Page 56 of Wild Then Wed
“It’s vegan,” I cut in before she can finish. “And gluten free,” I add, like it might sweeten the deal.
Her eyebrow lifts, skeptical. “You just happen to keep vegan hot chocolate lying around your house?”
I chuckle under my breath. “Picked some up in Bozeman last week.”
She doesn’t say anything at first, just stares at the thermos like she’s trying to figure out if I’m messing with her. Or if it really is poisoned.
Slowly, she reaches out and takes it, her fingers brushing mine for half a second before she pulls back.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, voice a little quieter now.
“I know,” I answer, shrugging one shoulder like it’s no big deal.
She tilts her head, studying me the way she studies a nervous horse—careful, patient, trying to figure out what makes me tick.
“Then why did you?”
I blow out a slow breath, watching it hang in the air between us. “I don’t know.”
Wren lets out a soft laugh. “Fair enough.”
She pops the lid on the thermos and takes a cautious sip.
For a second she just blinks, surprised, and then her whole face lights up in a way that’s too real and too damn rare.
“Oh myGod,” she says, looking at me like I just pulled off some kind of miracle. “This isactuallygood!”
I grin without thinking, something easy and stupid pulling at my mouth when she takes another sip, longer this time. For a second, she just stands there grinning like she forgot how much she usually holds back.
And I can’t stop staring.
It’s a small thing. Nothing life-changing. A cup of hot chocolate on a cold morning.
But somehow it feels bigger than it should—watching her standing there with cold hands wrapped tight around something I handed her, as if it’s been a while since someone thought to do something just for her.
And it feels good. God, it feelsreallygood.
Not the big, loud kind of good that demands anything back. The quiet kind.
There’s a part of me that forgot what it feels like to just…likesomeone. Not because they fix you. Not because they make you forget what you lost. But because when you’re standing next to them, the world doesn’t feel as heavy.
And it’s not about how she looks, though it would be easy enough to get stuck there. It’s about the way she doesn’t ask for anything from me. She doesn’t look at me like I’m a problem to solve.
She just lets me be here.
She makes the silence between us feel less like a reminder of everything I’ve lost and more like a place I don’t have to run from.
I’m not stupid. I know better than to want anything from her. But standing here, watching her laugh over something as simple as a cup of hot chocolate, I want it anyway.
I don’t know what the hell to do with any of that. I’m not even sure I’m supposed to do anything at all. But right now, with her smiling like that, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to ruin it. I just want to let it sit between us, warm and fragile, and hope like hell she doesn’t push me away.
Wren shifts on her feet, the smile slipping away like she suddenly remembered why she doesn’t hand them out easily. She stares down into her thermos, then looks back up at me.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about…something,” she says, her voice low, like she’s not sure she wants to say it anymore.
I raise a brow. “Yeah? About what?”
She chews the inside of her cheek, arms crossing tight over her chest. For a second, it looks like she’s about to back out of it altogether.
