Chapter 32
WREN
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I mutter, half to Lark, half to the graveyard of makeup tubes and compacts spread across the bathroom counter.
My phone’s propped up against the mirror with a water glass, tilted just enough for Lark to see the full disaster zone. Bronzer, mascara, some mystery stick labeled “illuminator.”
“I mean, I’m not even sure what half of this is. Why does Sage own seventeen different brushes that all look the same?”
“Wren, you’re being dramatic,” Lark says, sipping something out of a mason jar. Her hair is in a thick messy ponytail, and she already has that dewy, glowy pregnancy skin thing going like she just casually wakes up looking like a Glossier ad. “You’re gonna look amazing, babe.”
“I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worn makeup in my life . And every single one of those times? You or Sage did it for me. Even Mom can manage a better smoky eye than I ever could, and she used to call mascara ‘the devil’s wand.’”
Lark snorts. “That tracks.”
The hotel bathroom is too clean, too sterile, too echo-y.
I feel like an imposter standing here barefoot in nothing but Sawyer’s old college T-shirt hanging halfway down my thighs while I try to figure out which bottle goes on my face.
He took Hank for a run and left me with two hours and zero instructions for how to look like I belong at a black tie gala.
The panic is setting in.
And then, without warning, the screen on Lark’s end jolts sideways.
“Lainey— hey! ” Lark’s voice echoes through the speaker. “Elaine Alice Wilding! Give me back my phone!”
Suddenly, I’m looking at a very up-close gap-toothed grin and a halo of blonde curls.
“Wrenny!” Lainey squeals, holding the phone way too close to her face.
“Hi, Lainey girl,” I say, laughing in spite of myself. “I don’t think you’re supposed to have your mom’s phone right now.”
There’s a pause, the unmistakable beat of mischief, and then she glances over her shoulder like she’s about to rob a bank.
“Uh oh,” she says, and takes off running.
The camera starts bouncing wildly—walls, ceiling, and some poor houseplant shaking in the camera as she runs.
In the background, I can hear Lark calling out, “Lainey! I swear to god if you break another phone—”
A second later, a pair of big arms swoop into view and Lainey lets out a giggle as she’s lifted mid-sprint.
Boone appears, holding the phone. “Sorry about that, sis.”
I shake my head, laughing. “Don’t apologize. She’s the cutest.”
“Oh, she is,” he says, glancing down at the squirming toddler in his arms. “And a whole lot of trouble.”
“I trouble,” Lainey says proudly, pointing at herself, her curls bouncing as she wiggles.
Boone chuckles and kisses her cheek. “Don’t forget it, kiddo.” He hands the phone back to Lark, who’s slightly out of breath.
I lean my elbows on the counter, looking at her through the screen. “You okay over there?”
Lark exhales. “Oh, just raising an exhausting, chaotic human being. You know. A normal Saturday night over here.”
I glance back at the makeup. “Well, at least one of us knows what they’re doing.”
“You’ve got this,” she says, settling back into frame. “Now, first step: find the concealer.”
I squint at the cluttered counter. “Which one is the concealer again?”
She sighs again. “Shit, we are so screwed.”
“Shit!”
The word comes shrieked from somewhere off-screen, tiny and boyish and way too clear for a toddler.
Lark’s eyes widen. “Jack!” she yells, already stepping out of frame. Her pregnant belly flashes across the screen as she goes, followed by the sound of something clattering in the background and Boone’s laugh rumbling through it all.
“I knew he learned that from you,” he calls. “You’ve been saying he got it from me!”
“Shut up, Boone!” Lark hollers, and I laugh, pressing my hand to my mouth.
Their house is always like this—voices overlapping, toys scattered, somebody yelling from another room. And yet it’s never felt like too much. Not when I’m watching them from the outside like this. It’s kind of comforting, actually. Loud in a good way.
Lark has always felt like an older sister to me.
Her dad, Harvey, was a ranch hand at Wilding Ranch and a single dad at that, which meant Lark spent most of her days with the rest of us while he worked.
She was only a couple years older than me, but it felt like a lifetime back then—old enough to saddle a horse by herself, braid a bridle out of baling twine, and keep a pack of Wilding kids in line without so much as raising her voice.
She used to rope me into every ranch adventure when we were little—bareback riding with no reins, sneaking sugar cubes from the tack room, building makeshift jumps for ponies that definitely weren’t jumpers. She always made me feel like I belonged. Like being quiet didn’t mean I had nothing to say.
When she finally reappears on screen, she’s holding something pink and spongy and egg-shaped between her fingers. “Sorry. Boone thinks it’s funny when Jack says stuff like that. It’s not.”
I smile. “Honestly, it made my whole day.”
She holds up the sponge. “Do you see anything like this in Sage’s makeup bag? It’s called a beauty blender.”
I peer into the makeup bag like it might bite me. “Hell,” I mutter under my breath. “Did she pack everything she owns?”
Sage’s makeup bag is less of a bag and more of a soft-sided duffel. I unzip it and it opens like a blooming flower—concealer sticks and eyeshadow palettes and ten different things labeled “glow.” Everything smells like coconut.
“I see, like, four sponges,” I say, holding one up between two fingers. “Is this the one?”
“Yep. That’s your girl.”
I stare at it for a second. “Okay…now what?”
“Go wet it,” she says. “Just run it under the sink and squeeze it out. Then we’ll start with concealer.”
I sigh and glance at the clock. A little over an hour and a half until we have to be downstairs. I have no idea how I’m supposed to go from this to gala-ready. But Lark’s waiting, her face steady in the frame, like she’s got all the faith in the world that I can pull it off.
For the next forty minutes, she walks me through everything like she’s coaching me through a bomb defusal. Only instead of wires, it’s palettes. Instead of pliers, a tiny damp sponge.
“Dab, Wren. Don’t drag,” she says when I start smearing something called bronzer into my cheek like it’s face paint.
I groan and do it again. “This feels like art class in fourth grade.”
“Yeah, well, maybe if you didn’t skip every homecoming your junior and senior year, you’d know all of this already.”
I flip her off, and she grins.
But slowly—somehow—it starts to come together.
Concealer under my eyes and on my forehead.
A bit of bronzer along the edges of my face.
Highlighter—even though I’m still not sure why—is on the tops of my cheeks and the bridge of my nose.
She walks me through a basic eyeshadow routine that doesn’t make me look like I got punched in the face, and when I swipe on mascara, even I have to admit my eyes look… a little nice.
“Your lashes are too long for your own good,” Lark mutters, filing her nails.
I blink at her. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you’re ungrateful and I’m jealous,” she says as she makes me curl them.
I’m lining my lips with a color that looks like the inside of a plum when I catch Lark’s reflection in the mirror, one eyebrow arched. “You must really like Sawyer.”
I flick my gaze toward her on the screen. “Why are you saying that?”
She scoffs. “Wren. Come on. When have you ever voluntarily gotten this dressed up for anything?”
“It’s a gala,” I say, reaching for the lipstick to blend out the liner. “I can’t exactly go looking like a rabid animal.”
“You couldn’t look like a rabid animal on your worst day.”
“Sure,” I mumble, not sure what else to say to that.
“It’s true,” she says, a little softer this time. “I just wish you saw what the rest of us see. You’re so damn pretty, Wren. And don’t even get me started on your freckles—I’d kill for freckles like yours.”
I laugh under my breath, glancing at my reflection as I finish pressing my lips together. “Freckles just make me look twelve.”
“They make you look like sunshine.”
I shake my head, smiling despite myself.
“And your face,” she adds, already ramping back up, “is stupidly symmetrical. Like, it’s rude how symmetrical it is. You were genetically engineered to be hot.”
I arch a brow. “Thank you?”
She grins. “You’re welcome.”
I glance back at my reflection, and for a second, I let myself actually look. Not critically. Not like I’m searching for something to fix. And I realize, she’s not entirely wrong. I do look good. Better than good. Still me, just a little bolder. A little more certain in my own skin.
“So you do like him?” Lark presses.
I don’t answer right away. Mostly because I can feel the heat climbing up my neck, and I know she can see it. Which is annoying. Because it’s not like I haven’t already admitted it to myself or him. Of course I like him. Honestly, I don’t know how anyone couldn’t.
He looks like a blonde Clark Kent—square jaw, broad shoulders, eyes that make me forget how to talk.
But it’s everything else that gets me. It’s the way he remembers things.
Small things. Like the kind of food I can eat, or how I didn’t eat enough this morning, or that I like tea better than coffee.
He doesn’t just listen—he hears me. And he doesn’t do it for points or recognition.
He does it because that’s who he is. Because he gives a shit.
He’s thoughtful in this quiet, intentional way. Always doing little things that make me feel seen and taken care of without ever making it feel like I owe him anything for it. He pays attention without putting pressure on me to perform or explain or apologize for the way I move through the world.