Blu chirped and flew from Wren’s head to the window, drawing Wren’s drowning gaze.
His breath caught in an instant as an unmistakable pair of chocolate eyes locked with his, and Wren felt the inescapablepull, like a lone star that had drifted for too long finally catching its orbit again.
Teddy.
“Wren,” Teddy breathed, with so much emotion it leaked everywhere.
Wren secretly thought that was why he wrote so much. What was inside him couldn’t be contained and needed to spill onto the page before it overwhelmed him.
“Um…you’re blocking the door,” Black said from behind him.
Wren numbly walked a few steps forward, never breaking eye contact. Teddy followed his every move, not blinking either. The room shrank to nothing around them.
Plush, slightly chapped lips parted like Teddy wanted to speak more, but he appeared to stifle the words before they escaped, probably scared Wren might spook and run again. Wren couldn’t be sure. He never knew when it came to Teddy. He was able to pull something visceral from him that no other could.
Teddy blinked, seemingly coming back to himself.
“Wait…are you cuffed?” He didn’t wait for an answer, striding forward to square up to a surprised Cyrus. “Why the hell is he cuffed?”
“Excuse me?” Cyrus said, placing his hands on his hips.
The unfamiliar figure popped up out of his seat, getting between them and looking at Teddy. “Woah there, Prince Charming. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Let’s not lose our cool.” He looked at Cyrus. “Sorry. Hi! I’m Saint, and you already met Damir It was a long trip down and he hasn’t had his milk and cookies yet. He’s usuallyveryagreeable. He would melt your grandma’s panties off and make her pinch his cheek, I swear!”
Cyrus’s frown didn’t change and neither did Teddy’s glare.
“Uncuff him,” Teddy demanded.
Cyrus snorted. “I don’t think that’s your decision, bucko.”
Blu flew over silently, latched on to Cyrus’s belt, and gently and skillfully unclipped his keychain from it while he was distracted. He flew back and landed on Wren’s balled hands, beginning to help Wren test each key.
“It wasn’t a request either,” Teddy said, and Wren caught him frowning as he followed Blu’s movements across the room. Did he remember Blu? Did he recognize him?
“Do you have some authority I don’t know about shoved up your pretty-boy ass?” Cyrus asked while Wren worked on his cuffs.
After some trial and error, the cuffs came loose with aclick.
Wren let them thud to the floor, gaining the room’s attention. Saint’s jaw dropped, Cyrus cursed, and Teddy gave him an unreadable look, a hint of something warm sparkling in those dark orbs.
Wren ignored the urge to curl into that warmth and instead raised his chin, moving toward the corner and settling down on the floor, Sable coming to sit next to him. “They were getting uncomfy.”
“Is this how you do things around here?” Saint asked.
“No!” Cyrus snapped. “It isn’t. Now where are my keys?”
Wren tossed them to the floor at his feet. “Fetch.”
Black was barely smothering his giggles at the disgusted look on Cyrus’s face. Teddy, by comparison, had color high on his cheeks. Was he embarrassed? Impressed? The Teddy he used to know would have been.
Wren despised the fact that he didn’t know anymore.
The letter that was still burning a hole in his pocket told some of the story, but not enough. There was still a chasm of unknowns and missing years between them. Two letters couldn’t fix that.
“So happy we’re all working together this well,” Cyrus said, sarcasm dripping from his tone as he pulled out several beigefolders and spread them across the table. “Great idea to bring you all together.”
“We work well with some direction,” Saint said with a genial smile.
“I think we all need to share what we have and see if any of it makes sense,” Cyrus said.
