Page 189 of Wild Then Wed
“You didn’t have to walk my dog before I woke up, but you did.”
She nudges her knee against mine. “Yeah, but that was selfish. I wanted him all to myself.”
I smirk. “Figured. He likes you better than me now, anyway.”
She looks smug about that, which is fair. We fall quiet for a second, eating. Her thigh presses lightly into mine. Then she says, “You snore.”
I glance over at her. “I do not.”
I do.
Julia used to say the same thing—claimed it sounded like a tractor starting up in my chest—but I’ll die before I give Wren the satisfaction of knowing she’s right when it comes to this.
“You do. Not like chainsaw snoring, but like…tiny bear snoring.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
She takes another bite, grinning. “It means I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep.”
“Oh yeah?” I reach for my glass. “That’s rich coming from the human burrito who stole every last inch of the blanket last night.”
“I didnot.”
“You did. Rolled yourself up like you were prepping for hibernation or some shit.”
She laughs, shaking her head as she chews. “I left yousome.”
I shoot her a look. “You left me the top sheet.”
Her hand rests on my thigh as she takes another bite. “I’ll be more generous next time.”
I smile around a bite of food, but the words stick with me.Next time.She says it so casually, like it’s just something totoss into a conversation. But my chest goes all stupid and soft because the truth is, I want there to be a next time.
I really hope there’s a next time.
And a thousand after that.
Chapter 32
WREN
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I mutter, half to Lark, half to the graveyard of makeup tubes and compacts spread across the bathroom counter.
My phone’s propped up against the mirror with a water glass, tilted just enough for Lark to see the full disaster zone. Bronzer, mascara, some mystery stick labeled “illuminator.”
“I mean, I’m not even sure what half of this is. Why does Sage own seventeen different brushes that all look the same?”
“Wren, you’re being dramatic,” Lark says, sipping something out of a mason jar. Her hair is in a thick messy ponytail, and she already has that dewy, glowy pregnancy skin thing going like she just casually wakes up looking like a Glossier ad. “You’re gonna look amazing, babe.”
“I can count on one hand how many times I’ve worn makeup in mylife. And every single one of those times? You or Sage did it for me. Even Mom can manage a better smoky eye than I ever could, and she used to call mascara ‘the devil’s wand.’”
Lark snorts. “That tracks.”
The hotel bathroom is too clean, too sterile, too echo-y. I feel like an imposter standing here barefoot in nothing but Sawyer’s old college T-shirt hanging halfway down my thighs while I try tofigure out which bottle goes on my face. He took Hank for a run and left me with two hours and zero instructions for how to look like I belong at a black tie gala.
The panic is setting in.
And then, without warning, the screen on Lark’s end jolts sideways.
