Page 38 of There's Pumpkin About You
WREN
I stare at the open door for what feels like forever. I stand and hope that he’ll come back and I can explain that I never meant it the way he thinks, but at the same time I’m glad that he never walks back in because I know in my heart that it’s exactly how I had meant it at the time.
Gus and I have had our differences since day one, but I know better than to think that his most basic abilities are flawed just because of a neurological difference that is so much less understood than we like to think.
I want to defend my actions, and yet there is nothing to defend. I’m in the wrong and that’s that. And if that doesn’t make my blood run cold.
“He’ll be back.” I jump because I’d forgotten that Bash was even in the room.
I wipe away a stray tear before I turn towards him, my eyes reluctantly ripping away from the door. “I shouldn’t have spoken to him like that.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Bash replies calmly with a shrug of his shoulders. “Especially since he is the sole registered owner of Goldleaf Farm. But when he comes back you’re going to apologize because it’s who you are. You acknowledge when you’re wrong.”
“When will he come back?”
It’s Bash’s turn to stare at the open barn door. “He’ll be back eventually, when he thinks that everyone has gone. He was overstimulated before you even asked him the question, I could see it.”
“I should have noticed.”
“Wren.” Bash grabs my shoulders lightly and turns me towards him. “I’ve grown up with my brother. I’ve barely had a day away from him and so I know the man better than I know myself. I know when he’s struggling and when he’s thriving. I know the difference between overstimulation and just plain old anger. You’ve been here for two weeks. You can’t know everything. People make mistakes. He didn’t want it to be noticed by you because he has this need to be perfectly normal in your eyes.”
My eyebrows flinched. “Why me?”
Bash smiled warmly. “With any guys you dated, did you never get that feeling? That intense need to hide all the things that made you insecure so that he’d see only the best in you?”
“No? I was just myself.”
He looked at the ground as he softly chuckled to himself. His hands slipped from my shoulders. “Then you’ve never been in love.”
ChapterSeventeen
GUS
Iwalk back into my office four hours later when the overdue storm begins to pound against my head. The sun has set and the only sounds around me are the soft bleats of contentment that come from Emilio in the barn, the snorts that sound from Mori and Hector, and Bash’s laughter as it floats from my office.
Wait, what the fuck?
As I step into the cramped space, there’s Wren and Bash sat on chairs, both facing a laptop that I assume belongs to Wren. They have some show on and his light laughs float around the room. She’s snuggled underneath the throw I keep in my bottom drawer for those nights I end up staying well into the night. Mahogany curls cover her shoulders and glint in the soft light of my office as her deep breaths tell me she’s sound asleep.
I seriously need to change the light bulb.
Her boots sit beside the chair she is in, and she looks completely at ease in the small space, as if she belongs in it.
Bash, who is sat next to her, is playing head rest and I find myself forcing an ugly, green creature off of my chest.
“Why isn’t she home?” I ask as I move past them to sit at my desk.
“She insisted on waiting for you.” Bash says quietly, eyes still glued to the screen.
“Why?”
“Why do you think, asshole?”
“I wouldn’t ask why if I already knew the answer, asshole.”
He throws me a look that I think is meant to say, “Don’t pretend to be stupid”. He doesn’t see me flip him the finger. Or he sees it in his peripheral and decides to ignore it.
“Does she not know that there’s a storm starting?”
