“Concerned?”
“He grabbed you, spilled your drink all over you.”
“Thanks.” I sweep a hand down my drenched front. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Raking a hand through his hair in frustration, Ren tugs at the wavy ends. “He could have hurt you.”
I slide my card across the bar toward Joe and stare at Ren. People normally assume that I’m helpless, let alone when a handsy, oversized drunk athlete throws himself my way. Here’s Ren, referencing that physical vulnerability. This is when the usual embarrassment and anger should arrive.
But it doesn’t come.
Because as Ren looks at me, as I process his words, I can’t recall a single moment Ren’s ever acted or spoken like he thinks I can’t take care of myself. He’s never hovered behind me like I’m going to take a tumble. He doesn’t talk to me like I’m an invalid. Saying that Maddox could have hurt me isn’t a reflection on my weakness. It’s an indictment on Matt’s misuse of his strength.
Ren’s eyes lock on mine. My heart pounds against my ribs, and my throat dries up.
It’s too much. I blink away, and when I glance back, Ren’s gaze has finally shifted to my mouth. A jolt of heat sears my lips, slides down my throat, and lands, warm in my belly.
Someone’s hand rests on my back, breaking the moment. I don’t know Willa well enough to read her face, but thankfully she speaks before I’m left wondering any longer. “I was hoping you’d get to use the Elder Wand,” she says. “You okay?”
“You’re not the only one who’s disappointed. That guy’s overdue for a dick smacking.” I thank Joe when he returns my card and receipt, which I sign with a flourish. “But, yeah, I’m okay. Just tired. I should head home.”
Not that I’m sure how that’s happening. Normally, I drive myself everywhere and burn through audiobooks to pass the staggering amount of time I spend in LA traffic. But my car’s “check engine” light was on yesterday, so it's in the shop. Rob drove me to Louie’s and would I’m sure gladly drive me home as well, but he’s still handling Maddox, meaning I have to wait or catch a ride with someone else. I don’t do late-night taxi rides alone.
“Frankie,” Ren says. “Let me drive you.”
I glance up at Ren and commence a Frankie-stare for the books. His eyes are luminous, gray as fog, the kind that blots out your world but for a few feet in front of you, that makes you question what’s up or down. So many times, I’ve had the unsettling feeling I could get just as lost in them.
“Let him drive you,” Willa says. She smiles while threading her arms through her jacket. Ryder steps behind her and helps her get it up over her shoulders, giving her arms an affectionate squeeze as he plants a kiss on top of her head. A small, intimate gesture brimming with so much love, I feel like I just saw something I shouldn’t have.
“I may be a little rusty on my LA geography,” she says, “but Hawthorne’s on the way. We’re staying at Ren’s for the night, and he’s driving us, too. It’ll be a dance party in the new van.”
My attention snaps to Ren. “You bought a van?”
Ren’s cheeks redden, but he stands tall. “Heck, yes, I bought a van. There’s no shame in owning a Honda Odyssey.”
Willa clears her throat and grins, while Ryder’s shoulders shake with what sounds like laughter. He hides it behind a cough into his fist.
I recognize Ren’s posture as signifying defensiveness and immediately feel bad for opening my mouth. This happens sometimes. I ask a question, and people hear…more than a question. They hear criticism or judgment or teasing. I’ve given up trying to explain that my brain isn’t wired for that subtlety, that I couldn’t imply those kinds of layers of meaning if I wanted to, because one too many times, people haven’t believed me. They hear excuses, rather than context. So, I stopped trying, and told myself to quit caring when I’m misunderstood.
Now, only those closest to me are trusted with knowing the real reason Frankie has dubious success with sarcasm and picking up on jokes. Why she works resting bitch face and deadpan delivery, wears earplugs at the games, and is obsessively fascinated with Harry Potter, root beer gummies, NHL statistics, linguistics, knee socks, and only wearing gray scale clothing, among many other things…
Autism.
“Ooh!” Willa says. “I call dibs on the music.”
Ryder’s laugh-cough abruptly becomes a groan. “When Willa DJs, I wish my ear doodads didn’t work so well either—oof.”
Willa slugs him playfully in the stomach, then grasps his jaw and plants a firm kiss right on his mouth. “Asshole lumberjack. You’re just looking for a fight.”
He grins and wraps an arm around Willa as she drops back on her heels. “Maybe I am.”
They walk out ahead of us, waving goodnight to the rest of the team and their families. A balmy night breeze slips through the door as they head outside, and Ren steps close to me. Carefully, he unhooks my cane off the bar ledge and, bowing with a flourish, tips it toward me. “Your scepter, my liege.”
I feel a rare smile lift my cheeks. “I have heard rumors that you’re a closeted Shakespeare dork, Bergman.”
“They got it all wrong.” He straightens and smiles. “There’s nothing closeted about it.”
A surprised laugh spills out of me, and Ren’s grin widens, brighter than the California noontime sun. But for once, that sunshine smile doesn’t bother this grump one bit.
Ren
Playlist: “For the Time Being,” Erlend Øye
After walking Frankie to her door—complete with a reminder, in her deadpan delivery, that she’s a big girl who can make it from the car to her house—I hop back into the van. She locks herself into her canary-yellow bungalow on 133rd, and I see lights flicker on in the front room before her silhouette shortens as she walks deeper into the house.
Enjoying my super fancy rear-drive cameras, I pull out of Frankie’s driveway.
“Soooo.” Willa grins at me, batting her eyelashes. After Frankie vacated the shotgun seat of the van, Willa hugged her goodbye, hopped into it, and is now curled up, staring at me. Reaching for the volume dial, she turns down Busta Rhymes.
“Thank God,” Ryder mumbles from the backseat. He reattaches his implant transmitters and sits back on a sigh of relief.
“Renny Roo.” Willa leans closer. “We need to talk about Frankie.”
My hands death-grip the steering wheel. “What about her?”
“Uh, about how I like her. I want to keep her. I love her bone-dry humor, she knows everything possible about Harry Potter, including the latest horror that is its author’s Twitter drivel—”
“What did she do now?” Ryder asks from the backseat.
“Just showed that you can write a magical world brimming with complex, label-defying characters and still be a trans-exclusionary feminist disappointment.”
I sigh. “What’s wrong with people?”
Willa shrugs. “Who the fuck knows. Power corrupts. You’d think writing about it would have given her a little awareness.”