I want to push her—want Wren to admit that she thought something might happen between us because it always had when we were alone—but I don’t.
I feel guilty about letting her believe my dead sister is a girl I can’t get over. And my mind is now stuck on a loop of all the things wecoulddo when we reach my empty house.
I wonder if Wren is still dating someone. Wonder if he knows she called me while they were out together. Wonder if Wren realized what she did—she was thinking about me, not him, that night. I doubt she called another guy to brag after we fucked. Only unhappy people boast about how happy they are.
Bringing her to my house was supposed to be an altruistic decision. Dumping her off at a hotel, knowing she was upset, didn’t feel right. She had a chance to demand I turn around, and she didn’t take it. She stillhasn’t suggested I take her somewhere else. I think, maybe, that means she’s glimpsed the partial apology this is meant to be. Somehow, it feels like too much and not enough simultaneously.
Wren clears her throat, and I thinkthis is it. Again, my reaction is mixed. Some relief, some disappointment.
But she doesn’t direct me to the nearest four-star hotel. She says, “That sucks, about your parents.”
I nod so she knows I heard her.
What doesn’t suck? The way Wren grasps that I told her that so she knows, not because I wanted to have a conversation about it.
Neither of us says another word the rest of the drive.
17
I’ve pictured what Sawyer’s home looks like an embarrassing number of times. When I imagined him sitting and writing me back, it wasn’t in a house terribly different from this one. The interior is more spacious than the exterior suggested, extra rooms jutting off from the back that aren’t visible from the street. The total silence, the encompassing emptiness, makes the space seem larger too.
I follow Sawyer down a narrow hallway, swallowing all the questions I doubt he’d answer. The house—white walls, worn hardwood floors, small rooms—might be typical to most people not born with the last name Kensington, but I think the quiet would be abnormal to anyone. When I thought about him writing me, I assumed siblings were barging into his room. That his mom was cooking dinner and his dad was in the yard, raking leaves. All those stereotypes I’ve never experienced. Rory is too principled to invade my privacy. Mom cooks occasionally, but our private chef manages most meals. And our penthouse doesn’t have a yard for Dad to maintain, just a private terrace.
Sawyer shoves the door at the end of the hallway open, entering what I’m assuming is his room.
I glance around at the three other doors. Two are closed. One is open, the shadowed outline of a sink and toilet barely visible.
When I walk into his room, Sawyer is yanking the comforter off the mattress.
I drop my bag next to his desk, thethudannouncing my presence.
He says nothing though, until I ask, “What are you doing?”
“Changing the sheets.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, actually meaning it.
Sleeping on someone else’s sheets would normally bother me. But it doesn’t bother me with Sawyer. We’ve had sex. He knows about Third. Lying on the same fabric he has doesn’t seem so intimate by comparison.
“It’s fine. There’s a clean set in the closet. It won’t take long.” He balls up the linens, heads into the hallway, then returns with a folded set.
“Can I help?”
He glances at me. Smirks, and my stomach pitches like the floor is tilting. “Is this your first time?”
My breath keeps getting caught in my chest, making a regular rhythm impossible. “It can’t be that hard to figure out.”
His grin widens while I hunt for a corner. “It is. Damn. Wonder how many times I can take your virginity, Kensington.”
I pause sorting through the sheets so I can flip him off. “Don’t flatter yourself, Bennett.”
“I don’t have to,” he says, rounding the foot of the bed and coming up behind me. I stiffen as he reaches for the pile on the mattress. “You keep doing it for me.”
I scowl, even though he can’t see my expression, watching him quickly find a corner. Our housekeeper, Martha, changes the sheets oncea week. I make my bed every morning—I’m notthatspoiled—but I’m guessing Sawyer will laugh if I say so. And he probably should.
“Once you finish the fitted sheet, the pillowcases go on.” Sawyer narrates his actions, visibly entertained by himself, while I watch with my arms crossed. “Last, the top sheet. Pull it up here, tuck here and here, and then you fold the ends like this.” He demonstrates.
It’s a more complex process than I would have assumed, almost like origami.
