“Thank you for encouraging him,” Nika said. She looked around. “We wanted to thank Dr. Trafford, too, but we haven’t seen him yet.”
And they wouldn’t, because he was winging his way across the world. Wren planted her feet and waited for the surge of pain. Yep, there it was.Lovely.
“Please pass on our thanks,” added Nika.
That wouldn’t happen, but Wren wasn’t about to explain that he hadn’t loved—or even liked—her enough to stick around.
“When are you going to London, Wren?” Colt asked. God, she’d forgotten all about her job offer for that British-based brand.
She’d decided not to go—it required mental bandwidth she didn’t currently possess—but she didn’t want to get into it now. “I don’t know, Colt. I’ll have time to think about my future now that this is over.”
After thanking Colt’s mom and briefly hugging Colt, Wren walked away, praying for a moment of peace. She knew that people wanted to congratulate her, but she just needed five minutes. A half hour alone. The rest of the night. The urge to run off was a constant, unceasing urge. But Luna would kill her…
If she couldn’t make like smoke and disappear, then she needed a cocktail. Or several.
Wren saw a brightly colored food truck advertising cocktails—The Boozy Broomstick, cool name!—and made a beeline for it. She’d just stepped into the line when she heard a very familiar, very unwelcoming voice.
“Baby Bird.”
Wren stiffened, and every muscle in her body contracted. There was only one person in the world who called her that, only one man who rolled his words like that. She closed her eyes and prayed to a goddess, any goddess, that she’d simply misheard, that he wasn’t standing there. But yeah, because this was her shitty life…
“Aren’t you going to greet your old dad, Wren?”
This couldn’t, possibly, be happening. She hadn’t seen her father or spoken to him since she’d turned eighteen, possibly even before that. How was it that he was here? Now?
She turned slowly, her hand flapping at her side. She couldn’t look at Chester until she had something to hang on to, an anchor. She wanted, no, needed Dane. But her hand only found air. Dane was gone, and her dad was back.
In what universe was that fair?
Then she felt a hand slip into hers, and she turned her head to see Poppy’s sympathetic face, her small, encouraging smile. Poppy squeezed her fingers, a silent,I’ve got you. And air finally,finally,made it into her lungs.
Holding on to Poppy’s hand, she licked her dry lips and looked at her father. He looked a little older, but not much. A little bigger, but not much. He still wore the same shit-eating grin, the sameaw-shucksexpression. He stepped forward to, maybe, hug her or kiss her cheek, but Wren stepped back and held up her hand.
“Chester,” she said, her voice croaky. “I didnotexpect you to be here.”
“I only live in the town over,” he said and lifted a big shoulder. She hadnotknown that. Sheshould’veknown that. “I don’t often come to H-Town, I left it a long time ago.” He’d also left her, but that didn’t seem to register. It never had. “But this is a big deal, and everyone is here, so I thought I’d check it out. Saw your name on the program a few weeks back. Thought I’d say hi.”
Something he hadn’t bothered to do in nearly twenty years. Why now? “What do you want, Chester?” Money? A place to stay? A kidney? It had to be something…
“It’s nice to see you, Baby Bird.”
When she was younger—much younger—she’d thought that him calling her that meant that he loved her enough to give her a special name. She now knew that it was just his way of softening her up, manipulation at its finest. But a part of her, the child and teenager she’d been, desperate for recognition, wanted to melt.
The rest of her wanted to scream.
“Why are you here?” Wren asked, genuinely confused. “You haven’t bothered to call me for years.”
“Lost your number.”
Yeah, because losing numbers is what good parents do. “Luna has been in the same house for decades,” Wren pointed out. “You could’ve called her, asked where I was, and gotten my number.” She squeezed Poppy’s hand, looking for courage.
He shrugged away her comment, and fury surged through her. He did not just get to dismiss her like she was nothing. Not anymore.
“I was wondering?—”
No, she wasn’t going to let him finish his sentence, wasn’t going to allow him to ask. He’d lost that right decades ago. “Don’t. Don’t wonder, Chester. Whatever you want, it’s a no from me.”
He handed her that charming,I can’t help itgrin that was supposed to make her fall at his feet in a gooey puddle. “Wren?—”
