Chapter 6 #3
It’s been four years, ten months, and seven days since I lost my wife. Since my world split open. Since I became a man defined by his loss—the young widower, the grieving father-to-be. People look at me and they see what’s missing before they really see me.
But Wren? Wren looks at me like I’m just a guy in her way. Like my tragedy isn’t the most interesting thing about me. There’s something startling about that. Liberating, maybe.
There’s a particular way she holds herself—shoulders squared like she’s bracing for impact, arms folded tight across her ribs like she’s physically keeping her heart contained. I know this posture intimately. I’ve spent years perfecting it myself.
She looks at people with her chin slightly lifted, eyes carefully blank.
It’s not arrogance. It’s the look of someone who’s decided it’s safer to be misunderstood than truly seen.
I recognize it because I’ve worn that expression in every mirror since Julia died.
These are the tells of someone who’s learned to disappear while remaining perfectly visible.
We’re more alike than different, Wren and I. Both of us have built fortresses around ourselves, stone by painful stone. The only difference is the materials we’ve used. Where I chose silence, she chose sarcasm. Where I disappeared into my grief, she’s made herself unapproachable.
But here’s what no one tells you about fortresses: after a while, you forget which side of the walls you’re supposed to be on. The defenses meant to protect you become the bars that cage you. And one day you wake up realizing you’re not keeping the pain out—you’re just keeping yourself in.
Snow swirls around us as we step into the parking lot, flakes catching in Wren’s hair like tiny, glittering stars. She leads me to a sunshine-yellow VW Bug parked crookedly between the lines, the color so obnoxiously bright it looks like a fucking bumblebee stuck in a snowstorm.
I stop dead. “This… this is your car?”
She turns, snowflakes catching in her dark lashes. “What’s wrong with my car?”
I shrug, fighting a grin. “Nothing. It’s just…cheery. Like its owner.”
Her glare could freeze hell over. “Right. Because I’m just so cheery.”
“I mean, you said it. Not me.”
Her mouth tightens, but I catch the faintest twitch at the corner. Another almost-smile. “It gets me where I need to go.”
“Yeah? Where’s that? To kindergarten class?”
She exhales sharply through her nose—not quite a laugh, but close. “Fuck off, Sawyer.”
I grin and haul the feed bag toward the trunk. The thing barely fits, wedged awkwardly behind a folded tarp and what looks like a pair of muddy riding boots.
“Thanks,” she mutters, crossing her arms. “For being somewhat of a gentleman.”
“Somewhat?” I press a hand to my chest like she’s wounded me. “I carried fifty pounds of your horse’s breakfast, didn’t drop it, and kept you from biting the dust. I’m basically a knight in shining armor.”
She slams the trunk shut. “Should I swoon now or later?”
“Now’s good.”
She rolls her eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t stick. “When are you coming back to work with the new horse?” I ask.
“Bright and early tomorrow.”
She lifts a hand against the falling snow, but not before a few flakes catch on her mouth—those lips that shouldn’t fascinate me as much as they do.
Full and soft-looking, the kind of lips that make a man think about things he shouldn’t.
They’re slick, the pink of them almost too sweet against the sharp edges of her.
Like finding a rose growing wild in a briar patch.
A snowflake melts against the curve of her bottom lip, and for one second, I wonder what it would be like if I leaned in and caught it with my own, tasting the winter and whatever strawberry-sweet balm she’s used.
The thought hits me like a stray spark to dry grass. Dangerous. Reckless.
Then she’s lowering her hand, fixing me with that unimpressed glare of hers, and the moment snaps like a twig underfoot.
Shit.
I drag my gaze back up to her eyes, clearing my throat. “Right. Guess I’ll see you then.”
She gives me a sarcastic little salute. “Oh, joy. Can’t wait.”
I watch as she slides into the car, the engine coughing to life. The Bug fishtails slightly as she pulls out, and I don’t move until the yellow disappears into the gray.
That’s when it hits me.
Four years. Ten months. Seven days.
That’s how long it’s been since I noticed a woman’s lips. Really noticed them—the shape of them, the way they move when she talks, the way their chapstick smells.
I didn’t just notice Wren’s, though. I imagined catching that snowflake with my own mouth. Not that I’d actually do it, but the thought flickered through my mind before I could stop it.
That’s what tightens my chest as I stand here in the parking lot, snow melting in my hair, sliding down my neck. Not guilt, exactly. More like shock at my own capacity to notice at all.
For nearly five years, that part of me has been dormant. Buried with Julia. I’d convinced myself it was gone forever.
Turns out, it was just sleeping. And today, for one fleeting second, it woke up.
And Christ, if that doesn’t scare the shit out of me.