Anderson laughed, his knuckles finding my chin and tilting it up toward him. “Hey, it’s okay. My mind has been racing, too.”
I let out a relieved breath. “Really?”
“Really,” he confirmed. “I don’t know what we’re doing either, Wren. I don’t. I wish I had all the answers. But, I can tell you this.” He searched my eyes, hand sliding up until his thumb brushed my ear and his fingers cradled my neck. “I’m into you. Last night wasn’t about sex, even though that was incredible. I like talking to you, I like listening to you, and I want to spend more time with you. I know you’re going through your own struggles, and so am I, but I also think we want to be around each other. And for now, that’s enough for me.”
“So you’re coming back tomorrow?”
He smiled. “Eight o’clock on the dot.”
My eyes fluttered closed and I sighed, annoyed at myself but relieved all at once. “I’m sorry,” I said, opening my eyes again to focus on his. “I swear I’m not crazy. I just needed to hear it, I needed to hear that we were on the same page.”
“And are we?”
This time I laughed. “I think so. Everything you said is exactly how I feel, so I guess we’ll just figure the rest out as we go, huh?”
“Sounds like the most logical thing to do.”
He pulled me into him, kissing my forehead sweetly before pulling back again. “Go get some sleep. I promise, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for how you feel.”
I paused at that, because I realized that was exactly what I’d been doing for so long now it almost felt natural.
“Sorry.”
He cocked an eyebrow and I laughed, pecking his lips before skipping down his steps and down the drive.
“See you tomorrow!” I called out behind me, and the rest of the walk home I had an immovable smile in place.
So we didn’t have all the details worked out, did it really matter? We wanted to know more about each other, we wanted to explore—both bodies and minds. The feelings were mutual, and that felt like enough.
Honestly, what was the worst that could happen?
After that, my hands did a lot less work on the house and a lot more work on Wren.
I was still there, damn near every day, fixing the floorboards and mending the stove. I was still chopping firewood, cleaning and curing the hot tub, and even helping her make wooden signs for the pig roast. But she was more of a distraction now, and I was less inclined to resist her.
She’d pass the mornings at her sewing machine, working on my tattered clothes I should have trashed years ago while I dirtied the ones I wore crawling around on her floor. In the afternoons, she’d sketch in her notebook on the front porch while I worked in the yard. We didn’t overanalyze the nights we spent in her bed. We took longer lunches, talking more, working less—and laughing.
We laughed so much.
Wren was goofy, and she always found new ways to make me smile. I loved her energy, her wit, her unapologetic approach to everything in her life. For the first few days, I’d leave her place in a trance, wondering what it was that was coming over me. I smiled all the time, even when I was alone in my own cabin. I sang 90’s songs I hadn’t thought about in two decades. I researched fashion on my phone before I went to sleep so I could have more meaningful conversations with her about her passion. And she was making me think about my passion, too. All of it was so foreign to me that I couldn’t even begin to figure out what I was feeling.
It wasn’t until a full two weeks had passed that I realized it.
I felt alive.
Not alive in the sense that I could breathe, or that I got up out of bed every morning and somehow made it through another day. No, I felt alive—like there was something to live for.
And if I thought we had eyes on us before, it was nothing compared to what we dealt with now.
A few days after the anniversary of Dani’s death, Momma Von had a barbecue at her cabin. When I’d walked in with Wren, it was like a symphony of jaw drops, one falling after the other until they all hung wide open. It was weird, and I mostly kept to myself or talked to Davie or old man Ron. But the more we hung out with the crew, with the people who used to be my best friends, the more comfortable I became. It wasn’t so much a chore anymore. I looked forward to Sundays spent drinking beers by the river or riding our bikes around Alder loop.
Still, my favorite nights were the ones spent with Wren. Nights when we’d lounge by the fire, her head in my lap as she told me about her favorite things in the world or the history of her boutique and the designs she’d brought to life over the years.
I hadn’t realized how big of a deal she was. Hell, the truth was I had absolutely no idea who she was at all. But after talking to her more, I’d asked Momma Von if she’d ever heard of her before. Julie had been over at her cabin and told me all about Wren, about her unique eye, her gift for feminizing women with smaller frames and slight curves. I didn’t know anything about clothes, but I knew this: Wren impressed me.
Sometimes, when the mood was right, we’d open up like we did that first night together. She’d show me a wound on her heart left by the man who last held it, and I’d show her the bruises on mine left from a death seven years old yet still too fresh to scab. Sometimes we fucked, hard and fast, with her pinned against the wall or riding me like she was meant for it—but not on those nights. No, the nights we opened ourselves, those were the nights we touched each other just to feel grounded again, to numb our pain and set it on fire all at once.
I talked, too, on the nights we spent together. I learned over time that I actually had a lot to say. Not just about Dani, though she was frequently brought up in our conversations, but about things I hadn’t thought about in years—like my dreams, my aspirations, the things that made me happy. I was thinking again, wondering, feeling.
It never even occurred to me to stop and ask myself how long that happiness could really last.
“What were your parents like?” Wren asked one night after we’d finished dinner. Her feet were propped up on the coffee table and I held her under one arm, our eyes on the fire slowly burning in front of us. I’d fixed the stove door and a few logs burned much longer now. It was getting hotter, some nights she didn’t even need the fire at all, but tonight it was cool, thanks to the low clouds and rain that had hung around all day.
“Honestly, I don’t really remember,” I answered, searching my memories. “My dad didn’t stay long enough for my umbilical cord to fall off and my mom left me here with Aunt Rose not too long after my fifth birthday.”
I shrugged, not really feeling any kind of emotion toward that fact. I used to, but now it was almost like saying it was raining outside. Just a matter of fact—no more, no less.
“I look a lot like her, I know that,” I continued. “I’ve seen pictures. She has dark hair and the same blue eyes as me. And I’ve heard my irresponsible side comes from my father. Which makes sense, I guess.”
Wren snorted. “Oh, sure. You. Irresponsible.”
“Trust me, before Dani died, I was. I had no regard for the people around me, even if I loved them. I did stupid shit because it was fun. That was about as far as my thought process went—will this be fun? If the answer was yes, then I did it.”