“Irina.”
An elegant woman in her late sixties stands there, slight and upright, silver hair pulled back neatly, eyes sharp behind thin-framed glasses. She takes us in at once—the dirt, the exhaustion, the way we’re holding hands.
Her gaze lingers on me. Calm and assessing. Then she smiles.
“You come,” she says in careful English. “Finally.”
Wren exhales and squeezes my fingers before letting go just long enough to step forward and hug her grandmother, who folds into her easily.
Over Wren’s shoulder, she looks at me again.
“You are…Kieran.” It’s not a question.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nods, satisfied for now, and murmurs something in Romanian too quick, too idiomatic for me to catch a single word.
Wren pulls back, to translate. “Buni says you look strong. And hungry. But…good.”
The older woman adds something else, gesturing at our hands with a dry lift of her brow and a faint curve of her lips.
Wren hesitates, then translates, “She says when a man returns road-worn and refuses to let go of your hand, it means something.”
Finally, Buni steps aside, ushering us in. “Come. You eat.”
Inside, the apartment opens into light and books. Shelves lining every wall, stacked two deep in places. A piano near the window, its lid closed, a thin scarf folded on top. The windows look straight out over the square, the city laid open.
From the far room, the girl I’d seen at Erin’s concert appears, barefoot, sketchbook tucked under her arm, hair pulled into a messy knot. Her cousin Larisa.
“Wren!” she yelps and launches herself forward.
Wren laughs, catches her, the sound of it bright and unguarded. Larisa pulls back and stares at me openly.
“You’re Kieran,” she says. “The hockey player.”
I nod. “Guilty.”
She grins, already bored of me, and goes back to her sketchbook.
Something in my chest settles watching them together. This is Wren’s world, the one she protected, the one I almost destroyed with Isabelle’s fucking bet. The fact that I’m standing in it now, that Buni let me through her door, that Wren brought me here at all...
I don’t deserve this grace. But I’ll spend the rest of my life earning it.
I slide my hand back into hers.
She lets me.
I eat like a man who hasn’t seen a real table in weeks.
Wren sits beside me, close enough that our thighs touch. She doesn’t pull away when my knee shifts. Doesn’t pretend not to notice when my palm settles at the curve of her back while I lean forward for more bread. It feels…allowed. Domestic.
Buni watches without staring.
She speaks in measured English, choosing each word carefully. When one fails her, a line of French slips out instead. She pauses, annoyed with herself, and Wren steps in automatically.
Buni appraises me with a sharp, practical kindness. Thin. Tired. Fixable. She asks where I’m from, what I do, listens harder than she speaks.
I answer slowly. Honestly. I don’t try to impress her. I don’t try to soften the edges either.
