Page 9 of Wren's Winter

Yep, my car, the same little dent on the hood from where my younger brother’s basketball hoop fell on it. I even spied the crushed bag of chips on the passenger seat.

“How…” My knowledge of unsticking cars from snowbanks was minimal, but there was no way it would be easy.

Digging my buzzing phone out of my coat pocket, I considered if I even wanted to see the screen, knowing it might be Buck asking for yet another thing. Then I remembered I blocked him the night before.

Answering quickly, I barely got out a hello before my best friend Summer was bellowing in my ear.

“Wren Louise Alexander, what the hell do you think you’re doing, leaving in the middle of the night?”

“That’s not my middle name, and I left town at one in the afternoon yesterday. It’s not my fault you don’t check your phone.”

Summer made a displeased sound on the other end. “So, I’m guessing you didn’t get eaten by a bear or let any other terrible fate befall you.”

“Well…” I cringed. “About that. I may have accidentally—very much not on purpose—put my car into a snowbank after trying to take a turn too quickly.”

“Wren!”

“Shouldn’t you be on a plane? Why are you calling me?”

“My dad is driving me in thirty. I already said goodbye to Cory.” I could picture her in her small apartment, packing her multiple oversized suitcases. She was set to travel to London for a hotelier management internship for some fancy company. “You’re changing the subject. Do I need to rally the troops to rescue you?”

“It’s already been freed. The neighbor across the street pulled it out this morning with his truck.”

Even over the phone and over a hundred miles from my best friend, I could sense the cogs in her mind whirring as she quizzed me on the neighbor.

He seems like he’s in his late twenties.

I don’t know if he’s single.

His name is Adrian Winter.

Yeah, okay, I’ll admit he is extremely attractive.

Content with my answers, I could practically hear the smile on her face as she said, “If he seems okay, you should sleep with him.”

The thought had been playing in a perpetual loop in my head, but to do it was wild. “I barely know the man. Besides, after embarrassing myself twice in front of him, I’m sure the last thing he would want is me throwing myself at him.”

“Men don’t pull a woman’s car out of the ditch unless they want something.”

“Nice men do.”

“Nice men? When have you ever dated a nice man?” Summer asked with humor in her words.

I frowned at the comment. She wasn’t wrong, but jeez.

“Harsh.”

“But true,” she reminded me. “Are you going to sit here now and tell me that Buck was a nice boyfriend? No way. You have a type, and they are not kind men. I get the appeal in theory. A bad boy can be fun, but after the honeymoon wears off, he’s just an asshole.”

“Okay, I get it. I have bad taste.” I wasn’t going to mention that the guy she was dating refused to meet us. Sure, I might have a bad boy or two under my belt, but at least the men I dated would show up.

“Let your bad taste run for one more time and try to find someone to hook up with in that town. It’s by the resort. I bet there’ll be all sorts of hot skiers in the lounge that would take you back to their chalet,” she said chalet with an accent.

The idea of sitting at some resort bar waiting for a pink-cheeked man drunk on ten-dollar IPAs to flirt with me made my stomach roll. Despite what Summer thought, I didn’t set out to find an asshole boyfriend. They found me. And really, it was only two in all my dating history. Three, if you counted the two dates I had with the guy who drove an old Camaro and hung out in the grocery store parking lot—though that guy had the best hair I had ever seen on a man. “Hanging up now. I love you. A bear has not eaten me.”

Before Summer could give me any more unwelcome advice, I shoved my phone in my coat pocket and headed out the door. In the morning light, I could see a pathway between the two houses, from one freshly shoveled set of stairs to the other.

Passing his large white truck, I stood on my tiptoes to peek into the window. Black sunglasses clipped on the sun visor and a travel coffee tumbler in the cupholder. No napkins, no squashed chip bags or crumbled receipts.

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