Page 109 of Wild Then Wed
She shrugs a little. “It makes me feel like a lot when I’m not trying to be.”
I nod slowly. “Yeah. I get that.”
And I do.
Maybe not the exact thing. But the feeling of being too much when you’re just trying to get through the day?
Yeah. That one I know.
I glance over at her, then back at my plate. “There’s this little Parisian place in Bozeman,” I say. “Tucked back off Main. They’ve got a full dairy-free menu—like, actual meals that taste good, not just sad salads and roasted vegetables and shit.”
Wren perks up, eyes narrowing like I just said the magic words. “Like…Paris?”
I nod. “Yeah. Real French stuff. It’s legit. I went once with a friend who’s vegan, and I swear I didn’t even miss the butter. Which is saying something.”
She leans forward a little, her cheesecake forgotten. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.”
I glance at her, surprised. “So why haven’t you?”
She shrugs, fork dragging absently through the edge of the cake. “I’ve just been busy with the horses and stuff. I help a lot around here. Sometimes it’s hard to just…get away.”
I nod. I’ve heard that before—from people with kids, with jobs, with guilt stitched into their skin. And I don’t know if it’s my place to say anything, but I say it anyway.
“Sometimes you’ve gotta make time for yourself,” I tell her, nudging her foot with my elbow. “It’s healthy.”
She snorts softly, like she doesn’t quite believe me but doesn’t fully disagree either.
“You’ve been?” she asks, eyes flicking back to mine. “To Paris?”
“Yeah,” I say. “A couple years ago.”
Her eyes go wide, lashes lifting just a little higher. “Was it as dreamy and beautiful as it looks?”
I think about that for a second. About the fog rolling over the Seine in the morning. The smell of espresso and old paper. The way everything tastes better over there.
“It is,” I say. “The food’s unreal. The buildings are old and tall. You can walk everywhere. And every single waiter makes you feel like you’re mildly inconveniencing them just by existing.”
She laughs, and I can’t help but smile too.
“But it’s beautiful,” I add. “Even with all that.”
She nods, her smile still lingering. Something about her feels softer now. A little undone in the best way.
She’s quiet for a second, then asks, “Why’d you go? To Paris?”
I pause, my fork still in my hand. “A few years ago,” I say, “I just…needed to get the hell out of here. From my job. From Montana. From everything. Escape from everything.”
I don’t add the rest—what I was running from. What I couldn’t outrun in the end.
“I took time off and just…went. Bought a shitty rail pass and figured everything out as I went.” I smile a little. “Paris was thefirst stop. Then Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen. Took a train through Switzerland that nearly made me believe in God again.”
Her eyes stay on me, steady. Listening in a way that most people don’t.
“I spent a week in this town on the Amalfi Coast where no one spoke English and I ate the same pasta every night because it was the only thing I could pronounce.” I laugh, shaking my head. “Met a guy in Prague who swore he’d been mugged by a mime. Pretty sure he just got drunk and lost his wallet, but still. Memorable.”
“That all sounds like a dream,” she says, and her voice has this raw edge to it.
She looks down at her plate, cuts off another bite of cheesecake, and lifts it to her mouth.
