Page 65 of Wild Then Wed
The smell of cinnamon rolls burning in the oven because we got too busy arguing over whether the lights on the Christmas tree were lopsided. She swore they were perfect. I swore the whole tree was tilting, but she just rolled her eyes and told me to let it be.
Her sitting cross-legged on the couch, balancing a bowl of popcorn on her pregnant belly and tossing pieces at me whenever I said something she didn’t like. The way she’d crinkle her nose when she missed.
The porch light flickering when I stepped out to grab more firewood, the cold biting at my skin, the sky so clear it almost hurt to look at. The world was still so damn beautiful. We never asked ourselves if we’d run out of time.
It’s been almost five years since that Christmas Eve. Since the worst night of my life.
Since the moment everything I had been building cracked wide open, split down the middle, and collapsed in on itself.
And still, here I am. Breathing. Moving. Existing.
Some days, that feels like a betrayal. Some days, it feels like the only thing I know how to do anymore.
I turn my face into the pillow, the cotton damp and cold against my skin.
Nobody tells you how quiet it gets. How the world keeps moving, and the grief slips under your skin like a second bloodstream, and most days you don’t even realize you’re carrying it until you’re already drowning in it again.
There was a time I thought I’d never laugh again. Never want anything again. Never wake up and not wish I hadn’t.
But somehow, without meaning to, I keep waking up. I keep wanting. In small ways at first.
A dog.
A job that mattered.
And now this—this crazy, reckless thing Wren and I agreed to—it’s another crack of light against the dark.
I don’t really know why I agreed to it. Maybe because it’s temporary, and temporary things feel safer. Maybe because it’s fake. Wren won’t be my wife. Not really. Just like I won’t be her husband. We’ll pass each other when we have to. Share a kitchen, a roof, the occasional word, but otherwise, keep living our own lives.
Separate, clean, uncomplicated.
And maybe that’s the reason I said yes—because even pretending is still more than what I’ve had.
Because the life I’m living now, the one where I move from day to day like I’m stuck in some endless loop, the one where I work and run and fix things and stay too busy to feel anything—it’s not much of a life at all.
Most days, it’s just survival. Going through the motions, counting the hours, waiting for the noise in my head to quiet down enough that I can call it a day and do it all over again tomorrow.
And maybe I’m tired of that.
Maybe I’m tired of coming home to a house that feels more like a museum than a place a person lives in. Tired of the way silence sits on my chest until it’s hard to breathe. Tired of pretending I don’t notice how empty everything feels.
The idea of someone else being here—someone like Wren—even if it’s just pretend, even if it’s just for a little while—it’s a comfort I didn’t realize I missed until now.
And if it has to be someone, I’m not disappointed it’s her. Not even close.
I’m not blind. Wren’s beautiful. That long red hair she never seems to bother with unless it’s falling in her face while she’s working. Those blue eyes that look like winter—sharp, clear, endless. The lean frame of someone who’s spent more hours in a saddle than anywhere else. The long legs. The freckles dusting across her nose and cheeks like the universe tried to map something there just for me.
I never gave a damn about freckles before. Now I can’t look at hers without wanting to count every single one.
But it’s not just how she looks. It’s Wren herself. I don’t know her well, and I’m not pretending I do.
But what I know, I like. I like that she doesn’t waste words, that she says exactly what’s on her mind. I like that Hank took one look at her and decided she was his person, too. I like the way she threw herself between a terrified horse and two grown men swinging a whip, as if fear wasn’t even part of the equation.
There’s something about that—about the sort of loyalty that runs so deep you don’t stop to think it through. You just move. You just protect.
The way she shows up for the people she loves—the way she’s willing to stand here in front of me and suggest something as insane as marriage, just to keep her family whole—that’s not something you see every day.
And if I’m being honest, if I’m stripping it down to the bare bones, there’s a part of me that trusts that already.
