“Oh yeah? What, you need a babysitter coming up soon?” I tease.
Yet the sadness that clouds her eyes makes me regret saying it.
I realize Wren is standing behind Andi and gesturing back and forth at her neck as if to signal me to shut my trap, but I catch the motion too late.
I’ve clearly fucked up.
“Shit, Andi, I’m sorry—”
The elevator opens, and Andi gives me a solemn smile as we exit.
“No, it’s fine,” she says fast. “It’s fine. It’s… It’s fine.”
We pause at Wren’s door as she fiddles with the lock, feeling like shit that I brought up Andi and Mads trying for kids. They’ve been having such a rough go of it…Fuck.
“I just think it would be fun having you around,” Andi goes on like she’s trying to forget I ever said anything. “Not to mention safer. You wouldn’t have bodyguards trying to coordinate who to follow.”
“There it is,” I sigh, knowing they’re all concerned about my stalker.
Wren opens the door as Andi goes on, but I barely hear her upon entering their place. I love the smell of their apartment—petrichor and jasmine. A discarded, halfway-finished puzzle sits on their long dining room table. Overgrown plants spill out of pots in random corners, climbing vines and even a couple of small trees sit on their balcony.
“I love that you love plants,” I hear Andi say. “It always smells like rain here.”
I chuckle at the boards Wren and Reed have on their fridge—a plant schedule, cleaning chart, magnets that say whether the laundry is wet or dry, or if it needs folding or putting in, one on the dishwasher that says clean/dirty…
It’s fucking cute.
It might seem like excess to some, but when executive function barely allows you to get out of bed on some days and a shower feels like a chore, I get it.
I tap the laundry magnets. “Do these actually help you?” I ask Wren, genuinely curious.
Wren hesitates as if she’s deciding whether to lie or not. But I know she’s working hard on her unmasking, on how long she lied to herself about how well she was actually functioning, and the walls she had to put up to appear “normal” and in control, not to mention to push people away for fear of getting them killed because of her own mafia stalker.
“Ah… I would say nine times out of ten, yes,” she answers. “We still get behind some, though.”
“Washing day,” Andi says, leaning against the couch.
I furrow my brows. “What’s that?”
“When they get behind, they take a ‘washing day,’” Andi says, smiling at Wren. “Can’t even come over for dinner on those days.”
“Wash days are exhausting,” Wren says as she grabs a large travel cup from the cabinet. “We end up reorganizing the closets every time—actually, no, I reorganize while Reed finds several other things to organize, and then we both end up at like ninety percent done on all projects that we then have to force ourselves to finish before we can eat—”
“Or use the bathroom,” Andi interjects.
Wren twists her mouth as if she’s deciding whether to glare or not. “It’s a reward, okay?” she eventually replies.
Andi smiles fondly at her, then at me. “Mads likes to leave dinner in front of their door because he knows by the time either of them remembers they haven’t eaten all day, they’re on the verge of meltdowns.”
“And I don’t think we’ve thanked you enough times for realizing that,” Wren says, scooping a vitamin powder into her water.
“That’s so adorable,” I say, beaming. “So, if I’m your neighbor, you’ll bring me food, too?”
“All the time,” Andi replies.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I take it out to read the messages on the screen as Andi asks Wren about her upcoming travels.
UNKNOWN
