Chapter 28
WREN
I lay staring up at Emmie and Grace’s ceiling that night, feeling a mixture of worry over Max, who I still hadn’t heard from, and anger at him for how he’d treated me. I thought I’d had him, all of him. But as it turned out, he’d been holding himself back this entire time, and that hurt a whole hell of a lot worse than anything he’d said in anger. There was part of him I’d never touched, a piece of him that he held back from everyone, including me. Was that love?
When Emmie appeared with a cozy blanket in tow, I watched her mutely as she walked into the kitchen, grabbed something from the refrigerator, and sat on the couch, moving my legs into her lap. She produced a pint of ice cream and two spoons.
“Who needs dinner when we can have ice cream?” She shot me a warm smile before her expression grew pensive. “Have you heard from him?”
I shook my head. “I know it’s only been a few hours, but he’s never done anything like this before. Part of me is worried, and the other is so freaking mad at him I can’t even think straight.”
She nodded. “He deserves it. He shouldn’t have left the way he did.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, feeling like a heel for not asking sooner. “With Janelle being out?” Both Max and Emmie seemed to prefer to refer to their birth mother by name, so I followed their lead.
She shrugged, swallowing a bite of ice cream. “Yeah. I really am. I was younger than Max. I don’t even really remember her. Jill has always been my mom as far as I’m concerned. And what negative memories I would have had, Max always protected me from.”
“He’s a good big brother,” I murmured.
“The very best.”
“He’s never talked about her with me.”
“He’s never talked about it with anyone that I know of.” She handed over the ice cream. “I don’t know how much he’s really thought about it. Max can be hard to read. One thing I do know for sure,” she continued firmly, “is that my brother loves you.”
It was the first time I’d doubted it, and just when I needed to believe it the most.
When a knock sounded on the front door, we both turned in surprise. X was posted out front, so whoever it was didn’t pose a threat.
Emmie rose and headed for the door. “What are you two doing here?” she asked Gunner and Cash as they stepped into the room.
“We wanted to check on Wren,” Cash returned, his blue eyes landing on me.
I bit back a smile, my heart warming at the knowledge that these guys weren’t just Max’s friends anymore. They were mine too.
“I’m okay,” I assured them just as I noticed Gunner’s jacket was wriggling.
“Do you have a dancing tumor we need to know about?” Emmie asked with a raised brow.
Gunner unzipped his jacket, revealing the cutest little piglet I’d ever seen. “My mom doesn’t just breed Mastiffs. She breeds mini pigs too. This little girl is the runt of the litter. Ma’s been bottle feeding her. I thought maybe… well, I thought she might cheer you up.” He shrugged, looking mildly uncomfortable.
“Hell yes, she will,” Emmie spoke for me, squealing with delight as Gunner handed her the piglet. “Oh my God, she’s so cute,” she crooned as she brought her over and placed her in my lap.
“I can take her back. I just thought….” Gunner trailed off.
“No.” I smiled despite myself. “This is perfect. You’re better at this than you think,” I assured him.
I swore he blushed a bit at that.
“Yeah,” Emmie agreed quietly. “You are.”
The two of them shared a look that had Cash and me exchanging a raised brow in response before he waded in. “You guys got any beer? Ice cream ain’t gonna cut it judging from the mood in this room.”
“It’s Ben and Jerry’s, it’ll cut it,” Em assured him. “But yeah, we have beer.”
A key sounded in the lock a moment before Grace walked in. “What’s everyone doing?” she asked in confusion. “Is that a piglet? Or did I just have a really long day at work?”
I laughed. “Gunner and Cash are taking a shot at being therapists and brought a piglet and are now apparently opening beer,” I informed her.
She sat down next to me, reaching for the pint as though bikers, ice cream, and a piglet were a perfectly normal combination. “Cherry Garcia, my favorite.”
****
Where are you?
The text from Max came in close to midnight as I lay on the couch trying in vain to sleep. Cash and Gunner had left an hour ago, leaving the piglet I’d named Rosie with me. Emmie and Grace had gone to their rooms after I’d outright refused to take either of their beds.
It wasn’t like I expected to get much sleep anyway.
I looked at his text, the mixture of relief that he was okay and anger at his tone a bewildering combination.
When my phone started to ring a moment later, I silenced it, anger winning out. He didn’t get to talk to me the way he had and run off and then demand where I was.
“Seriously, Rosie, do yourself a favor and steer clear of cavemen, or… pigs,” I whispered to the sleeping piglet in my lap. I’d fallen so in love with her, I wasn’t sure what I’d do when it was time to give her back.
When he called again and again, I turned the damn thing off.
I flopped back down onto the couch, careful not to disrupt Rosie, and tried to fall asleep.
Emmie and Gracie both appeared in the hallway, looking adorably sleepy. “Uh, Max has called me approximately one million times,” Emmie shared dryly.
“I’m going on something close to that,” Grace added.
“Shit. Sorry, guys,” I muttered. “I didn’t really want to talk to him tonight, but since he’s calling you—” I was cut off by a hard rap at the front door.
Gracie raised a brow. “Guess you won’t have to bother with your phone.”
“I can talk to him if you want,” Em volunteered.
“No, that’s okay.” I sighed, rising with Rosie in one hand. “I don’t want to put you in the middle of this. Or more than you already are,” I added.
“Good luck, girl.” Gracie offered a thumbs-up before heading back to her room.
“He has his faults, but he loves you,” Emmie murmured. She was rooting for her brother, and how could I blame her? “Night, Wren.”
“Night, Em,” I replied just as another knock, louder this time, sounded on the front door.
“Coming,” I muttered.
I opened it, finding Max looking infuriatingly gorgeous on the other side. I expected him to explode at me for ignoring his calls. Instead, his gaze was full of remorse. “I’m sorry.”
I stared at him in shock. I’d been prepared for a fight, but his heartfelt apology had me off balance.
He leaned on the doorframe, the muscles flexing in his arms. “I got a few hours out of town,” he began solemnly. “At first, I couldn’t think, couldn’t feel,” he admitted with an uncharacteristic openness I didn’t dare suppress. “Then I could feel fucking everything. I shouldn’t have left like that, shouldn’t have said the things I did.” He raked a hand over his overly long hair. “I’ve been fucked up over it all night. I swore I’d never hurt you, and I know I did, and…” His brow creased with near comical confusion as he looked at Rosie. “Is that a pig?”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Gunner brought her over.”
His eyes returned to mine. “I’m sorry, Wren.”
“I know you are. But it doesn’t change anything, Max. Everyone accepts that you’re a closed book, that you keep to yourself, that you don’t share much. Your brothers, Emmie, even your parents. But not me. I can’t.” I shook my head. “If I can’t have all of you, then I can’t have any of you.”
“You have all of me,” he argued passionately.
I blinked back tears. “Do I?”
“What do I need to do here, Wren?”
I eyed him through tears, at a loss for words.
A look of determination crossed over his face. “You’re my girl, Wren.”
“I know it’s not like you to open up. I know you don’t want to talk about it, and if I thought you didn’t need to, I’d let it lie. But today only proved that there’s no way in hell you can go through what you did and keep it buried. If you don’t want to talk to me, find someone you can talk to, because until you get all that out, until you do right by that little boy who had the weight of the world on his shoulders, then you won’t be free to be mine. And, God, I want that, Max—no, I need it. More than anything.”
His nostrils flared. “I am yours. And you damn well better know that you’re mine.”
Exhaustion, both mental and physical, had my shoulders sagging. “I need to get some sleep.”
“Well, get the pig and let’s go,” he replied.
That statement would have been funny under different circumstances.
I wished it could be that simple. “I’m staying here tonight,” I told him firmly. Nothing felt resolved, and yet there was nothing more to say.
His brow pinched, as though determining if he could hoist me and Rosie over his shoulder at the same time.
I put my hand on my waist, my eyes narrowed. “You’ll give this to me, Max.”
His head cocked to the side, assessing the level of challenge. “I’ll give you anything, baby. Except a night away from me.”
“Ugh, you are maddening.” I groaned. “So, let me get this straight. You yell at me, take off on me, and then I don’t get space?”
“Never promised to be perfect, baby.” He stepped closer, and as always, angry or not, I was completely beguiled by him. “But I will swear to love you for the rest of my life.” His word nearly dissolved the last of my resolve. “Now, I’m gonna take you home. You can be pissed at me. I earned that. But you’ll do it next to me.”
I looked at him a moment, gauging how likely I’d be to win if I continued to fight him. The set of his jaw and the determination in his gaze confirmed an inevitable loss.
“I’m taking the pig,” I declared on a sigh.
His mouth quirked. “As long as you’re comin’, I don’t give a shit if you bring a herd of goats home. Let’s hit it.”
Goats were pretty cute.
“One farm animal at a time, baby.” He chuckled when he saw my face. “Let’s go get what you need and head home.”
I followed him inside, still angry, all while knowing that despite his faults, despite what we had to work out, being next to him was right where I was supposed to be.