Chapter 5 Chapter 5

Wren POV

Roan dumps the coffee Deacon made and starts a fresh pot without asking, which is such a specific, familiar kind of bossy that I don't even bother arguing.

"That sweatshirt looks familiar," he says, nodding at the collar as I flip the omelet.

"Might be yours. Might not be. I plead the fifth."

"I left it on your porch, not your closet."

"Finders keepers." I slide the first omelet onto a plate and hand it across the counter. "You can have this one. I'll make another."

He watches me for a second longer than the moment requires, then looks back down at the fresh pot like it's suddenly very interesting. I don't let myself read too much into it. I've been not letting myself read too much into a lot of things lately.

We sit across from each other at the table, the same spot we've sat a hundred times, except lately it doesn't feel like the same spot. He waits until I'm seated before he picks up his fork, which is such an old-fashioned, unconscious habit of his that I used to tease him about it in high school and now just find it quietly disarming.

"So. Rough night," I say. "What was that about?"

"Just a mood. Won't make a habit of it."

"A Sasha mood or a work mood?"

"Eat your breakfast."

"Deflecting isn't an answer, Roan." I take a bite, watching him over the rim of my mug. "You know I'll just keep asking."

"You've always been a menace about that."

"You've always let me." I set the mug down. "I'm serious, though. You've been weird for weeks. Weirder than usual."

He doesn't answer right away, turning his fork over like it's got something important written on it. "Just got a lot on my mind. Shop stuff. Life stuff. Nothing you need to worry about."

"I'm twenty-four, not twelve. I can handle 'life stuff.'"

"I know how old you are." It comes out quieter than the rest of the conversation, and something in his jaw tightens like he heard himself say it and didn't love the sound of it.

I let the silence sit for a second instead of filling it, which is not something I'm naturally good at, but I've learned that with Roan, sometimes the quiet does more work than pushing does.

"Can I ask you something?" I finally say.

"You're going to decide whether I say yes or not."

"Why do you always end things before they get anywhere real? Sasha. The one before her. All of it." I keep my eyes on my plate, mostly so I don't have to watch his face while I say it. "You're not a bad guy. You're not hard to be around. So what is it?"

He's quiet long enough that I look up, half expecting him to have shut the conversation down the way he usually does. He hasn't. He's just choosing the words like they cost him something.

"Because none of them were people I was scared of losing," he says finally. "And the second it starts feeling like something I could actually lose, I get out before it can happen to me."

"That's not really an answer. That's just a very depressing mission statement."

That gets a short laugh out of him, more air than sound. "Fair."

"You know that's not sustainable, right? Eventually something's going to matter enough that leaving doesn't feel like an option."

"Yeah." He says it low, looking at me like the sentence means something specific he's not going to finish out loud. "I'm aware."

I don't push further, because some part of me is afraid of what happens if I am afraid of naming the thing that's been sitting in the room with us for weeks now, ever since that night on the porch swing, ever since I caught myself wanting him to lean in instead of pulling back. I think he's afraid of it too. I think that's half of why he keeps finding reasons to leave rooms right when they get quiet enough to matter.

"For what it's worth," I say instead, keeping my voice light because it's the only way I can get the sentence out at all, "I don't think you're as hard to want as you think you are."

His eyes come up to mine and hold there, and for a second the kitchen goes very still, coffee pot gurgling behind him, morning light doing something unfair to the gray in his eyes.

"Wren." My name, just that, low and careful, like a warning he's giving himself as much as me.

"I know," I say, before he has to finish it. "I'm not I know."

I don't know, actually. I don't know anything except that I'm not sorry I said it, and that whatever's sitting between us at this table isn't going away just because neither of us is brave enough yet to pick it up.

He clears his throat and pushes back from the table, plate in hand, the moment folding itself carefully back into something safer. "I've got a ten o'clock at the shop."

"Okay."

"Thanks for breakfast." He pauses at the sink, back to me, shoulders set in that way that means he's working hard at something. "Wren."

"Yeah?"

"You're not wrong. About the wanting part." He doesn't turn around when he says it. "That's kind of the problem."

Then he's gone, boots on the porch steps, engine turning over in the driveway a minute later, and I sit at the table with two cold omelets and the loud, undeniable knowledge that we just crossed a line neither of us is going to be able to un-cross.