Chapter 2 Chapter 2

Wren POV

My pocket buzzes and I pull out my phone.

Mari: Tyler texted me asking if you're mad at him. Are you mad at him?

Me: No. I just don't care enough to be mad.

Mari: That's somehow worse for him honestly

Me: Good.

Mari: Come to Priya's thing tonight. Deacon's doing the bonfire. You've been a hermit for two weeks.

Me: I'm not really in a going-out mood.

Mari: It's not going out, it's going twenty feet from your own kitchen. Come on. I'll be there.

Me: I'll think about it.

Mari: That's a no from you and we both know it. Fine. Love you. Call me tomorrow.

Me: Love you too.

Mari's been my person since the second week of freshman year, when we got assigned as roommates and discovered within about six hours that we were both allergic to small talk and fine with silence, which turned out to be a better foundation for a friendship than either of us expected. She's the only person who's ever managed to call me out without making me feel small about it, and I've learned to trust that when she says something's off, it usually is.

I have zero interest right now in performing "fine" at a party for people who'll ask how the job hunt's going and mean well and still make my chest go tight. I've gotten good these last few weeks at figuring out exactly how long I can be around people before I need to disappear.

The nap I fell into after texting Mari lasted longer than I meant it to music and laughter drifting up from the yard eventually pulled me out of it, four hours later than planned. I'm a little surprised Deacon didn't come knock when he got back from the shop, but I guess even my brother's learned to leave a closed door alone these days.

I sit up and check my phone. One more message, from an hour ago.

Tyler: hey you good? that was weird earlier

Me: I'm fine. It's fine.

Tyler: ok. talk later?

I don't answer that one. I'm not sure there's a version of "later" that involves us talking about anything that matters, and I'd rather not manufacture one just to be polite.

I lace up my sneakers and head down through the kitchen, out the back door to the yard. The sun's down, the whole place lit up in strings of patio lights and the orange wash of the fire pit, a scatter of people from the shop and a few of Deacon's regulars from the bar milling around the deck. It's smaller than the parties this house used to host back when our parents ran it quieter, more careful, like the whole yard learned to breathe differently after everything but it still has that same pull, the sense of a place built for people to land in.

I find Deacon at the grill, tongs in hand, doing his best impression of a man who has never once burned a burger in his life. He has.

"Hey, you hungry?" he asks when he clocks me.

"Maybe later."

"There's salad if you want something now." He tips his head toward the folding table loaded with bowls.

"I'm okay. Not really hungry yet."

He studies me a beat too long, the older-brother radar doing its slow scan. "You good?"

"I'm fine." I lean in and bump my shoulder against his. "Just tired. Long week."

He lets it go, mostly, pushing a hand back through his hair. "You rode with that guy on his bike today."

Of course Roan told him. "It was four blocks, Deacon."

"Roan mentioned it." A grin tugs at one side of his mouth. "He also mentioned the guy's driving like he learned from a video game."

"He's dramatic."

"He's not wrong, though." Deacon flips a burger with more focus than the task requires. "Stay off the bikes unless it's one of ours. That's all I'm asking."

Ours. Like the garage, the crew, the whole extended family of people who circled this house after our parents died and never fully left. I'm twenty-four and somehow still get filed under things that need protecting, and most days I let it slide because I understand where it comes from. Deacon was twenty-one when he became the only adult either of us had left. Some habits don't wear off just because I grew up.

"Okay. I'll stick to your bikes," I say, because it costs me nothing and it makes something on his shoulders easier.

He gives me the smile that's only ever really been mine and Priya's soft in a way the rest of the world doesn't get to see from him, all the polish stripped off. My brother is, by every objective measure, a genuinely good-looking man, all easy charm and the kind of face that gets him free drinks he never asks for. It's never once gone to his head. I think losing our parents that young burned the vanity out of him early.

I fill a plate with fruit to make him happy and scan the yard until I spot Roan sitting alone at the edge of the fire pit, elbows on his knees, staring into the flames like they owe him an explanation. I cross the grass, detouring past the cooler for a beer, where one of the regular mechanics from the shop, Deshawn, has parked himself in a lawn chair like he's on official guard duty.

"Hey, Deshawn."

He tips his bottle at me. "Castellan."

"You babysitting the cooler?"

"Somebody's gotta." He eyes the beer in my hand. "That's not for you, right? I know how old you are."

"It's for Roan."

"Ah." A slow grin. "If you're delivering drinks now, I'll take a burger. Medium. Extra cheese."

"Not a chance."

He laughs and lets me go, and I carry the bottle across the yard toward the one person here who never once needed telling twice to slow down and actually see me which is exactly the problem.