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“I can leave the dorms for meals, class, or the library,” she said, and adrenaline pricked beneath her skin just thinking about it.
“No boys, no booze,” Gloria said. “No restaurants.” “No internet, no makeup,” Steve added from behind the wheel, and Ren coughed out a laugh as she slid to the middle of the bench seat. “Makeup! Me?”
“If you took the raw confidence of Florence Pugh, the bone structure of Austin Butler, the charm of Jenna Ortega, and multiplied it by the effortless sensuality of Timothée Chalamet, you’d have Fitz.”
When their eyes met, Ren felt suddenly naked at the way his expression had gone blank, at the way he stared directly at her face, finally exposed. He exhaled a quiet “Oh.”
“Nothing? Not even a flutter?” “I don’t know what you mean. Flutter—what?” Fitz stared at her for a prolonged beat. “This must be an off day for me.”
“Okay, well, Gwen—” “Ren.” “Great, listen,
A hush fell over the room, and Ren followed everyone’s attention to the doorway, expecting the professor. But it wasn’t the professor, it was Fitz, and for a strangled moment, Ren’s heart forgot how to function.
Ren imagined drawing a portrait of him and knew she wouldn’t be able to get the straight line of his nose right,
“I’m just trying to help bring you back home. Mentally. Spiritually. I sense that you’re getting more and more tied to that place, but here is what matters.” Ren smiled gratefully and tried to mask any panic before it bled into her expression. And then she forced her attention back to her plate, because the longer she stared at her mother across the table, the more aware Ren became that this new suspicion buzzing in the air had just changed something in her forever.
An extra key? Steve would say. For who? The person who’ll rob us blind? If they lost a master, that was it. Thankfully, the three of them were better lock pickers than any cat burglar you’d find in the movies.
“You can’t be serious.” “Serious as a sleep attack.” Whatever he was going to say next evaporated from his thoughts. “A sleep attack?” “When one gets an uncontrollable urge to sleep. A common symptom of narcolepsy.” “Why not just say ‘serious as a heart attack’?” “Because heart attacks kill people! I don’t want to make light of that!” “But if someone has a sleep attack while driving,” he argued, “couldn’t that also be leth—” “Fitz! Listen to what I’m telling you! If you want to keep this a secret, you’re taking me with you. Yes or no?”
Behind her lids, she imagined a highway passing beneath her, the skyline of Atlanta coming into view, and the soothing relief of fireworks popping all around everything.
three months from beginning his revenge and starting fresh, alone. Except he wasn’t alone.
And then ruthlessly take down his father.
For the entire forty-five minutes through the panhandle, she appeared to be going through an existential crisis. Mumbling quietly to herself, she argued with an invisible voice. He thought he caught an “If they found out, this would kill them!”
He was beginning to wonder if she was asleep when her voice rose out of the darkness, tinged with sadness. “I’m starting to think Gloria was wrong about some things.”
“It must’ve been amazing to grow up there.” He exhaled another short laugh through his nose. “I’m sure.
He’d wanted to touch many women in his life. But he’d never so badly wanted to deserve one before.
Ren dug into her bag and pressed a hand over her mouth. One by one, she pulled items out: a watch, a wad of assorted crumpled bills, their wallets with everything still inside, a Subway gift card, a roll of quarters, some sunglasses, a pack of gum, a business card for a motorcycle shop, a whole bunch of loose change, a burner phone, and a fat wad of twenties secured with a rubber band.
He didn’t want to keep thinking about the scene back at the saloon, where she was fearless and beautiful and naive and irresistible all at once.
Fitz, that confusing, guarded, funny, protective, hot softie asleep in the bed over there.
and about how the photos in the bathroom at the Screaming Eagle didn’t look half as good as she imagined he would. Not that she would ever see him naked. Not that she wanted to see him naked.
“Huh.” “Huh?” he repeated. “That’s it?” “It’s smaller than I expected.” “Some will say that it’s not the size that matters, but what you do with it.” Ren slid her eyes to him, frowning. “I think you’re making a dirty joke.” He laughed. “I might be.”
“But the way to handle problematic things isn’t to just pretend they aren’t there. It’s good to see it and feel this way. Also, you can still be impressed with the artistry. Both things can be true.”
“That sounds very wise for someone who pretends to not care about anything.” He laughed. “I’m not pretending.” “Yes, you are,” she said. “You care a lot.”
Fitz could remember his first Thanksgiving at the Fitzsimmons table. It was only two weeks after the adoption had been finalized, and in the previous ten years he’d gone from Mary’s to homeless to juvie to this;
“I don’t want to die! I’ve never eaten tiramisu!” “Tira—?” “I’ve never seen the northern lights!” she sobbed. “I’ve never been on a plane! I’ve never been kissed! I want to be kissed someday, Fitz! I don’t want to be the girl who was killed by onions and never ate tiramisu and never got kissed!”
“What do you find attractive in a person?” She didn’t even have to think. “Kindness. In the eyes, especially.” “Kindness, huh?” Ren grinned at him. “Broad shoulders and big hands don’t hurt, though.” Fitz laughed. “There it is.”
She had to know what that was, right? She had to know that he didn’t just want to teach her how to kiss, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted her.
No matter what you’re thinking right now, that was the best kiss I’ve ever had. I want to see you again when we both get back to Spokane.
“Yesterday you looked like you wanted to crawl out of your skin because we had to share a bed twice this size.” “Because I wanted to kiss you so bad,” he blurted.
“I think you’re my favorite person,” she’d said drowsily into his neck. “Edward, Edward, Edward.” “I like that you call me that,” he’d admitted. “It feels really good that you know my name.” It was the last thing he’d said before she fell asleep.
“You’re sure?” “Yes,” she said, confident again, and stepped forward, tilting her chin to look up at him. “Nothing sounds worse than getting on a bus, hungover, on my birthday.”
“It’s okay if you’re not sure you want to fall for me, but I think I want to fall for you.”
“I don’t want to assume.” “With me,” he said steadily, “assume. Assume I want you. Assume if I’m actually saying it that it’s real.”
“Have you been in trouble with the police?” A sad smile flickered over his lips. “Define trouble.”
“Have you killed anyone? Assaulted someone? Held someone at knifepoint?” Edward pulled back, quickly shaking his head. “Ren—”
“Then whatever it is,” she said, cupping his face and pulling him in for a kiss, “I can handle it. I just want to be with you.”
“Sometimes I can’t believe that two different people can see the exact same thing.” Her fingers found his and threaded between them. “Of course, maybe your red looks different from my red, and your green different from my green, but I don’t think so.” “I don’t think so, either.”
“You do a lot of things to keep people out. The rules were about your boundaries, not about me. I got that.”
“That’s my Grace. Oh my God.” A sob escaped his throat. “That’s my girl. My daughter. Becky! Come here!” he yelled into the house, before turning back to Edward, a world of devastation in his eyes. “She was taken twenty years ago.”
She didn’t know that Edward was already there, that he already knew who she was, and that he’d throw everything away in a heartbeat if it meant he’d get Ren out of her hands.
But as Ren sat with it all day, something in the timeline didn’t feel right. The idea of Gloria being married before Steve itched at her brain. Gloria had told Ren that she and Steve met in college, and Ren knew Gloria had her when she was thirty-six. So had Gloria left Steve at some point, married Christopher Koning, had Ren, and Steve and Gloria rekindled their romance after Ren was born? Or did she and Steve not meet until they were older and they only told Ren they’d met when they were younger, wanting to erase this Christopher Koning from their history?
And—after college, law school, whirlwind travel, many holidays with family, very little revenge scheming, the purchase of some land, and what Edward found to be a truly excessive number of farm animals—they lived happily ever after. The End
