She’s a little late, but she still came.
I’m frozen for a few seconds, long enough for the audience to start whispering to each other, but I don’t let the shock of seeing her here stop me for long. I leap back into the song, putting more force behind it, more heart, as it was meant to be sung.
“And then I met you, and you ran me through. You took this black heart of mine and made it yours. Through the darkness your light shines, illuminating this black soul of mine and breathing into me the flames of eternity.” My voice gets stronger, “The sun might fade, the stars may be unmade, and all that remains will be you and me. My soulfire. Please, set my soul on fire.”
When I finish the song, she’s still standing there near the entrance, her hands in her hoodie pocket, looking so out of place. I leap off the stool so fast it nearly tumbles over, and before the crowd can even clap for me, I’m slinging my guitar over my shoulder and making my way to her.
I don’t give a shit about the applause. I don’t care about any of these people, save my brother. The only one I have in my field of vision is Wren.
She doesn’t flee as I approach. She stands still as a statue, those brown eyes of hers wide. Opening her mouth, she clearly intends on saying something, but I don’t let her. Instead, I bend down and wrap my arms around her, pulling her into my chest and holding her there for what feels like an eternity.
So warm. So small. So perfect. She doesn’t push me away. The only thing she does is slowly wrap her arms around my torso and hug me, slipping her hands beneath the guitar slung across my back.
How long do we stand there? I couldn’t say, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing else in the world matters more than the girl in my arms. For the first time in months, I can breathe freely, easily. The weight that has pushed down upon my shoulders has lifted, and I feel worlds better than I’ve felt in a long, long time.
Someone else is on the stage, in the middle of doing their thing, by the time we pull apart. “I’m surprised you came,” I whisper to her as my hands fall away from her. What I really want to do is keep holding onto her, but one way or another, we need to hash this out.
We need to figure out what we are, one way or another.
“I am, too,” she admits, then she glances around me at the stage. “That song… I didn’t recognize it.”
“It’s a new one. A Logan special.”
“Logan, huh? Not Pope?”
With a shake of my head, I tell her, “No. That guy’s gone. You missed the dedication, though. It was for someone, someone really important to me. Someone I… haven’t exactly treated right.”
“A girl?”
I smirk. I can’t help it. “Thegirl. The only girl.”
Wren cocks her head at me. “What’s this girl like? What’s so special about her?”
My answer is ready, on the tip of my tongue before she finishes the question: “She’s a bit of a nerd who likes to read—textbooks and everything. A perfectionist, some might say. She’s a girl who really is special, so much more special than she could ever know.” Staring down at her, into her wide eyes, makes me ache deep inside.
No one else in my life has ever affected me like this. Fuck, I was so stupid for so damn long.
“I’d do anything for her,” I say. “Anything. Even walk away from her, if that’s what she wanted me to do. It’d be hard as hell,but I’d do it.” Before, I couldn’t get her out of my head. I couldn’t even think of giving her up, the mere thought of her, but now… just like the choice was mine at the end of the maze, it belongs to her.
“Sounds like this girl might not be your type,” she says with a hint of sadness.
“To be honest, I don’t know that I’m her type, either.” I take the tiniest step closer to her. She’s less than six inches away from me, so close and yet not close enough. “But I want to try. I want to try more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything in my entire life. The real question is… does she?”
Wren fiddles with her hands between us. “She’s scared she’ll get hurt again. She doesn’t know if she can take it.”
All reasonable worries, especially with how I treated her in the past. Really, I’m such a fuckup, I don’t deserve to be in her presence, to even look at her. I royally fucked up, but if she’ll let me, I’ll put in the work. I’ll work on myself. I’ll be better. I’m nothing without her.
I can no longer keep my hands to myself. I lift them to her face, cupping her cheeks and causing her hair to fall back as I angle her head. “She doesn’t have to worry about that. I—” My heart pounds so fast I can hear it in my ears. It’s so loud I don’t hear anything else in the bar, not the other people, not the person on stage. Only that thing in my chest.
Fuck it. There’s no point dancing around the subject.
“I love her,” I murmur, and then I realize I’m still talking in third-person when it comes to her, so I correct myself and say, “I love you. I love you so goddamn much. I’ve been a wreck without you. I need you. I’m not a begging man, Wren, but if I need to, I’ll get on my hands and knees for you. I’ll beg. I’ll plead. I’ll even stop swearing if that’s what you want. I’ll do anything.”
The smile that pulls at her lips is one that spreads slowly, and seeing the accompanying twinkle in her eyes fills me withall different kinds of joy. “You’ll give up swearing? Wow. Never thought I’d see the day. But, you know, as much as your mouth can get you into trouble, sometimes it’s…” She bites her bottom lip. “Nice.”
It’s because I’m cupping her cheeks that I feel the heat rushing to them. She’s blushing, even after everything. It’s impossible for me not to take that as a good sign.
“Well?” Wren asks sweetly. “Are you going to kiss me or just keep talking?”