“Oh, come on, girl,” Katie says, rubbing her back. “You have to set more realistic goals.”
I find Cal in the kitchen, working with my dad on the meal, and I fall into step with them. Cal and I are used to playing sous chef to my dad while the girls relax in the living room, and it’s easy to step into the cadence of it now.
“Wren, huh?” Cal asks, his eyes flicking to mine as we stand side-by-side, slicing carrots at a diagonal to be roasted with honey and cinnamon. I finish a carrot and toss it into the mixing bowl, glancing back at my dad to see if he’s listening.
This might be my chance to come clean to Cal. Or, if not to tell him the whole thing is fake, at least make it clear that it’s entirely casual.
But for some reason, I can’t.
“Yeah,” I finally bring myself to say, and Cal lets out a breath with a little laugh at the end like he’s been holding it for years.
“You know,” he says, still laughing and shaking his head, his brown curls bouncing with the movement, “I’m gonna be honest with you, man—Wren Beaumont makes a lot more sense to me than Mandy.”
I bite my tongue, thinking back to the day of my wedding all those years ago.
Sloane clearly had a problem with my bride, but never brought it up. Her and Cal found solace in one another, and then I think of everything that came out of it.
At the time, I was pretty pissed off, until I realized me being mad at them wasn’t going to make them stop being in love. It also helped to talk to my mom, who said she’d always known Sloane was in love with Callum. That she knew Sloane was throwing away her shot with a man who really loved her to make sure she didn’t ruin my relationship with my best friend.
And I realized I didn’t want that, even after all the lying and the other shit Sloane had done.
When we’re done prepping the food and everything’s in the oven, I move over to the drink cart, whipping up one for Wren and carrying it out to her in the living room.
She’s sitting in an armchair, chatting with Sloane and Katie. In her matching striped, green Christmas sweater and leggings, she looks impossibly soft. Something I want to rub against my cheek, like a commercial for bed sheets.
I hand her the drink, and she looks up at me with wide eyes, like it’s the first time in her life someone has brought her something unprompted. It makes me want to find her something else, bring her things like a cat dragging dead birds to her door.
The day goes on in a warm, happy blur. Wren is, somehow, perfect. She’s loud and bright, playing into jokes expertly, and it makes me realize just how much of a strain it was for me to have Mandy at my side before. Always quiet, the weight of conversation on my shoulders.
I took that weight because of what I was asking from her. Because of the contract.
But with Wren, I can relax, laugh along with the others at her jokes.
We eat dinner, and Wren gracefully dodges questions about her past. After, while playing through what feels like every game in the game cabinet, she and I are forced to be on different teams, everyone declaring it’s just not fair to play with us together.
“Luca used to take the dice with him to the bathroom when we were kids,” Katie says, gesturing toward Wren with her eggnog. “To make sure we wouldn’t play without him, wouldn’t cheat.”
“That makes it sound weird,” I protest as Wren laughs. “It wasn’t weird. They actuallydidcheat while I was gone.”
“Of course we did!” Sloane cries, face red from laughing. “We could never beat you—everything wassoserious with Luca.”
Wren finds my hand under the table, squeezing it almost like she’s really my girlfriend, finding a way to show me that even as she makes fun of me with my family, she’s on my side.
And I squeeze hers right back. Maybe it’s method acting.
Later that night, Mom insists that Wren and I take the movie room together. She and I lay on our backs in the dark, side by side and not touching, staring up at the ceiling, the air mattressbeneath us shifting slightly with each breath, each movement. Almost daring us to roll to the center and find one another.
Around us on the walls are movie posters my dad has collected since we were kids. This room still smells like new, rich leather, despite the fact that my parents moved to Milwaukee and bought new furniture almost three years ago.
My hands twitch to reach out and touch her, but I won’t. Every other minute, I open my mouth to say something, then decide not to.
It’s been a long day. She probably just wants to go to sleep. She’s probably already asleep.
Then, just when I’ve convinced myself that she really is asleep, Wren says, so quietly that I almost don’t hear it, “You’re really fucking lucky, Luca.”
Wren
I’m pretty sure Luca’s asleep, so it surprises me when he says, “Oh, yeah?” into the dark right after my stupid, tender declaration.
