold her and tell her everything I actually felt about her. But she had her arms crossed so tight across her chest that I knew reaching for her right then would be the worst possible move I could make.
“How have you been doing, Bree?” I asked instead.
She looked exhausted. Like she’d gotten maybe an hour of sleep, if that.
“I’m okay, Gavin. Why are you here? Don’t you have Friday drills to get to?”
I wanted to find the right words. I wanted to tell her that whatever she’d heard last night at the practice was complete bullshit.
“Bree, I’m here to take you home with me.”
She just smirked at me, this shocked, disbelieving little smirk, and didn’t say a word.
It was the wrong thing for me to say. I had to course correct, and do it within the next millionth of a second. Why was it so hard?
“Bree, what you heard last night,”
She cut me off before I could finish. “Whatever I heard last night, I wasn’t supposed to hear it. Right?”
That felt like a trap, but I couldn’t figure out the angle, so I just said, “Yes.”
“I’m really sorry, Gavin, that I showed up at your practice and interrupted your private moment with Wren.”
“Bree, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry you heard those words. But I didn’t mean any of it.”
Her face went red. Her voice cracked right down the middle.
“Gavin, can’t you see it? Can’t you see how you betrayed me with those exact words?
I’m your wife. And you were standing out there confiding in your ex, telling her your wife has turned into baggage, that you only feel like yourself when you’re around her? ”
“That’s not what I meant, Bree.”
She shook her head, like she genuinely could not make sense of what she was looking at. “Who are you?” she said. “I don’t even know you anymore.”
She turned to head back inside. I stepped in front of her before she could get past me.
“Bree, please. Please, just listen to me. Please. Let’s go home. I’ll fix everything, okay?”
“How can you take this so lightly?” she said. “You think you can walk in here, say you’re sorry, and I’ll just say okay, and we’ll go back to being fine? I already heard what you actually feel about Wren.”
I could feel myself getting angrier, which probably wasn’t fair to her, but I couldn’t help it.
“I am not taking this lightly. I drove here last night just so we could talk. I’ve got a drill starting in three hours, and I’m here instead, trying to get you to understand that there are bigger things for us to look forward to.
Everything I’m doing right now, all of it, is for us. We have to move past this.”
“Gavin, just leave. I don’t want to talk to you. Please.”
Sometimes you’ve got to keep slamming your head into a wall until you finally get what you came for.
And what I wanted, more than anything, was to go home with Bree.
Whatever she wanted to yell at me about, whatever fight she still needed to have, I wanted to have it at home, with her.
Leaving her here felt too risky. I was too far away from her, too far away to fix anything if it fell apart even more.
And I had never been the kind of guy who lets things just sit there, unresolved.
I needed answers, and I needed them right then, and the only answer I actually wanted was Bree, in my car, coming home with me.
“Then come with me, Bree.”
She opened her mouth to say something back, and that’s exactly when the backyard door swung open, and Wren walked in.
She looked just as wrecked as I felt. Like she hadn’t slept either.
My stomach dropped, but this time it wasn’t because I thought Bree would misread it. For the first time since this whole disaster started, I felt a weird kind of irritation at seeing Wren’s face right then. I had never felt like that until that moment.
Bree looked at Wren, and then looked at me. She went completely quiet, there was this defeated look settling over her whole face, like she was just waiting to see what I’d do with this.
“Here you are!” Wren said, all bright and smiley, walking straight past Bree like she wasn’t even there, and coming to stand next to me. “Did you get any sleep, Gav?”
Then, almost as an afterthought, “Hey, Bree.”
My eyes shot straight to Bree. She was standing there, watching the whole thing play out, like she was collecting evidence.
“Why are you here, Wren?” I asked.
“You have a drill today. We’re supposed to film team photos, remember? You weren’t picking up your phone last night, so I figured I’d come see how you were doing.” She glanced over at Bree. “And see how Bree’s doing too.”
She took a breath, looked around. “God, the coffee in there smells incredible. I’m starving. You guys want breakfast, or are you just going to stand out here sulking all morning?” She clapped her hands together. “Come on!”
“I have to get back to work, help my dad,” Bree said.
“I don’t want breakfast, Wren,” I said. “I need to talk to Bree.”
“Everyone wants breakfast, Gav. Or at least needs it. Come on, both of you. You can fight on a full stomach, trust me, you’ll have way better comebacks.
” She smiled. “I already talked to your dad, Bree. Melvin’s so sweet.
Just like you. He told me you haven’t eaten a thing all morning, and honestly, he’s the one who asked me to get you to sit down and eat something.
He’s really worried about you. Come on, you two. ”
She grabbed my arm and started walking, and I let her, mostly because my brain was somewhere else entirely, running a question I couldn’t shake.
Why is Wren acting like this right now? She knows exactly what happened last night. Is she actually flirting with me? Is there something to that Janet story after all, something I refused to let myself believe?
Because here’s the thing I hadn’t let myself think about, not once, not until right that second.
It was Bree’s birthday. I’d had this whole night planned out.
It was a practice night, so my plan was to skip film study, pick her up early, and take her to see her favorite jazz duo, who were passing through Foxborough for one last show.
After that, dinner at Yaro Sushi, then dessert at her favorite little mom-and-pop dessert place, Let’s Be Cakey, for hot chocolate fudge.
Wren knew about the plans. She’d been genuinely excited for us when I mentioned it earlier that day.
An hour before I was supposed to head out and pick up Bree, Wren caught me on my way off the practice field.
“Hey, so, heads up,” she said. “They just scheduled a full team photoshoot in a few hours.”
“I can’t make it,” I said. “I’ve got plans with Bree tonight. Her birthday, remember?”
“Oh, of course, no, don’t even worry about it,” she said, already waving it off. “I’ll just pack up early too and head home. It’s not a big deal, we can always reschedule my part of it.”
I remember thinking, right then, this woman might be one of the most understanding people I’ve ever worked with.
Later, when I told Bree about it, she raised an eyebrow at me.
“She just backed off? Just like that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Wren’s really understanding like that.”
“Hm,” Bree said, and didn’t look totally convinced.
“I’m serious, Bree. I don’t have a single doubt about her intentions. None.”
We were sitting in the second act of the show, the good part, the part every jazz fan waits all night for, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Wren, calling. I silenced it and put it face-down on my knee.
A minute later, it buzzed again. A text this time.
Gavin I need you.
please pick up.
Can’t talk right now, at Bree’s show. Everything ok?
He’s here.
he showed up at my place, he’s threatening me.
I’m so scared Gavin please.
Who’s there?
My ex.
Please I don’t know what to do.
Are you safe right now, is he still there?
I don’t know, I’m scared to even look outside my door.
Please can you come? I need you Gav.
I looked up. The band was mid-solo, lights low, Bree completely lost in it, this soft smile on her face I hadn’t seen in weeks.
And my stomach was in my throat. I leaned over to Bree, my heart already hammering.
“I have to go. Wren’s in trouble, her ex showed up at her place, and he’s threatening her. ”
Bree looked at me, completely straight-faced. “Of course he is.”
“Bree, I’m serious.”
“So am I,” she said. “I knew something like this would happen tonight.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll only be gone a little while, okay? I’ll be back before the show ends, we’ll still make dinner, I promise.”
“I’ll come with you, then.”
“It might not be safe. You stay here, I’ll be back before the second act ends, I promise.”