A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime(53)

I wait for her to walk by me, to ignore me as she usually does, which would be fucking infuriating, but she surprises me by coming to stop directly in front of us, ignoring the mocking looks Ez, Malcolm and Natalie are all sending her.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” she asks, her sweet voice washing over me. She briefly glances in the direction of my friends, who appear ready to burst at her appearance, the idiots. “Privately?”

“Sure.” I push away from the wall and follow her as we enter the building, the cackling of my friends following after us.

Fuckers.

She finds a darkened classroom with an unlocked door and slips inside, and I walk in after her, closing the door behind me. It’s a room that wasn’t used this semester and there’s only a couple of desks inside, along with a podium sitting directly in front of the whiteboards. It’s quiet. Private.

No one should bother us in here.

Wren doesn’t stop walking until she’s in the farthest corner away from the door and only then does she turn around and face me.

“I’m sorry—”

I cut her off with my mouth, kissing her hard. Punishing her for not talking to me for the rest of the weekend. Ignoring me like I didn’t exist. Who the fuck does this girl think she is?

A whimper leaves her and she tries to shove at my chest, but I soften my attack, not just for her, but also for myself.

Because damn, she tastes good. And when I feel her slowly melt against me, her hands tugging on the lapels of my jacket as if she wants to get me closer, I know she feels the same. I press her against the wall as I continue drinking from her lips, sliding my tongue against hers, again and again, hoping I can wipe away any evidence of the evening she just spent with fucking Larsen for good.

I end the kiss first, pressing my forehead to hers. “I’m mad at you.”

“It was a rough weekend.”

A snort actually leaves me. “I’m sure Larsen occupied all of your time.”

“I barely talked to him.”

“So you did go to dinner at his parents’ house.” The confirmation is painful.

“Of course, I did. I went with my parents. They expected me there.” She makes a choked sound and leans heavily against me. “They’re getting a divorce.”

“Who? Larsen’s parents?” Who gives a shit?

Wren ducks her head, tucking herself against my chest, her hands resting there, right against my heart. “No. Mine. They told me this weekend. It’s a mess. My life is a mess.”

Ah, fuck.

I wrap my arms around her and hold her close, running a hand up and down her back as she softly cries against my shirt. “Birdy, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s—it was such a shock. My mother told me first, and she was so calm. It was weird.” She sniffs and pulls away so she can look up at me. Her eyes are bloodshot and watery, tears tracking down her cheeks. Going on instinct, I slowly wipe them away with my thumb and she closes her eyes, her lips curving into the smallest smile. “I didn’t think they would ever split, but here they are, destroying a twenty-five-year marriage. And there’s so much involved. Money and assets. Too many assets. All that art.”

“Are they splitting it up between them?”

“They’re having an auction, according to my mother. They can’t come to a decision over the collection and she refuses to pay for art she already owns, or at least that’s what she explained to me.” Wren shakes her head. “It’s going to be messy. I don’t know what to do, or how to feel.”

I pull her into me. “You should’ve called me.”

“I didn’t know what to say to you,” she admits. “After—everything that happened Saturday. I didn’t know where we stood.”

Slipping my fingers beneath her chin, I tilt her face so she has to look up at me. “I told you I was your friend.”

“I need a friend right now, Crew,” she whispers. “Badly.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“I—I don’t know yet. Your support? Someone to sit with at lunch?” Her laugh is sad, and it hurts my fucking steel-constructed heart to hear it. “Someone who’ll actually be nice to me?”

“Fuck, Wren.” I kiss her again because she’s so damn sad, but she ends it first, stepping away from me completely. “What’s wrong?”

“We should go to class.” As if on cue, the bell rings with the five-minute warning. “We can’t be late to Fig’s.”

Fucking Fig. I hate that guy.

“Crew…” She takes a step toward me, her expression pleading. “Can we keep what happened between us a—secret?”

“What?” I shake my head. “What exactly are you talking about?”

“I don’t want anyone to think we’re in a…romantic relationship. We can be friendly. People will think it’s a normal progression from working on the project together, right? I’m just not ready to let people know we made out in the back of a car.”

I automatically want to belittle what happened in the back of that car Saturday afternoon. What’s a little make-out session? We’re in high school. Shit like that happens all the time. All sorts of people who go here hooked up over the weekend and are now pretending nothing ever happened. Hell, I’ve done that more than a few times myself.