“All the people we’ve protected have had space. Been allowed out. Shown up here. Raven and Fen, Ember, Quinn, Greer, Lucy. Wren is struggling with anxiety or some shit, and we’re forcing them to stay inside. And when I try to fix that, by bringing them here, the safest fucking place I know, I get shit on from a great height.”
Atom moves out of my space and leans against the opposite wall. “Fine. I’m the club sergeant at arms. Safety is part of my role. Plus, I own most of the land around here. Let’s make a proposal, to move Wren. You can stay in Dad’s old place. It’s got the benefit of being far enough from the clubhouse for privacy but benefitting from the proximity. And the renovations are nearly done.”
Atom’s family has owned this ranch for over a hundred years. It’s rare that Atom talks about his father, a traitor to the clubwho was excommunicated. But the house he lived in on the property has been undergoing refurbishment.
“Don’t you want to move in there?” I ask.
Atom shakes his head. “Nope. I’m going to move into Gramps’s place, eventually. Too many memories attached to my father’s place. Plus, I like the life Em and I have in our current home on the property. Feels like I get to leave work in the evening and go home to my old lady.”
I wonder what the non-binary version of husband and wife is. Partner seems so boring. Husband and wife is something reverent. Something I think is important. Spouse would work but feels…less. I also don’t know what the non-binary equivalent of old lady is either.
Pretty sure Wren might take issue with something so…possessional.
“Let’s go talk to Grudge,” I say. “We can make a plan to move Wren here this afternoon and?—”
“Catfish.” I hear my name before the door is fully open. Greer steps out into the hallway. “I’ll be back to check on Wren in a few hours, but they’d like you to go talk to them.”
The door closes shut. “What do they need? Anything?”
Greer shakes her head. “What I suggest they need is a month-long holiday, on a beach, with sea air and no organized crime. But I think some peace and quiet without everyone all living in the bakery and a release of pressure from whatever you all have them working on. Maybe their security can be outside wherever they live. And as I’ll tell Grudge on the way out, if they want to ride on a fucking horse, let them.”
“Thanks for seeing them,” I say, squeezing Greer’s shoulder. “How much do I owe you?”
Greer places her hand over mine. “No charge. But the first time Butcher’s sick this winter and I have no security for thenight clinic, I’ll call you and you’ll say yes to helping me, and we’ll be even.”
I smile. “It’s a deal.”
Greer walks down the hallway as Atom slaps my back. “Let me go talk to Grudge. You got other things to deal with.”
I glance to the door.
“You’d rather go in there, wouldn’t you?”
I don’t know how to answer that. It’s too complicated to get my head around. But Wren asked to talk to me, and that makes it the most important thing I have to do right now.
“Listen,” Atom says. “You’ve been my best friend a long fucking time. And you knew about me and Ember long before anyone else did.” Ember is Butcher, our former president’s daughter. And for a while, the two of them hid their relationship from him. “I’ll keep your secrets if you need to talk.”
But I’m not ready. It’s too soon in whatever this is between Wren and me, if there evenissomething. I glance down the hallway and then back to the door to my room.
“Tough, isn’t it?” Atom asks.
“What?”
“Deciding if it’s worth it when you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
“What do you—?” But Atom’s headed down the corridor before I can finish asking him what he means.
When I push the door open, there’s a stirring rightness in my belly at the sight of Wren in my hoodie in my bed.
“Don’t even try to be nice to me right now,” Wren mutters when I step inside and close the door behind me. “It might be more than I can handle.”
I smile at that and move to sit on the edge of the bed. “I promise not to.”
“What happened, when I passed out?”
“You mean, after you decided I needed protecting against a man literally twice your size?”
Wren places a hand over their forehead and closes their eyes. “I didn’t want him to hit you.”
