Page 20 of There's Pumpkin About You
“You’re sure?”
He nods once even though there’s no point. Finn Southwick never lies. He softens the truth, sure, but he never tells a lie. I know for a fact he’s just given me the least amount of time to soften the blow.
“And to get it done by when I’d need?”
He looks around the open space. “I don’t see it happening, Wrennie.”
My lip finds its way between my teeth as Adam’s words from our breakup float back into my head:Maybe events just isn’t your calling, Wren. Have you ever thought of that?
The tears threaten to spill. I was on the right track. Things were going so well. I was finally getting my chance to improve on the business and now it turns out that Adam might have been right this entire time. He told me when I quit my job that it wasn’t worth the risk, that I was putting his future in jeopardy not just mine, and I didn’t listen. At the time I was just so annoyed that he didn’t believe in me that I felt more determined than ever to pursue it.
What a naive woman I’ve turned out to be.
I can feel eyes on me and my shame shines darker. I turn away from both men, my face hot and my chest tight. There’s no thinking clearly, no logic that can calm my anxiety. There is only this feeling of unending doom, as if every decision was riding on this, and now that it’s out of the window everything else is too.
“Wren?”
I hate it. I hate that he softens his voice even though he never has for me before now. I hate that there is sympathy in his tone. I hate that there is an unexplained reason as to why he says my name—just my name—and my chest does lighten fractionally. I hate that we dislike one another immensely and yet he still affects me in a way I have never experienced before.
A hand places itself on my shoulder and its warmth spreads to my skin even through my jacket, jumper andt-shirt.
“You good?” Gus asks and it’s too much.
“I need some air,” I say in a rushed voice as I move towards the door, thankful for the fact that he lets me.
* * *
GUS
I stood frozen when she left, staring after her, unsure of what to do next. I’m not sure if I was waiting for her to come back or simply trying to wrap my mind around what had happened, but it had kept me rooted to the spot.
Finn had to explain to me that Wren was overwhelmed and had walked out because she needed the space to calm down and think things through. When he spoke about her, every word had been laced with a mixture of protectiveness and pride. Bash spoke the same way whenever he was defending me and so it was easy to interpret it for what it was.
It was strange knowing that what Wren had experienced was her feeling such an understated emotion. When she feels, it always looks so complex, you would never think it could be something so ordinary, because she isn’t ordinary.
Now, here I am, sitting in my office chair, eyes focused on nothing at all, thinking about how her feelings in that moment are something I feel more than I care to admit, and yet seeing it on someone else is somehow such an alien experience. I can’t see any similarities between us that would show her experience to mirror mine and yet there she’d been, right in front of me, feeling exactly that.
Maybe it’s that knowledge that made me do what I did next. Maybe it’s the way that up until now, I still can’t seem to get the image of her on the verge of tears out of my head, or how I watched her run off into the morning cold. Either way, whatever the hell it was has made me feverish with a need to right the wrongs even though I’m not sure any wrongs have been committed.
ChapterNine
WREN
“Morning, newbie,” Jamie greets as I step into the café with a scarf covering half of my face.
I shimmy it down until it’s around my neck. “Will there ever be a morning where I’m no longer ‘newbie’?”
Jamie shrugs, his flashy yellow glasses falling further down his nose. “I usually change it to their name after the first week, but I’m not sure if I’ll stop with you. It suits you too much.”
I laugh as I pull out my purse. Jamie really is on track to be the first friend I’ve made here. I’ve spent so much time having Oakleigh as my only friend, forever depending on her to fill in the empty time slots that surround my life, especially before and after Adam. It’s wrong, I know, and it’s a terrible thing to want, but I love her so much and she, along with my brother and my parents have been the only constants I’ve ever known.
It feels nice to now have at the very least the possibility of one more person filling in the gaps surrounding my life.
Even though my latest setback with Oakleigh’s party has me feeling like a failure already, I still decided to come back to Eaglewood, hoping that a change of scenery and a long walk along the lake will aid me in finding a new venue. I never expected to see so much potential when I saw the barn, so who knows? Maybe I will get lucky a second time?
“Oh, I wanted to call you to ask something, but I obviously didn’t know your number.”
“Oh, my gosh!” I hastily scribble my number onto a napkin and hand it over to him.
