Page 155 of Wild Then Wed
“Is it any good?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I mean, yeah. I’ve always liked the classics. But they’re not for everyone.”
I nod, eyes flicking to the snowy road and then back to her again. “What’s your favorite?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Just keeps looking at the page like she’s thinking it over. Then—
“Frankenstein,” she says, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world.
I let out a surprised laugh. “Seriously?”
She finally looks at me, and there’s something quieter behind her smile now. “Yeah. Seriously.”
“Why?”
She rests her head against the window. “Because it’s not really about the monster. It’s about the loneliness. About being stitched together out of all these broken, borrowed pieces and still wanting someone to see you and not turn away.”
Something in my chest shifts at that.
She taps the cover of her book. “Plus, I like a little existential dread with my romance. Keeps things spicy.”
I bark out a laugh and rest my hand on the steering wheel, flexing my fingers around the leather.
Frankenstein. Of course.
Two peas in a pod, her and I. Both walking around with ghosts stitched into our skin.
I know loneliness. Probably better than anyone I’ve ever met. The loneliness that hangs in the air like smoke. That follows youhome and curls up next to you in bed. That watches you brush your teeth and makes everything feel a little too quiet.
After Julia and Violet…everything just went still.
I filled my silence with movement. My runs with Hank. The gym. My practice. Emergency surgeries. The ranch. Babysitting Nora. Anything that gave me a reason to stay out of the house or keep my hands busy. I stopped listening to music. Stopped opening the windows. I couldn’t stand the sound of laughter on TV shows, or watching couples walk around the park holding hands.
The life I thought I was building got bulldozed overnight, and I didn’t know how to rebuild. So I didn’t. I’ve just…maintained, and barely even that.
And Wren—
Wren moves through the world like she’s always preparing to leave. You can see it in the way she holds herself—ready, tense, already halfway gone. She doesn’t wait for people to disappoint her. She walks away before they get the chance.
But there’s something else behind it, something softer. I see it in the way she smiles without letting it reach her eyes, in the way she keeps people close enough to feel familiar but never close enough to stay.
There’s loneliness there. She wouldn’t admit it to just anyone, but it’s there. Maybe I only see it because I know what it looks like—because I feel it too. And she doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to—I know she sees it in me.
But God help me, I want to know her. All of her.
Not just the things she shows people. I want the messy middle. The childhood stories she doesn’t talk about much. The things she mutters when she’s half-asleep. The stuff that makes her cry in the shower.
I want to know what her laugh sounded like when she was ten. What kind of heartbreak made her put up all those fences.What her favorite snack was in middle school. Whether she still likes it now.
I want to know her.
And that scares the shit out of me. Because wanting someone like that means you have something to lose again. And I swore I wouldn’t do that twice.
But then I glance over at her.
Soft red hair spilling out from beneath a faded Wilding Ranch cap, the color of peaches in the middle of July. Freckles scattered across her cheekbones, wild and stubborn, like they just showed up one day and refused to leave. That nose—turned up just enough to make her look perpetually unimpressed, even when she’s not.
And suddenly, there’s this hollow pit in my stomach because I remember exactly the last time I felt like this.
