Strays

Chapter 29

"Stomach settled enough to get some food in you?"

Lindley was sitting on Callum's bed with her knees pulled up and her face between them. Her head snapped up at the sound of his voice, and Wren felt suddenly that he had interrupted a particularly vulnerable moment for Lindley.

"No harm in trying," she mumbled, and held her hand out for the toast in his hand. She smiled her thanks and nibbled gently, but found herself not very hungry. "How many people are still down there?"

"Seven maybe," Wren answered her. "Ish." He plopped down onto the floor across from her and mimicked her posture.

"No food for you?" Lindley was testing the waters. She needed to figure out how much embarrassment and shame she should feel for the rest of the day. How would his opinion of her be forever marred by how she had been last night?

"I had a banana downstairs with the gang." Wren watched the girl's face and thought he saw a sad tint to her features. "Hey—is everything okay? You seem really down this morning."

"I don't remember much from last night," she admitted, taking another bite of the bread, if anything, to give herself a moment before she had to speak again. The moment stretched into a few with how remarkably dry her mouth had become. It was like taking down sawdust, and it took a few swallows to fully get it down. "How embarrassed should I be?"

"Embarrassed?" he asked with a soft smile. "It was your birthday; every expected you to get drunk. Once you seemed a little past prime, Dean and I put you to bed."

Lindley groaned. "I hope you didn't have to deal with me much."

Wren scooched closer to the girl with a few kicks of his long legs, still in the jeans from last night. "Let's get out of here. Come to my place, take a hot shower, and let's have a nap and watch a movie."

The proposition made Lindley feel worse. Had she done something with him last night to lead him on further? Oh, god. She didn't tell him that she liked him, did she?

"We didn't...?" She gestured between the two of them loosely with the bread in her left hand, her right still hugging her knees to her chest. "Did I say anything or do anything--."

She saw the sting in his expression and the way he repositioned himself back against the wall across from her before she realized how her question could be construed.

"No." Wren shook his head and looked away. She hadn't—they hadn't kissed or had any real conversations last night, but she had been friendly. And unguarded. And flirty, which made Wren's night. But Lindley just snatched it right back, ruining his morning. He tried to cover up his expression with neutral passivity, but knew he was failing miserably.

"Yeah," Lindley interjected awkwardly. "Let's go to your place. Honestly, the shower sounds great." Wren blushed, knowing she was partly agreeing to mollify him, but too greedy to have her in his shower, napping in his bed, to raise any qualms.

"How long do you think it'll take to get through the room of zombies downstairs?" He offered her a half smile as he said this. After standing up himself, creaking as he did from having slept on the floor, Wren offered his arm to Lindley. She ignored the arm to help her up, but bumped him playfully at his side once she was standing.

"We just have to rip off the band-aid and attempt to look as though we're a vomit risk."

Lindley and Wren's arrival into the kitchen together would have been more dramatic had Wren not made an appearance alone first, but the fact that he had gone up to collect her so that they could leave together wasn't lost on any in the room. Dean pretended not to notice the sympathetic looks his friends were sending his direction—friends who had seen him pining over Lindley for the majority of their lives.

"I hope I wasn't too much of a problem last night," Lindley said to her friend as she hugged him in greeting and goodbye.

"You were fine," he lied, his arms wrapping tightly around her waist. Dean couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed last night—last night he really lost her, though she might not know it.

"Thanks so much for everything," she told him, unaware of what it meant to her best friend when she broke apart their hug. "Let's head up to WTCU after New Years to get textbooks."

With a laugh, Dean assented, complaining that she would remind him of school so close after Christmas. "Really, it's rude."

Feeling better about her blackout, Lindley gave a general goodbye to everyone in the room, now standing, having accepted that it's truly time to begin the day. She and Wren shielded urging to join the throng going to Mama's. Lindley would be working there the 28th until the afternoon of New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve.

Groaning, Lindley covered her eyes with her palms outside the door.

"What is it?" Wren prompted in confusion as they began their long walk back to his trailer.

"Flashes from the night are coming back." Battling whether to acknowledge the bet or hold off in hopes that he would let it go.

"You know," the sly grin on his face answered her thoughts, "you lost a bet last night."

"That's exactly what I'm remembering." If she had won, now that she remembered the stakes, she would have played it off as though she had forgotten. Somehow, her victory would have been even greater pressure on herself, she figured.

"I've got some planning to do, it looks like."

Wren's laughter and Lindley's groans played soundtrack to their walk.