“Stay here,” he whispered. “Keep Blu safe. It’s not safe for you two where I’m going.”
Yellow eyes blinked slowly before Sable lowered his head and walked back upstairs slowly, turning back to look at Wren once before he disappeared from view.
Wren followed the others as they piled into the car in a fog of surface pleasantries. Trace and Saint maintained the conversation while Wren brooded in the back seat, the spacebetween Teddy and him insurmountable even though it was a single seat.
In the darkness he could hear every breath and shift against the leather, could feel the way Teddy’s eyes always landed on him—brief, as if hoping not to get caught but unable to stay away for long.
“You look gorgeous,” Teddy mumbled under his breath.
It was almost too soft to catch under the music that was playing, but Wren’s ears were tuned in to Teddy’s entire existence.
The pain he felt in his chest was almost equal to his euphoria at hearing the words.
He was gorgeous and Saint was beautiful.
One was whispered for no one to hear while the other was declared loudly for the world.
Wren dug his fingers into the seat.
“I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable.”
Wren closed his eyes against the genuine care and sincerity in his voice. “I don’t.”
It wasn’t the clothes that were choking him. It was the uncertainty. The distance. The assumptions that were running rampant through his mind.
“My shirt looks good on you,” Teddy said, and Wren looked down at the thin black shirt Eerie had shoved him into. There was a raised leaf pattern on it and the rest was semi-sheer, giving the illusion of skin without fully showing it.
Wren tried to picture it wrapped around Teddy, clinging to the contours of his body. This new body that Wren hadn’t mapped out with hands, teeth, and tongue.
“Teddy,” Wren said, voice pained and quiet so they wouldn’t be heard.
“After this…we should talk. There’s still a lot to say,” Teddy murmured.
Wren glanced over at him finally, trying to read the answers to all his unspoken questions in his face.
Teddy’s features softened into pained concern, his hand slipping across the middle seat as if he sensed Wren’s turmoil. Wren held his gaze as he uncoiled his fingers from their white-knuckled grip and reached back, desperate for that old stabilizing force.
“Showtime,” Trace said, pulling up on the side of the road with a bump at the curb.
Teddy looked forward and the moment was broken before they could make contact.
Bereft, but with no other choice, Wren exited the car.
Chapter 13
Wren
The moment they stepped into the club, Wren wanted to run. The thump of the bass made him want to crawl into a hole and never come out again. He didn’t mind the darkness—in fact, it was the only thing about the club he thought he could tolerate—but it was sliced by strobing lights in every color imaginable and Wren felt a headache building instantly.
The air smelled of humidity and a mixture of every perfume known to humanity. It was suffocating. But the worst of all were the undulating bodies on the dance floor and at the three long bars spread around the room.
There were so many people. So much touching and pushing and shoving he wanted to scream. And the only safe space, the only comfort wasn’t his to take anymore.
Teddy was standing next to Wren, leaning against the sticky bar with a glass in his hand. But his eyes were glued to the gallery of the club.
A set of spiraling staircases led up to it, roped off and protected by several bouncers. Trace, having pulled some strings, was acting as one for the night.
There were only a handful of tables up there, and a separate bar so it was easy to tell who Teddy was looking at.
