Page 62 of Wren's Winter

Pulling the ice pack off my cheek, I set it on the bar top. “Thanks for having my back.”

He snorted. “Come on, man. Of course, I would. Besides, Wren would never forgive you if you got sued by that pretty-boy douchebag.”

Jordan walked by again, snapping her fingers and pointing at the ice pack, which I dutifully put back on my cheek.

“Not sure if Wren is going to forgive me in general. I fucked up with her.” Grimacing, I rested my hand on the ice pack, pressing it into my cheek. The surface pain was subsiding into numbness, but my head was pounding.

Frowning at my statement, Tam handed Jordan his credit card to close out the tab. Grabbing his coat and mine, he ushered me out into the night. A few steps into my walk to my car, and he stopped me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Sleep it off in my car.”

Shaking his head, he pointed at his own truck. “Nope, Penny would never forgive me. Get in. You can crash on our couch.”

After the adrenaline had wasted from my body, my muscles were screaming at me. Hobbling from Tam’s truck to his living room, I ignored Penny’s exclamations as I collapsed on their couch, kicking my shoes off and rolling to my side. The floral print velvet couch cocooned me. I sank into the upholstery and tried to fight the headache that was raging at the edge of my brain.

“I brought you a sleeping bag.” Tam held up a large white bag in the air above me.

I waved my hand, and he dropped it on top of me. Fumbling around with the bag, I tried to find the zipper to climb in when Penny walked into the living room, her eyes on the bag.

“What are you doing with my wedding dress?”

“It’s a sleeping bag,” Tam corrected her.

Frowning, Penny stalked over to me, ripping the bag out of my hand and unzipping the front to show us the frothy white monstrosity inside the garment bag. “It’s a wedding dress. This is its garment bag. Not for sleeping in or on.” Her eyes narrowed on me.

My head was throbbing too much to process that I tried to sleep on top of a wedding dress. I lay back down on the couch. My eyes closed, I heard the hushed whispers of Tam and Penny in the kitchen. I caught words like, “fight,” “fuckwit,” and “a man’s got to stick up for himself.” Pain was radiating from my shoulder, up my neck, and back down the other side. As I shifted, the scrapes I had on my legs rubbed painfully against my jeans. I blew out a deep breath and counted down from one hundred until my mind grew blank and then there was darkness.

Minutes or hours later, it was hard to say which. The light was different on my aching eyes. The approaching footsteps had me opening one eye to find Penny standing over me with an ice pack in one hand and a murderous gaze in her eyes. “Hey, princess, glad to see you join us.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty. Because of you, I had to stop watching my Witch Academy show. You owe me. I was about to find out whether Breslin could defeat the Infernal Obscuria and save the town.”

Between the nonsense words and her sharp tone, my head pounded a battle against my skull. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

She settled in a chair across from me, surveying me with a narrowed gaze. “Does it hurt?”

“I’ve had worse.”

She tossed the ice pack down beside me. “You’re such a liar. You look like chopped prosciutto.”

With a groan, I sat up, grabbed the ice pack, and pressed it to my throbbing cheek. “Way to make a guy feel better.”

“Sounds like you deserved it.”

“You should see the other guy.”

Penny rolled her eyes, sitting back in her chair. “What happened?”

“Wren’s ex and I had some words at the bar. I took offense to some things he said.”

“Only him. You didn’t do a thing?”

Dropping the ice pack, I looked across the pink-and-green decorated room at her. “I might have made a few colorful remarks.”

“Why were you even at the bar? Shouldn’t you be at home with Wren, confessing your undying love?”

That was what I should have been doing. Instead, I was here on this rose-patterned velvet couch, miles away from Wren.

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