“The disappointment he looked at me with and the change that happened when he spotted you were biblical. I was actually scared Mr. Law and Order was going to keep him in cuffs, lock you up, and turn you both in to Nexus for your eye contact alone.”
Teddy clenched his jaw again even as panic cold as ice crackled through his entire being. “They can’t lock us up for looking at each other.”
“No…but that’s not all this is, is it?”
Teddy didn’t answer, looking back out the window.
“Look…” Saint sighed. “All I want is for you to be happy. But maybe it’s a good thing that he decided to stay back? Less risk. Less complicated.”
“Sure. Less risk. Less complicated,” Teddy murmured with no feeling.
They drove home in uncomfortable silence, Teddy acutely aware of the tail they had, and would continue having until he was finally locked inside their house. Away from the world.
Teddy knew Saint was only looking out for him, but he could never understand. Was he right? Absolutely. But something being right didn’t mean it wasn’t still wrong. Teddy and Wren being apart was wrong. A tear in the universe. A thread unwoven that was never supposed to be missed.
Yet…Nexus deemed their relationship impossible. Taboo. Forbidden. They had torn them apart. Unwoven their threads mercilessly. The consequences people whispered about weren’t just rumors—Teddy knew them to be true. It had been impressed upon him that they had gotten off lightly.
So where did that leave them? They’d found each other again, but could they be together even if they found themselves in the same place?
He closed his eyes, already knowing the answer.
They reached home soon enough, pulling up to the gate.
“A car and trailer are parked down the street illegally. Old Dennis is going to get his panties in a twist. ‘How unsightly,’” Saint mimicked in their neighbor’s voice.
Teddy simply hummed, not bothering to look over.
They parked and got out, Teddy following Saint to the door and letting him unlock it.
“I’m heading straight to bed,” Teddy said, cutting Saint off before he could say anything else. “I’ll be fine. I’m just tired.”
He didn’t wait for a reply, just headed straight up the stairs, feeling Saint’s worried gaze on his back. He only allowed himself to sigh once he was out of sight, pausing in the middle of the hallway and looking up at the ceiling before trudging on to his room.
He entered silently, kicking off his shoes and navigating around without needing to turn the light on.
He felt a breeze and realized he had left the window open by accident, tripping over something on his way to close it. He bent down and grabbed the object, realizing that it was a shoe he didn’t recognize. Dirty, with frayed laces that looked to have been chewed on.
His heart began to pick up speed the longer he stared at it, not daring to hope but hoping anyway. He looked at the window, suddenly feeling breathless when he caught sight of the broken lock.
A thousand memories flitted through his mind. The image of an angular face that still had the roundness of childhood stubbornly clinging to it peering over the edge, bright blue eyes with his beautiful mark beckoning him on.
“Hey! Over here!” he said with a grin. “You just going to stare all day and get caught?”
Teddy spun around, chasing the memory and the feeling, not needing to look anywhere else when there, in a tiny, vulnerable lump on his bed, was Wren.
He dropped the shoe with a dull thud.
Teddy wanted to sob with joy. To collapse at the universe’s kindness.
His little bird had found his way home.
He shouldn’t have been thinking in those terms, but it was impossible not to. Not to give in to the tide of emotion washing him under.
Approaching the bed, he realized Wren wasn’t alone, there were a pair of yellow eyes glinting at him from the darkness and daring him to make a wrong move. Teddy didn’t begrudge the creature—he was glad that he was there to protect Wren.
He kept his movements slow as he crouched in front of his own bed, tilting his head to put them eye level. And then his vision was filled with Wren’s beautiful, slumbering face. Plush, pouting lips parted on soft, deep breaths, forehead smoothed out of any worries. Long lashes touched his dirt-stained cheeks, and his cursemark gave him an ethereal glow under stray strands of hair.
He had a doll-like beauty mixed with a uniqueness that Teddy had dedicated novels to, unable to capture an ounce of its brilliance, devoting his life to remembering and documenting every detail like a scholar.
