Page 8 of Save Us
“I’ve been wanting to chat to you for ages, Ruby,” he says suddenly.
I look uncertainly at him. “Why?”
“Because I was a total dick to you. Back then at that party. I should have apologized a long time ago.” Wren clears his throat and taps on the radio again even though we didn’t turn a corner and the music is playing as tinnily as ever. “I shouldn’t have acted like that. I was stupid and inexperienced. Looking back on it, I’m ashamed of myself. And I’m sorry.”
That’s the last thing I was expecting him to say, and it takes a moment for me to really take in his words. I gulp hard. It sounds like he’s serious, but even so, I’m skeptical. People don’t just change overnight.
“You really upset me by saying what you did at Cyril’s party. It didn’t feelthenlike you were sorry about it,” I say.
“I know. I was…dubious because you turned up at that party with James, and I wanted to find out why. And somehow, I made a total idiot of myself in the process. I’d never do a thing like that again, like the way I acted at that party two years ago. I’ve changed. I hope that I’ll get the chance to prove that to you.”
I frown and stare out of the window. Green trees pass us by, with the occasional house and a few fields.
“In those days, I’d have kissed you stone-cold sober,” I say in the end, looking at Wren. He glances back at me, then looks straight ahead again. “What you did was really out of order. You should have told me that wasn’t just fruit punch.”
“I’m sorry for what I did. Seriously. I know how James feels about you, and that means you matter to me too. I hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me.”
This really isn’t the Wren I know. Whatever is up with him right now, it seems to have made him think about a few things.
“Thank you for the apology,” I say after a while.
He nods briefly, focused on the road.
In the ensuing silence, my thoughts wander automatically to the photos and the fancy “B” on the envelope addressed to Mr. Lexington. I remember James’s face when he admitted having taken the photos.
I trusted him. I believed that I knew his true self. Can I really have been that wrong about him? But why would he want to do that to me? After everything we’ve been through together in the last few months?
The more I think about it, the less the pieces of the puzzle fit together. This whole situation is so surreal. When I woke up this morning, the plan was to discuss our next event with the team, and to do some studying with James in the library. And now? Now, I’m sitting in Wren Fitzgerald’s car because he’s offered me his help.
“Why do you even care whether James and I make up?” I ask him. My tone is more suspicious than I was intending, and I see Wren’s shoulders stiffen. “That came out wrong,” I add hastily. “Ijust thought you were kind of pissed off about him spending time with me.”
Wren flicks on his turn signal, and we turn off onto another country lane. Now it’s no more than ten minutes until we’re at James’s. This time when the music goes off, he leaves it.
“It’s not about you,” he says after a moment. “I just couldn’t understand why James suddenly didn’t care about us, after we’d been friends for over fifteen years.”
“That’s not true. Your friendship is more important to him than anything.”
Wren smiles. “There was a moment when I doubted that. Probably because I had a lot on my own plate at the time.”
I nod thoughtfully.
“And I…” For a moment, Wren is hunting for the right words. “I’ve never seen James the way he’s been in the last few weeks. Most people don’t know it, but he’s been really miserable for ages. His dad’s an arsehole and although he’s never said so in so many words, I know that if he had a choice he’d never work for Beaufort’s. He can’t change all that, but since he met you, he’s been kind of…calmer. More chilled.”
I feel my face flush warm.
“I want him to be happy.” He glances at me. “And you make him happy.”
I’m trying to think of what to say, but Wren hasn’t finished.
“Alistair told me about you being suspended, and then, when I saw you in Gormsey just now, I just wanted to help you both. There’s no ulterior motive. Honest.”
“OK,” I say.
“Plus”—Wren clears his throat—“I kind of get where Jamesis coming from better now. Maybe that has something to do with it.”
I want to ask him what he means by that, but at that moment, we reach the Beauforts’ grounds. Wren winds down his window, and I expect him to press the bell on the side of the gate, where there’s a little camera and a screen showing who’s there. But to my surprise, he slips a keycard from the little wallet on his sun visor and holds it up to a shiny black reader. The gate slowly opens, and we drive toward the house.
My stomach lurches as I clock the limo outside the front door from a long way off.
