Callum
Adam was waiting for me outside Good Music.As soon as he laid eyes on me down the block, I stopped walking, and he closed the distance, shouldering me into the brick wall at my back. I had known this confrontation was coming. I’d put it off as long as I could. Seemed my time was up.
“What the hell was that Friday night, and why have you been avoiding my calls all weekend?”
I couldn’t read if he was angry or confused. Quite possibly a mix of both.
Adam and I didn’t fight. We had a twisted symbiotic relationship that required each of us to bare parts of ourselves we didn’t show to anyone else, but we weren’t best friends. We didn’t clash because we didn’t have anything to clash over. There had never been any stakes between us. Adam was laid back about most things, and I avoided attachments and getting in too deep, even with my bandmates.
No stakes. Nothing to fight for.
But Wren? I would fight over her. There was no way he was going to have her. She was too good for either of us. Too sweet and soft to be corrupted by ourhabit.
“I don’t want her with you,” I answered.
Scoffing, he shoved a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I got that message.”
“Then why are we still talkin’ about it?”
His brow furrowed, and his eyes rolled around in his head like he was close to having a seizure. “Are you for fucking real, man? You pulled the girl I’m interested in—”
“Don’t use present tense. Youwereinterested. That’s done.”
He jabbed a finger into my shoulder. “You, asshole, pulled the girl I was very clearly interested in off my lap and had her riding your dick in seconds. You have literally never expressed interest in a girl in front of me, and definitely never this particular girl. I’m gonna need more of an explanation than you’re giving me, because right now, it feels like I’ve walked into an alternate universe.”
Icy wind whipped my hair into my face. I pulled my leather jacket a little tighter around my chest, almost laughing at the memory of Wren being concerned about me only wearing a hoodie and dying an untimely death from the cold.
“I told you, I wanted her.”
He scrubbed his face with both hands and growled in frustration. “I noticed you used past tense.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I wanted her Friday night. I haven’t thought beyond that.”
I very much wanted her still. The question remained whether it was mutual.
His eyes narrowed as he leveled me with an assessing stare. “But if I still want her, then what? I can’t go for it?”
The pit of snakes in my gut writhed in a sickening flurry. I swayed on my feet, and my hands curled into tight fists. If this motherfucker thought for one second he was going to lay a hand on Wren, he was sorely mistaken.
“She’s not for you, Adam.”
Even if I didn’t exist, Wren wouldn’t be for Adam. He meant well. I understood that. But he fell in and out of love at the drop of a hat. At least, his definition of love. From what I had gleaned in my lifetime, deep, real love wasn’t so easy to shake off. But when Adam was done with women, he was like a dog after a bath, tossing them off his back like pesky drops of water in his fur. A girl like Wren deserved a lot better than that.
He took a step back, turning his head to the right to scan the sidewalk. I leaned against the brick, waiting for him to come at me again. He could challenge me all he wanted, I wasn’t backing down.
He turned back to face me, his nostrils flaring. “Tell me what it is aboutthisgirl.”
“Does it matter? I’m not backing down or giving her up to you.”
“It matters. I want to know why the hell you’re acting so out of character, and yeah, I’m gonna need to know what your plans for the girl are. I don’t know her well, but I like her, and I don’t want you fucking her up.”
His accusation was an icy dagger to my chest. He had no reason to believe I would fuck Wren up other than his perception of the kind of person I was. I had never hurt a woman. I had never dumped, cheated, or misused them.He’ddone those things. Not me.
“I would never hurt her.”
That was the truth. Beyond the truth. It was a statement of fact that had been written in the stars. I would hurt myself before I hurt that girl.
“I know.” He heaved a sigh and squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck, I know, man. I’m just so...I don’t know, perplexed by this whole situation, and you’re not giving me anything to go on.”