6. Gavin #2
I didn’t wait for her to say anything else. I kissed her and got up and left, already halfway to the door, my head full of everything Wren had ever told me about her ex. What a narcissist the guy was, how ugly and bitter the divorce had gotten, and none of it left room for anything else.
I drove straight to Wren’s apartment. I rang the bell. Nothing.
I rang it again, then knocked, hard. “Wren?”
Still nothing.
“Wren, open the door!”
I could feel my pulse in my ears at that point, already pulling my phone out, thumb hovering over the keypad, half a second from dialing 911, when I heard the lock turn.
“Wren, it’s me, open up,”
The door swung open.
She was shaking. Actually shaking. Wearing a nightgown with one strap sliding off her shoulder, hair a complete mess, tear tracks running down both cheeks.
“What happened, Wren? Where is he?”
She just sobbed. She wouldn’t say anything at first.
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head no. Then she grabbed onto me and hugged me so tight, and I hugged her back, and we just stood there like that for I don’t even know how long.
“It’s okay, Wren. It’s okay.” I said.
“He just left,” she finally said, still shaking. “He came to threaten me. He told me I had to withdraw the alimony paperwork.”
“Did he touch you? Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she said. “I told him to go. I just kept telling him to go, and I was so scared, Gavin.”
“Okay. Okay, Wren, you’re safe now.”
“I live in fear,” she said. “Every single day. You don’t understand what his temper is like when he gets going.”
“I’m so sorry, Wren.”
“Can I ask you something?” She looked up at me, eyes still wet. “Could I move closer to you guys? To you and Bree? I think I’d actually feel safe for once.”
“Wren—“
“You and Bree are basically the only family I have in this city,” she said. “I don’t have anyone else here. Please Gav.”
I nodded. “Okay, okay, you can move closer, yes, of course. But right now your safety is what matters.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked. “Maybe you should ask Bree first. I don’t want to cause any problems between you two.”
“There’s nothing to ask,” I said. “I’ll talk to her about it, but I already know she’ll be fine with it. She’d want you somewhere safe, same as I do.”
“I just don’t want her thinking I’m intruding on anything.”
“You’re not intruding on anything. Right now the only thing that matters is getting you somewhere safe. We’ll figure out the rest.”
She nodded, still trembling a little, and I pulled her into another hug.
I knew it was Bree’s birthday. I knew how special that night was supposed to be for her, and I knew she was sitting at the theatre waiting for me. The show was almost over by then.
“Let me drop you somewhere for the night,” I said. “A friend’s place, wherever you want. I’ll check on you first thing tomorrow.”
“No,” she said. “No, take me with you, please, Gavin, I don’t want to be alone right now.”
“You’ll be safe at a friend’s, Wren. And I’ll talk to your building security about him too, make sure he can’t just walk back in like that.”
“Please, just take me with you.”
“You’ll be okay. I promise.”
She was quiet for a second, still holding onto my arm. Then something in her seemed to settle. “Okay,” she said. “You can drop me at Frances’s.”
“And I’ll talk to the security office in the morning?—“
“You don’t need to bother with that,” she said, already reaching for her purse by the door. “It’s all the way on the other side of the complex anyway. I’ll handle it myself tomorrow.”
I got back to the show late. It had already ended, and Bree was standing outside waiting for me. But she wasn’t angry. We still had a great dinner that night, and dessert after.
Later, at home, Bree told me about the Janet thing.
About some rumor that Wren had actually cheated on her own husband, gotten a big alimony payout, and dropped some other guy the second the check cleared.
I remember losing it. I actually blamed Bree, told her she was feeding into gossip, and I’d just come from dropping off a woman who was visibly shaking and terrified because her ex had shown up and threatened her.
I talked Bree out of believing her own gut. I didn’t believe a word she said.
And now, standing in this deli, watching Wren chat away happily at the breakfast table like she had no idea there was a single problem in the world between me and Bree, I couldn’t stop the thought that crept in.
Maybe there’s more to this than I let myself think. Has Bree been right this whole time?
“Breakfast burrito for you?” Wren asked, snapping me back into the room.
“Gav?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll just have a bagel and coffee.” I said it to Erica, who’s worked this counter for years now, and she nodded and went to put the order in.
“But you love burritos,” Wren said.
“I don’t want a burrito, Wren.”
“Ooh, somebody’s in a mood today.” Wren laughed. “Watch out, Erica.”
Erica laughed along with her and gave me a compassionate smile.
Bree sat across from me the whole time, giving me her own personal version of a death stare. Then she stood up. “Excuse me. I have to help my dad.”
She headed for the counter.
“Come on, Bree,” Wren called after her.
I got up too, leaving Wren sitting there alone at the table, and walked over to where Bree was standing with her dad.
I got there just in time to hear Melvin say, “Oh. SHE’S Wren?”
Bree was hissing at him, low and quiet. “Dad, you heard the whole thing last night. Who did you think she was?”
“I thought she was just some friend,” Melvin said, and he actually looked guilty about it.
“It’s not your fault,” I said to Melvin.
“No, it is not,” Melvin said. “It’s all your fault. Now take your lady friend and get out.”
He reached under the counter and pulled out a Sharpie.
I knew exactly what was about to happen. “No, Melvin. Come on. Not the list.”
He walked over to the corkboard hanging behind the register and wrote my name across it in thick, bold letters.
“There you go,” he said. “Anyone who makes my daughter cry ends up on there. And don’t even think you’re getting off it.”
“Dad, come on, you’re overreacting,” Bree said.
Honestly, even Bree thought putting my name on that board was an overkill, and thank god for that, because putting my name on that list was the biggest punishment Melvin could have given me.
Nobody in this whole town wanted their name on Melvin Schneider’s Banned List. It was a list of people who were permanently, officially cut off from ever getting a scoop of Melvin’s sourdough rye starter, the one he’d kept alive for decades.
That batch of bacteria was older than Bree herself.
He was always saying he’d share it only with a handful of people, someday, once he finally retired, and the names on that board were the people who had officially lost that chance forever.
Not that I was dying to bake my first batch of Melvin’s famous sourdough, I didn’t even know the beginnings of how to go about that.
But I still wanted to be the one of the handful of people who Marvin would share his family’s legacy with, even if it was just a dollop of bacteria laden flour.
And now I had forever lost my chances of laying my hands on it.
My name was officially up there. Right at the top. Above some guy named Joe Kowalski, who I’d never even met.
“It’s not an over-reaction. It’s perfectly reasonable,” Melvin said. “That’s what happens when you break my daughter’s heart.” He reached up and ripped a poster of me, in my Redcoats jersey, clean off the wall behind the counter. “And today, you also lost your biggest cheerleader.”
I stood there feeling like somebody had knocked the wind out of me.
Wren walked up to the counter, looked at Melvin like she couldn’t care less about what the conversation was about. “Let’s go, Gav. You’re going to be late for drills.”
I was angry, and it came out before I could stop it. “Why did you even come here, Wren?”
“I came to take you back,” she said, real sweet, “so you don’t miss any of your professional commitments, Gav. Someone has to think about that.”
“You don’t need to think about that for him,” Bree said. “He’s not a baby.”
“Wren, just leave,” I said.
“Oh, and I almost forgot,” Wren said, ignoring both of us, her whole face lighting up.
“I’ve got good news for you two. Remember you said I could look at moving closer to you guys?
” She paused, grinning. “The house right across the street from you just came available for lease. And guess who’s moving into your neighborhood? ”
She pointed both thumbs at herself.
“Me!”
And that was the moment when everything, all of it, finally clicked into place for me.