frowny x freckly // deeply troubled flannel x the sun's sweet sugar // wreo

The next morning found Theo in his backyard, crouched over on his hands and knees beneath the pile of logs that fuelled his very chic and very expensive fire place. Pine needles and pine cones dug into palms, and sap clung to his jeans. His previously white t-shirt was dirty, and he was frustrated. He groaned loudly, dropping his head in a very dramatic display, overtly aware of the fact that he was the only person around for half a mile. 

“Jesus -- get over here, you little fucker! You look like shit!” 

A small, black cat was huddled beneath two logs. She hissed at him, and he whipped his hand back to avoid the claws that came after. She backed up, tail swishing, eyes wide and fearful. If Theo advanced too quickly, she would be able to dart out from the other side. He’d wondered why she hadn’t run off yet, and very quickly realized she was hurt. 

“I just want to help you! You fucking stupid cat!” 

Aside from the cat he was currently tormenting, the morning had begun pretty normally. 

He’d slept like shit, and had spent the first 30 minutes awake perched at the edge of his bed slouched over, with his white duvet bunched around his shoulders. His bedroom bathed in what early-morning light managed to filter through the pines, diluted beams of sunlight bouncing off the polished concrete floors. The only sound in the room was his shaky breathing, and the alarm that had failed to wake him up that kept going beep-beep-beep, a faint echo in the back of his mind. He watched the muscles beneath the skin of his left forearm jump and twist, each minute little twitching movement like a dagger slicing through the tissue. It was like watching Alien trying to burst out through his skin. His jaw was clenched, grinding his teeth as the pain went on, and on, and on. 

And then it stopped. 

He had a shaky, wobbly walk to the bathroom, hand sliding along the wall beside him, the concrete floor reassuringly solid and cool beneath his bare feet even as the walls tilted around him. His morning routine was fairly straightforward. He took his showers cold, and leisurely. His took his meds all at once; anti-convulsants, anti-tremors, muscle relaxants, and something blue that helped with his balance. Calendar by the wall, writing on the mirror. Post-it notes everywhere. He shaved, too close to the skin and cut himself, of course, blood trickling down his neck in fat drops. 

Theo checked his email, and spent two hours finishing up the blueprints for Mrs. Beverley Hills. He sent them to Sayed over email, with the subject line Better late than never. His tremor was getting a little better but not by much, and his neck was feeling even tighter than the day before. 

He was eating breakfast on the deck - cup of coffee (black) and bean hash (vegan) when he saw her, a huddled, miserable black shape by the pile of firewood out back. Patricia kept flinging a blue tarp over it to keep it dry. It was ugly, but really he hated because it made a perfect place for these horrible giant west-coast moths to rest during the day and fly out at him in the evening. But it also made for a good hiding spot for injured cats. 

Unintentionally, Theo had begun taking care of a colony of feral cats, based in an abandoned farmhouse a little ways away. When he first moved here he’d noticed all of these underfed, sick cats running around his property. They’d been an eyesore, and kind of depressing. He’d tried to get a neighbour involved, but she didn’t care. He’d tried to get in touch with the owner of the barn, but the neighbours all said he’d moved to Hawaii. He’d even tried to get the barn they lived in demolished, citing it as an abandoned structure and a blight on the community and a target for thugs and vandals, but the city wouldn’t allow it (for some reason). 

So he’d started feeding them, just outside his back deck. And talking to them sometimes, when he didn’t have anyone else to talk to. And then some of the cats started coming up to him on his frequent visits to his deck (usually when pot was involved), and one or two would let him stroke them on the head or scratch their cheeks. He’d never really had much time for animals.

Eventually, he’d gotten involved with a cat rescue group and that turned into him trapping his cats for their Trap, Neuter, Release program. He trapped them and they neutered them, and then they would bring the wretched creatures back to Theo’s to recuperate in his bathroom, ears tipped and feeling woozy and miserable. Kind of like how Theo felt a lot of the time. 

He and Michael had been trying to trap Violet (Theo had named her Violet, a prettied up version of Violent) for weeks. But she was too small for the trap, or too smart, or something. Her eye had looked pretty bad, back when they had first seen here a month ago. She cleaned it a lot with her paw and squinted at them as they watched her from the deck, hopeful she’d take the bait. But now, beneath the pile of firewood, it just looked milky and wet. 

Theo tried crawling forward again. She hissed and swiped, cowering further while at the same time puffing herself up. He didn’t have his trap or a cat carrier or anything but he knew if he didn’t get her it’d be the last time he saw her. 

And then he heard the car door shut, go into drive. Fuck, Wren – he’d totally forgotten. He hadn’t written it down or anything. He would have felt like an idiot, or at least guilty, but he forgot things all the time so it he didn't feel all that bad. 

“Wren!” He shouted. 

“Wren - Get over here!”

He knew he must have looked, and sounded, like a lunatic. On his hands and knees half underneath a pile of firewood, clothes covered in pine needles. Pine needles in his hair, pine needs under his t-shirt. Possibly more frantic than one had any right to be about a stray cat with an eye infection. 

He heard footsteps, and angled his head to see a bewildered Wren approaching. Thank God it wasn’t the mail man. 

“Are you good with cats? I have a cat situation -- I’ve been trying to trap her for weeks but she’s too fucking sneaky. Can you grab her, or like, make her come over to me? I’m pretty sure she won’t run with the two of us here. I have to get her inside.”

It took all of half a second of silence after knocking on the door for Wren's mind to start coming up with worst-case scenarios. What if Theo wasn't home? What if he'd forgotten? Wren wasn't a friend, and Theo had clearly only accepted Robin's proposal out of pity, so it wouldn't be surprising if this had slipped his mind, or if a better offer had come along. So if Theo wasn't home, it meant his future involved a long trek back home carrying a casserole. Maybe he should leave the casserole somewhere. Doorstep, probably, but then Theo may trip over it, but anywhere else and he may not even find it. Maybe it was better to just take the casserole home. Or maybe he was being ridiculous and overthinking things. Again.

A noise cut off his train of thought. He couldn't quite make it out, but then it happened again, and he thought it sounded kind of like somebody shouting his name.

He hesitated, tried the front door, but it was locked. But he thought he remembered a side door as well, so he picked his way around the perimeter until he found it. Second time lucky; this door was open, and he stepped through into the kitchen area, still holding the stupid casserole. It took a moment for him to realise Theo wasn't inside, but outside, on the deck, on his hands and knees next to a stack of logs. Had he fallen?

Dumping the casserole dish on the counter, Wren hurried to the back of the house, only stopping, half-outside, at Theo's explanation.

“A cat situation?” he repeated. He couldn't see a cat. The pieces of the puzzle only clicked together when he looked back at the pile of firewood. It must have been under there. He crouched down next to Theo, hoping for a better view. Two big yellow eyes staring back out at him cinched it.

He still didn't know why the cat was out here, or what Theo wanted with it, but he guessed that could wait.

“Right,” he said. “Cat situation. OK. Give me a second to think.”

He wouldn't say he was good with cats, but judging from Theo's frantic tone, the bar wasn't being set too high. Besides, cats seemed to like him. When he and Robin had been twelve, she had come home one day with a kitten. She'd dragged him in to her room to show him, said she'd found it on the way back from soccer practice, and made him promise not to tell their parents, because she knew their mom hated cats. He had been sceptical about how she was going to hide it for maybe twenty years, but she'd just pleaded with him until he'd broken down and promised to help.

In the end they'd been rumbled after about eighteen hours; when they came back home from school the next day, they'd found their mom sitting at the kitchen table with the kitten in front of her. After what felt like several hours, but was probably only twenty minutes, of Robin crying and Wren trying to stay as quiet as possible, their mom relented and said they could look after the kitten until they found it a permanent home. They still hadn't found it a home by the time they took it to a vet and found out it was male, or by the time Robin decided his name was Leo, or when he died fifteen years later.

Despite being Robin's cat, Leo had practically worshipped Wren. One of the rare arguments he and Robin had had when they'd been growing up had been about how he hogged the cat's attention. Leo had slept on Wren's bed almost every night, and woke him up every morning before his alarm. This was the first time he'd been back home for any length of time since he'd died. Sometimes he still woke up expecting to see his stupid furry face right next to him.

So he wasn't good with cats, but he knew some stuff about them. If Theo wasn't worried about this cat bolting, it meant it must have been stuck, or maybe hurt. They'd find out which in a moment.

“I think step one is to give her some space. And food. Do you have any in the house?” he asked Theo. “Could you get it? Preferably wet. And if you've got any toys, or like, pieces of string or something, that may help too. I'll make sure she stays put.”

“Yeah, a cat situation.” 

He sounded annoyed, though Theo’s frustration was due to a number of things unrelated to Wren. 

First off, he was frustrated because he wasn’t physically able to reach out and grab the cat. If he tried, he knew he would lose his balance, or he’d be too slow, or he just plain wouldn’t be strong enough to grapple a cat. He was frustrated because he didn’t want to spend yet another afternoon fretting over this damn cat, watching her shake her head like she was trying to loosen some kind of detritus, or spy her from his living room sulking in the rain, looking thinner than she had in weeks. He felt frustrated because he wanted to tell Michael he’d caught the damn cat by himself, without his help. And if she ran off, well. It would be a blow. 

Wren’s presence, however, was strangely calming. Theo backed away some, rising up so he was resting on his knees. He took a quick moment to appreciate how Wren had barely hesitated before diving into action. He didn’t laugh, or roll his eyes, or even try to add some kind of levity to the situation by joking about it (not that that was how Theo expected Wren to act, based on what little he knew about him). Because Theo wasn’t laughing. Theo looked deadly serious. 

“I have those things.” He confirmed softly. He looked away from Wren, back to Violet. She was hunched up into a cat shaped ball, as far away from them as she possibly could be. “She’s had some kind of eye infection for a few weeks. I think she's also lost weight, so I’m worried it's gotten worse and she's stopped eating.” 

He hesitated, before turning to look at Wren. He didn’t love asking people for help if it could be avoided, and if he’d been anyone else, anywhere else, Theo would have made up an excuse not to go inside. He didn’t even like walking around Michael, especially those days when his balance was off and his legs felt like jelly. Maybe it was because Theo had already shown Wren his vulnerability, last night beneath the fluorescent lights of the church basement. And Wren had shown him his. But everything felt different this morning.

Maybe it was because Wren was as fucked up as he was. 

If not more so. 

“Could you help me up?” He asked, finally. Theo looked at him evenly, holding out two shaky hands, palms facing upward. Another reason Theo was grateful for his arrival was very much due to the fact that he would have had a super fun time trying to stand on his own. (Replace ‘super fun’ with painful, distressing and embarrassing). 

Wren’s hands were soft and solid, as he grabbed hold. Theo’s forearms arms shook as Wren helped him up, eyes on his feet. As soon as he was up and standing, he uttered a short thanks before he was heading back inside. His balance had improved since he’d woken up, and he was no longer walking around like the town drunk, but he still looked stiff, and was moving around pretty slowly. 

He was gone for maybe five minutes, coming back outside through the sliding door with something called ‘turkey giblet delight’ scooped onto one of his nice bone china plates, and a kind of furry ball on a string. 

“She still in there?” He asked anxiously. He handed the items to Wren and took a step back, chewing on a thumb nail. 

"I usually have a carrier but it's at the vet's right now. If we can manage to get her into my bathroom, I can figure out what to do with her after."

Wren had picked up on Theo's bad mood. More than that — he recognised it. The spiral. Winding yourself up as far as you could. He had enough experience wallowing in his depths to know the only way to pull out of it was to step back and breathe.

He stood up, pulling away from Theo to take a quick look around the deck. It looked like the cat might have been able to get out through the other side of the pile of logs, which wasn't great news if they were going to catch her. They'd have to block it somehow, but without scaring her.

Theo spoke, asked him for help getting up, and he held out his hands, planting his feet as Theo pulled himself up. His hands were surprisingly warm, given the weather that day, and it stayed with him as he let go. As he thanked him, Wren gave him a smile, though he wasn't sure if Theo saw, given he was apparently avoiding his gaze. It must have been hard, having to rely on other people. It wasn't like he had no idea of what it was like — he was, after all, very much relying on his parents at the moment — but at least he could stand up, walk around, without having to worry about his body falling apart as badly as his life had.

A feeling of guilt washed over him, his inner voice piping up about the same old bullshit — how this was more proof at how ungrateful he was, how all the evidence pointed towards him being human garbage, and he tried to push it back, turning his attention back to the cat. He'd spoken to Alison about these intrusive thoughts in one of their very first sessions. She'd listened sympathetically and given him a sheet called The Poisonous Parrot, which, in a very convoluted metaphor, said to treat the voice like it was an evil parrot sitting on his shoulder that he should just ignore when it started talking. Easier said than done, but a distraction always helped.

OK. Next step in Operation: Cat Extraction. Block all other escape routes. He could see a big blue tarp by the pile, still half-covering it, which seemed like the most obvious solution, but he wasn't sure. They probably didn't want to cover the whole pile, just in case they needed to dismantle it. And besides, it looked stiff, bulky. He needed something light, that wouldn't scare her any further. Only that didn't leave him with very many options. There wasn't really anything else he could get to without having to take his eye off the log pile, and she was probably already freaked out by all the movement.

After a moment of thinking, he pulled off his sweater, and leant over the log pile to drape it over the other end. It was colder than he'd been expecting; something about the altitude, maybe, or the breeze, made the hair on his arms stand on end. He folded them, then crouched back down near the open end of the log. Far away enough to give the cat some room, but close enough to be able to grab her if she decided to run for it. He didn't think she would, though. He could barely see her, but Theo was right. She didn't look like she was doing too well.

Wren looked up as Theo stepped back out onto the porch, reaching to receive the plate of food and the toy.

“She's still there,” he confirmed, motioning for him to sit down. “I covered up the other side so there's only one way out. Now we just have to make her feel comfortable enough to take it.”

He set the food down near the entrance, just far away enough that she'd have to stick her head out to get to it.
“We used to have a cat when I was younger,” he said, glancing up at Theo. “He'd always hide when he thought we were going to take him to the vet. This is the official Ruskin foolproof method for coaxing a cat out of hiding. First: put down some food just out of the cat's reach.” He gestured at the bowl. “Then, the hardest part — waiting for the cat to take the bait.”

He paused. “With Leo, it took around five minutes until he'd go for it. I get the impression yours may be a little smarter. How long have you been trying to trap her?”

Theo stepped back from Wren, arms crossed over his chest. Totally skeptical. He didn’t like cats all that much. He didn’t mind dogs - they were dumb, and loyal, and lived to please. Cats on the other hand, he found unpredictable and flighty and uncaring. Maybe that’s why people liked them, but he wasn’t biting. While he enjoyed his brief interactions with the friendlier ones in his yard well enough, they were still just animals. 

His brow furrowed when he noticed Wren had lost a layer of clothing, tilting his head in confusion until he noticed his handiwork. While Theo had been gone, he’d gone and draped it over the other end of the stacked up logs, blocking off the exit. Wren explained, and Theo covered his mouth with his hand, hiding a smile. Good lord, that was fucking adorable. 

“Very practical,” Theo observed, still standing a ways behind him. He must have been freezing. 

He didn’t want to sit, but if they were going to be out here for a while it was better than standing. Theo lowered himself down onto his knees, trying to be quiet and avoid making any sudden movements. It wasn’t graceful by a long shot, and she somehow ended up shoving herself farther into a crevice between two logs. He felt that same anxiety curling in his stomach as he settled in beside Wren, worried this was going to end badly. He wanted to apologize to Wren. 

Despite himself, he found himself smiling a little as the other man spoke. 

“You seem to know your cats.” He said then. “I would have just shouted at her until she got annoyed and ran off. I’ve never been great at being patient. But I don’t think she’s been eating, so hopefully she’s hungry.” 

He thought about how long he’d watched her skulk around his property. At least since the summer? 

“God, it must be six weeks since she first started showing up. It was warmer then, so … I think I’ve spent four weeks actively trying to trap her. I should probably tell you that she’s feral, if you couldn’t tell. Though I’ve been calling her Violet.” He rubbed the back of his neck. He was forgetting why he called here that. 

“There’s a ton of cats up here and I’ve just been doing the shelter a favour by trapping them. There’s so many of them and they’re always wandering around my backyard, and if they aren’t fucking really loudly in the middle of the day they’re either sick, or injured …” He trailed off. Did he sound crazy? His family would have thought he was losing his mind. He imagined telling his mother, and she could see her nodding, saying ‘It’s good to have hobbies’ behind a glass of merlot. 

“Before you think I’m nuts, I get a pretty good tax break from all of this. And if I have the time, why not?” Theo offered as an excuse. He was pretty he only got a tax break for donating cash, but whatever. It was kind of funny, this whole situation. He’d been so frustrated only minutes before, and now he was smiling. He found himself thinking that it was better, having Wren here. And he was kind of beginning to think he had to defend himself. 

Theo took a breath, slipping out of default mode. 

“I have to tell you, I’m really grateful you showed up.” Theo looked over at him, then a bit too quickly back at the cat. “It seems stupid but I don’t have a clue how to deal with cats. I’ve never owned a pet and I barely interact with animals … It just really bugs me seeing them treated so badly, and nobody else up here seems to give a shit.”

He changed the subject. Back to the subject at hand. 

“But she is smart, I think. At least smarter than me. It may be a while until she bites.”

Still holding the cat toy, Wren rocked backwards, shifting his weight off his legs as he pulled his knees up to his chest. He gave Theo a one-shouldered shrug, chewed his cheek as he let himself smile. He'd take a little teasing if it meant Theo wasn't freaking out any more.

He looked away as Theo sat down, partly to check on the cat, but also to give him some privacy. Bad enough being forced to expose your vulnerabilities without being gawked at. He still didn't know how he coped—didn't know how he would have coped if it was him—but that was a rabbit hole he didn't really want to go down. Instead, once Theo was settled, Wren rested his chin on his knees and his head to look over at him.

“Violet's a good name. Better than Leo. Titanic had just come out and Robin was obsessed. She had the poster hanging up in her room for years...”

Taking care to avoid the plate of food, he straightened up, stretched his legs out a little. “He always liked me better. It drove her crazy.”

He paused, then realised he was grinning. Actually grinning.

It was as though, for a moment, he'd been able to escape his head. Acknowledging it brought him back, slightly unsettled, but feeling buoyant. He carried on.

“But yeah… I'm not a cat expert or anything. I just kind of grew up around them. There used to be a ton of strays around my parents' house and we used to sneak them food and play with them and stuff when we were kids. My mom hated them. She thought they were going to go after one of our chickens, which is ridiculous, because the chickens could definitely take on a cat. They mostly went away after we got Leo. Maybe he drove them all up here. He was probably feral too… I don't really know. Robin just brought him home one day.”

Trailing off, Wren glanced down at his feet, at his stupid scuffed sneakers that were a half-size too big. Suddenly, he felt a stab of self-consciousness. Theo didn't want to listen to his rambling.

“I don't think you're nuts,” he said softly. “You're doing something good. That's more than most people.” More than he was, for sure. He cleared his throat, forced himself to look back at Theo, gave him a small smile. “And you don't have to thank me, or anything. You're the one doing me a favour. It's actually kind of nice to be outside. And you've made me realise how much I miss my stupid cat.”

He set the cat toy down, then folded his arms, trying to ward off the cold. Focus. The sooner they got Violet indoors, the sooner he could retrieve his sweater.

“Anyway,” he said, “cats seem to like me. Or. Well. Hate me less than other people.To be honest, I think the trick is just to play hard to get. So in that vein, how about I make us a pot of coffee?”

He snorted, hiding a laugh behind his hand. He’d probably owned the same poster. 

“Yeah, I can see that bugging her.” He was pretty sure she was accustomed to being liked. 

Theo looked over at him, noticing the smile. He hadn’t seen much emotion out of him other than the odd half-hearted shrug. He wondered if he’d always been depressed, or if this was something new. If he’d always had a piece missing, or if someone or something had chipped away at him. He wondered if he’d had a good childhood, if there was a solid reason behind his depression, or if his brain was just wired differently. It was easy for Theo to feel like a waste of oxygen, but at least people could look at him and pretend to understand. At least they would know what to say.

“You owned chickens?” It was an odd takeaway, and he said it incredulously, like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. He had so many questions. What planet was this? What year was it, even? Oregon, with its wild beaches and rainy overcast days and wind chimes hung over wooden porches felt like what he imagined living in the 70s was like. It was a world away from his parent’s house in Greenwich, Connecticut, with its sprawling manicured lawn and four car garage. He was still learning how life was lived here. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chicken before. Live, that is. That’s amazing.” His boiled down statement expressed his thoughts well enough, and perhaps his upbringing. 

Not for the first time, he wondered why Wren had moved back here. It couldn’t have been for work, as he didn’t see the sleepy town of Cannon Beach being a particularly litigious community. Though his response, along with Robin asking Theo to give her brother something to do, gave him a little more to work with. 

“Coffee sounds great right about now. The coffee maker is right beside the fridge, and a tin of coffee should be right beside it.” In his constant battle against MS-related fatigue, he was overly dependent on caffeine. “I’ll keep an eye on her.” 

She was still huddled in the darkness of her shelter, pressed to the side of one of the logs. He sighed, resigning himself to staying out here all morning. It probably would have been nice of him to tell Wren to grab a blanket, or take a sweater out of his closet. But it didn’t cross his mind. 

However, with Wren back inside, he took the opportunity to shuffle over towards one of the Adirondack chairs, and managed to haul himself up. He perched on its edge, crossing his arms over his chest, willing Violet to poke her head out. 

It was a little weird having Wren here. Not because of Wren himself, but because Theo wasn’t really one to have visitors. Michael came over every now and then, and he had a cleaner, a massage therapist and a physical therapist come by. Other than that, and his frequent video calls with work, he was alone most of the time. By choice. Having someone new in his space was a little jarring. 

The sound of something wet being pushed around on very expensive bone china interrupted his thoughts. He looked down, only to see that Violet had emerged. She looked worse close up. Her fur was greasy, and her eyes were watery. She looked up at Theo, but the promise of food seemed worth what little threat he posed her. 

Panic gripped him. He needed Wren back out here – if the mess he’d made of this before had shown him anything, there was no way he’d be able to catch her. Sick and hungry, she was undoubtedly still faster than him.

Theo stood slowly, carefully circling around the log pile. She withdrew as he approached, but as soon as he passed she went back to eating. Quickly he went over to the sliding door, tugging it open as smoothly as he could. 

“Wren, she’s out.” He hissed, glancing back at her. 

“I’m not sure what the best way to go about this is. But if we can get her into my bathroom, we can go from there.” 

And by we, Theo obviously meant Wren.

“You've never seen a chicken?”

Wren was, to an extent, used to people's reactions after the big chicken reveal. He had even been self-conscious about it, before he'd run out of energy to care. Not necessarily the chickens, but the entire circumstances of his childhood, the antithesis of everything he had ever wanted to be. When he'd first moved away from home, to Boston, where everybody around him seemed like a white-collar overachiever, all he had tried for was to blend in. He'd never been brave enough to try the self-deprecating, exaggerated way Robin always played it, how she'd painted their mom as a scatterbrained artist, their dad as an outdoorsman who tried too hard to be tough. He'd just kept quiet until it came out, somehow. And every time he'd brought it up he'd been faced with the same incredulous laughter.

But at least everybody he'd told had seen one of the damn things before.

“Not even at a state fair, or on a farm or anything?” Most people had been to farms, right? With school, or their parents or something? His parents had definitely dragged him and Robin more than once under the guise of education, and he was sure Boston had a city farm, at least.

Wren regarded Theo for a moment, leaning against the frame of the sliding door.

“Well, my mom still keeps some, if you ever feel like ticking something off your bucket list. You'd be welcome any time. If, you know… you want to...”

The words were out before he could stop them. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. Why had he done that? The last thing he needed was for Theo to meet his parents, see their stupid little house. Besides, Theo was just being polite; there was no way he cared about chickens, and he probably didn't want to spend more time with than necessary anyway.

“Uh… I'll go get that coffee on.” He slipped back into the house, turning away before he could make things any more awkward.

Being alone in someone else's house would normally put him a little on edge, but he was thankful for the space to breathe. Besides, Theo's house, while worlds away from West Adams Street, reminded him of his own apartment back in New York. It was bigger, obviously, and his apartment had felt a little more homely, but it didn't feel as oppressive now as it had the day before. Maybe it was the light, or Robin's absence.

He wondered how much time Theo spent in his house. Looking around, it felt like Theo knew everything about him already, had touched or heard about all the important things in his life, but he knew barely anything in return. Was he happy here, or did he regret moving? How much of the little slice of his life was actually representative of the truth? 

Did it matter? He probably wasn't going to see Theo again, not for any appreciable amount of time, right? He'd known that going in. So he should just try to take the day at face value. Ground himself. Live in the present.

Wren had just finished filling the pot with water when he heard his name. Twisting around, a blank look crossed his face, before he realised what Theo was talking about. He couldn't believe he'd almost forgotten about the cat.

“Right, okay,” he said, setting the pot down on the counter as quietly as he could. “Let's get phase two of the plan rolling.”

He crossed back to the door, pausing a couple of times when it looked like Violet might be getting spooked. As he got closer, he could see that Theo was right. She did look sick. The sooner they got her to a vet, the better.

The door was far enough away from the log pile for him to get through without drawing more attention than a flick of her ear, but he was kind of worried that if both of them got closer, she'd bolt. He chewed on his lip, taking a moment to think. He'd assumed he would have been at arm's length when she came out of hiding; sneaking up on her was going to pose another challenge. And the food was running out.

“Okay,” he said. “Keep the door open? I'm going to try to get her from the other side – so even if I can't grab her, hopefully she'll run inside, rather than back into the woods.”

He circled around the back of the log pile, taking the widest arc he could while still being able to see her, until he wound up back where he'd been sitting earlier. Crouching down, he froze as she looked right at him, then slowly extended his hand. She shrank away, and for a moment he thought he'd fucked it up—which wouldn't have been surprising, since he had no idea what he was doing—but she gave it a hesitant sniff, before turning her attention back to the bowl.

Wren had read somewhere, once, that grabbing a cat by the scruff of their neck would keep them calm. He found out he'd been misinformed when, after grabbing Violet by the scruff of her neck, she twisted around with a yowl and sunk her claws into his hand.

“Jesus fucking—“ he swore, pulling himself up, his other hand under Violet's chest. He made the further mistake of pulling her closer to him, where she went for his shoulder instead, but he somehow made it through the door, only she chomped into his thumb and he almost let go, but it probably wouldn't have mattered if he had because he was pretty sure she had embedded herself in well enough that she'd just hang there if he did.

“Shut the door!” he yelled, trying to avoid her thrashing claws. She'd clawed her way up past his collarbone, her back paws scrabbling against his hands around her abdomen. For a moment he forgot where the bathroom was, but bless Theo's open-plan house, because there was only one place it could be. He almost tripped over the fucking wardrobe, worrying she was going to go for his face next—he was pretty sure she'd already drawn blood—but the end was in sight as he backed his way past a door, and then another door, and finally let go at the first glimpse of tile.

As soon as he did she pulled himself up and over his shoulder, and tore her way down his back, disappearing somewhere he didn't see before he slammed the door shut behind him.

For a moment, he wasn't sure what to do. And then he heard a plaintive yowl sounding from behind the door. Sinking to the floor, he laughed. A release of adrenaline. That had almost been fun.

His hand and shoulder were throbbing. It only took a glance at his hand to verify that she had, in fact, managed to draw blood. Looking up at Theo, he grinned, holding his injured hand close to his chest as he gingerly climbed to his feet.

“So, tell me… are all of your cat situations this violent?”

His parents had never been the kind of people to, well, parent. They both had their careers to worry about, and once Theo had turned twelve he'd been shipped off to boarding school, and never ended up spending more than a month at home. Before then, his mother and father both had apartments in Manhattan, for when that mediation ran late into the night (his mother) and simple convenience for his father. Good grades in math and science had been the best way to gain any sort of attention from his mother, and behaving obediently and submissively seemed to have been the way to his father’s heart. Acting out or creating a disruptive home life was more conducive to both of them spending more time in the city, where it was less stressful, and Theo and Emily spending more time with the nanny. He’d never been to a farm, but he’d been to Switzerland, Paris, Mauritius, and Buenos Aires. He’d ridden a camel in Morocco, but he’d never seen a chicken. 

The gaps in his education were becoming more and more apparent ever since moving out here, a reality he was currently faced with as Wren approached the cat. Theo remained by the door as instructed, gripping the handle as tightly as he could. He chewed on his bottom lip as he watched Wren stick his hand out, but Violet seemed more interested in the food than Wren, which he thought was a good sign. 

And then Wren went and grabbed her by the scruff. Theo didn’t know much about animals, but he was pretty sure he knew Violet, and he wasn't sure if such a prideful creature would appreciate being manhandled (not that he was able to provide any alternative solutions to smuggling a feral cat into his house). He was confirmed to be correct when Violet screeched and shanked Wren with her tiny, needle-like claws. 

Predictably, chaos ensued. 

Wren swore, and Theo stumbled backwards to get out his way as Violet crawled up and over his shoulder, back feet scrambling to find purchase in his t-shirt and no doubt clawing into his skin. Theo followed as nimbly as he could, first grabbing Wren’s sweater, and then stepping inside and using both hands to pull the sliding door shut as quickly as he could. His balance, however, was poor on a good day, and the momentum from the heavy door had him tumbling backwards. The kitchen counter saved him from falling over on his ass, his hip making hard contact with the solid granite countertop and the back of his head knocking into the overhead pot rack, causing a skillet and a pot lid to clatter noisily against the floor. 

“Ah, fuck!” 

A hand flew the back of his head in reaction. He dropped the sweater onto the kitchen island and stumbled after Wren, hip throbbing, ears ringing, only to hear a door slam shut. Silence, and then the loud howling of a thoroughly pissed off cat. He turned the corner to see Wren on the ground, cradling his hand. A frantic apology was about to tumble out of him before he saw his smile, heard the breathless huff of laughter. 

Theo’s shock morphed into relief, and then mirth. He covered his grin with a hand, and then he was laughing, hard. Despite the throbbing of his hip, and the spots in his vision from the frying pan attack, it felt good. The unexpected surge of emotion unfettered by valium or opioids or pot or alcohol. And once the flood gates had opened, he had a small realization that only fuelled the fire. He kept laughing.

“Oh my God. That’s why I’ve been calling her Violet. Violent Violet. Holy fuck, I knew there was a reason. That’s so funny.” 

It wasn’t really. Never mind that his short term memory was going to shit, but Wren was cradling his mangled hand in pain. He sobered up immediately. 

“Oh shit, you’re bleeding.” Theo took a careful step forward, eyes scanning Wren’s face, neck, and chest for further damage. There were tiny dimples in his shirt where Violet’s claws had punctured the fabric and just above his collar bone was a long series of scratches made by four very sharp claws. Theo came closer for a better look, placing his fingers on the back of Wren’s neck, thumb on his collar bone. He was only a bit taller than Theo, but he got a good enough look to tell that it was deep, too. Over his shoulder, red was blossoming through the fabric. He smelled like home cooking and soap. 

“Yeah, you’re bleeding right through your shirt.” 

Theo looked down at his hand, held up to his chest. 

“Let me clean you up - it’s the least I can do. Go to the kitchen and I’ll try to get the first aid kit out of the bathroom without getting mauled.”

Theo ushered him away, slowly opening the door to the bathroom and then shutting it quickly behind him. Violet had squeezed herself in behind the toilet, and hissed when he got too close. Theo ignored her, pulling out a bowl of dry food from the cupboard under his sink left behind by the last cat he’d had recuperate in here. He poured her a glass of water for lack of any other kind of bowl, and set a folded towel down on the floor. He’d try to make her more comfortable later. 

Retrieving the first aid kit and a clean shirt from his bedroom, he tugged his phone out of his back pocket as he walked towards the kitchen. 

“Call Michael,” He ordered his phone. 

Michael’s photo came up on the screen. Young and smiling, Theo had taken the picture one sunny summer afternoon spent in his yard. The call went straight to voicemail so he must have been in class. He glanced at Wren, shrugging apologetically, and then left a message. 

“Hey, Michael, it’s Theo. Would you mind coming over here as soon as you’re able? I finally caught Violet and she needs some medical attention pretty urgently. Let me know, and see you soon, hopefully.” 

He set the folded t-shirt and first aid kit on the counter. His kitchen was flooded in the midday light, and he had a few plants hanging in the window, softening up the house’s hard edges. Over time, he hoped ivy would creep up the outer walls. He patted one of the barstools, indicating for Wren to sit. 

“Give me your shirt and I’ll throw it in the washing machine before the blood sets. She’s a stray so I’m really hoping you have your shots up to date.” It was supposed to come off as a joke, but it fell flat. 

"I may not know anything about animals, but the shelter made sure I knew what to do in the likely case of a cat attack."

"Yeah, real hilarious," deadpanned Wren, but Theo's laughter was contagious and he couldn't keep a straight face for long. Maybe it was the adrenaline still working its way through the his system, or maybe the surreality of the situation kept making itself apparent. Maybe they'd just go round and round like this forever, setting each other off. 

Until he bled out, he thought, his hand twitching, shooting another twinge of pain up through his arm.

He almost didn't want to look at it any closer than he already had, but he forced himself to, gingerly flexing his fingers. He couldn't quite make out how many puncture marks there were, she'd scratched him up too much, but at least he could still move it so that probably didn't meant she hadn't done any permanent damage. 

"She got me good," he said, looking back up at Theo ruefully. "Kind of wish I'd worn gloves, now. Or like... used a net or something..." He trailed off as Theo leaned in, his fingers brushing his skin. Colder now than earlier. Maybe because his heart was thumping, pulse pounding.

His breath stuck in his throat and he swallowed, hard.

"I'm okay," he said in feeble protest even as he let Theo shoo him back into the kitchen. Avoiding the sofa—the last thing he wanted to do was drip blood over the upholstery—he made his way over to the island, back next to the coffee pot he'd abandoned earlier. Judging by the cookware on the floor, something had happened while he'd been wrestling Violet. Had he done that? He couldn't remember, but that didn't mean anything. The last five minutes were a blur, scrambled by chaos and panic. (By Theo's hand hovering over his chest.) (What was wrong with him?)

Wren bent down, hefted the skillet up and onto the counter, then went back for the pot lid. At the sound of Theo's voice, he looked up, narrowly avoiding knocking his head against the island, but Theo was talking into his phone, not at him, so he balanced the lid on the skillet and leant his hip against the side of the counter as he waited for him to leave his message. He wasn't so sure Violet was the one in need of urgent medical attention, but it sounded like this Michael was someone involved with the cat shelter so it was probably a good thing to get them over as soon as possible. He hadn't really thought about what would happen to Violet after this. Maybe she'd get placed in a nice home with a nice family.

He only sat down when Theo indicated to the stool, wincing as he rested the elbow of his injured arm amongst the collection of things piling up in the kitchen. The throbbing was giving way to stiffness now, and while he couldn't see his shoulder, he was pretty sure it was starting to swell. He didn't really want to strip off in the middle of Theo's kitchen, but not for any logical reason. They needed to disinfect the wound. He gritted his teeth.

“I guess we should dress it,” he said, easing his arm out of his sleeve, “but you really don't have to do my laundry. I don't care about the shirt.” It had been one of the many items of clothing he'd had to adopt into his wardrobe after moving back. The last time it had seen daylight had probably been close to ten years ago.

The fabric stuck to his chest as he peeled it off, and he had to resist the urge to probe at the wound. He should really have washed his hands, and he didn't think shots would help if he ended up with a bacterial infection, but Theo seemed to know what he was doing. Anyway, he was now shirtless in a stranger's kitchen. The only way this could get more bizarre was if he ended up hospitalised, and being hospitalised would get him out of the house and away from his family, so it could be worse.

He balled his t-shirt up in his lap and winced at Theo. “So what's the verdict? Amputation, right? Just to be safe?”

“Whatever you say, doc.”

Setting aside his t-shirt, Wren took the wad of paper towel from Theo, pressing it into his injured palm. It only took a couple of seconds for the red to start spotting through, so he folded it in half again, which seemed to hold up better. He hoped he wouldn't need stitches.

Pressing his uninjured thumb firmly onto the paper towel (that was what you were supposed to do with wounds, right? Apply pressure?), he made an effort to relax. He wondered if Theo could sense his tension. It wasn't that he didn't trust him or anything; he just felt vulnerable, hyper-aware, every noise and movement amplified. And when the water stopped, he could sense Theo's eyes appraising his back. It took all his willpower not to turn around and face him, like that would somehow make it better, instead of exposing himself further.

It was only when Theo swore—kind of—and dropped something that he tried to look around on instinct. But his shoulder twinged, stopping him, and before he could ask Theo if everything was okay, he was talking to him. And his hand was on his back.

Wren froze. Whether it was at Theo's voice or the touch of his fingers, he didn't know. Maybe both.

He didn't have a great history with relationships. Not a bad one, but not a good one either.

When he'd been growing up, he'd always just assumed he was straight. He hadn't really been interested in dating or relationships as a teenager, left that to Robin, who, once they turned fifteen, had seemed incapable of remaining single for more than a couple of weeks at a time. She'd tried to set him up a couple of times, encouraged him to come out with her and her boyfriend on double-dates every now and then, which were always awkward for everybody except the happy couple. So she'd left him alone after a while, which suited him fine, until they went to college and she broke up with Warren and started playing the field again. 

Then she'd started trying to set him up with a revolving door of her friends, girls who were perfectly nice but completely unappealing, who always seemed more into him than the other way around. He ended up going out with one of them for three months or so, until she dumped him in a confusing conversation where she'd cried a lot and he'd mostly tried to hide how relieved he felt.

His roommate, Scott, had observed all this with more amusement than Wren thought was strictly necessary, until one day he'd pulled him aside and asked if maybe, since women weren't working out, had he considered dating men? He hadn't, but couldn't think of a reason why not, so agreed to come along to the next meeting of the QSA. And while he made a couple of friends, went to dinner with a couple of people, nothing lasting had come out of it.

Eventually he got too busy to even think about dating—especially after moving to New York—and while he had still tried to meet people every now and then he'd found it as difficult and unrewarding as he always had. And then, all of a sudden, the prospect of being perpetually single had become the least of his worries.

It had been a long time since anybody had touched him like that.

Which was why he knew he was being ridiculous.

Wren forced himself to relax, wincing at the sting of the alcohol on his wound. As Theo moved around, he dropped his gaze to his lap, to the paper towel pressed against his hand, starting to spot. He braced himself for the sting again, but Theo spoke again and he looked up sharply. He was so close. For a moment he thought—something. And…

It didn't matter. Even if there was something there, he didn't deserve it.

He smiled, looked back down at his hand. “Who knows what Robin was thinking,” he murmured. He sure as hell didn't any more. He chewed the inside of his cheek, readying himself for the alcohol wipe again.

And then he frowned.

When he'd first gotten his diagnosis, he'd made a decision that he wasn't going to be ashamed, and it wasn't going to be a secret. But that had been before he'd had to leave his job. Before he'd had to move back home, into his childhood bedroom. And while he had never lied about his situation he hadn't made an effort to talk about it either. Honestly, he didn't really want to talk about it now. Not with Theo. Not like this.

He pressed his thumb against his injured palm.

“You can ask,” he said, after a moment. He sounded distant even to himself. “I mean… just… it's not a very exciting story.” He hesitated. Pressed down on his palm a little harder. “When I… you know. Got sick. I had to leave my job. I couldn't handle it any more. But I couldn't afford New York without a salary.”

He glanced at Theo, then looked back down at his lap before continuing. “And you know, I grew up here. My parents still lived here. And Robin had just moved back too. So I guess… I didn't have anywhere else to go. It wasn't much of a choice.”

He shrugged, gave Theo a small smile. “See. Boring. Anyway… I think it's stopped bleeding,” he said, offering him his palm. “Think we can save the hand too?”

Theo dabbed at the wound at Wren’s collar bone, keeping his expression neutral. The scratch was deeper than the one on his shoulder; the clumsy, rather unprecise work of one of Violet’s scrambling back claws. As if in reminder that yes, she was still locked up, another pissed off yowl sounded from the bathroom. She wasn’t cowering behind the toilet like the other cats he’d sheltered, which was strange. Obviously she wasn’t short on attitude. 

Theo set to unscrewing the cap from the Polysporine, squeezing a dab onto his finger. Not exactly sterile, but whatever. He applied what he could to the scratch, finishing up by shellacking him with a few band-aids that would peak out from the collar of his shirt. He wondered if he was going to get any angry phone calls from concerned relatives later. 

Wren didn’t want to talk about it, and he couldn’t say he blamed him. It’s not like Theo was dying to divulge the secret details of his own medical history. But he didn’t regret asking. He watched the way Wren pressed down on his palm, like he wanted it to hurt. Wordlessly, Theo took his hand in his, pulling it closer to him so he could have a look. 

“New York? That must have been tough.” Theo murmured, looking down as he lifted the blood soaked paper towel, setting it aside on the counter and peering at the wound. He wondered if Wren had ever met his mother. Probably not. Hopefully not. 

“Boston kind of felt the same way, but it was the people I couldn’t deal with, not the job.”

Carefully, he pressed the two sides of the wound together, and decided Wren wouldn’t need stitches. He’d hurt himself enough times to know when stitches were needed and when a trip to the hospital could be avoided, and this was a case of the latter. 

Theo had moved because of his family, and so did Wren, he supposed. But for complete opposite reasons. He was jealous, in a way, that Wren’s family seemed to be so caring and understanding and sympathetic. But he shouldn’t have been, since he was lucky enough (and privileged enough) to be able to move to the other side of the country and leave them behind in his dust. Especially since he’d put so much effort into pushing people away. 

He was the man up on the mountain. 

If he could actually grow a beard, it would have been a little more acceptable. 

Theo was silent, as he pressed clean gauze into Wren’s palm. With some difficulty he managed to wrap a few layers of white medical tape around his hand, securing the gauze and keeping the wound closed. 

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches. Just change the gauze and clean it every couple of hours and it’ll heal up fine.” Theo said, instead. 

He looked back down at Wren’s wrapped up palm, cradled in his hands. He looked up, and smiled. 

“And, well. Maybe this is morbid but I’m kind of glad you had to move back --“

He cut himself off. Wanted to say something else, something better, until he heard the front door ease open, and then slam shut. Shoes shuffling in the front foyer, a bag set down on the floor. A huff of exasperation. 

“Theo, would you pick up your damn phone for once?” 

Shit, fuck. Michael. He’d totally forgotten. He released Wren’s hand, drawing his own away. From a privacy stand point, this was the draw back to his open concept design. You saw everything from the entryway way. Theo’s surprise faded quickly, replaced by a flash of annoyance for just a second. Until he glanced at his phone, picked it up, turned the screen on. Only then noticing that he had 3 missed calls. 

Michael looked like he always did – easy, breezy – despite the fact that the tableau he’d walked in on probably wasn’t one he’d been expecting. He was wearing blue scrubs beneath a zipped up hoody, and in one hand was holding a carrier that had PROPERTY OF GLENDALE COLLEGE scribbled on the rim in black marker. He looked a little surprised, most likely because Theo rarely had people over. And then, as his gaze breezed over Wren, confused and suspicious. 

Michael was objectively good-looking (Theo believed, perhaps negating the objective part). He worked out, didn’t eat gluten or carbs, and had an active social life. He was young, and idealistic, and immature. His monologues about not wanting to work for a big corporation (like his parents) were countered by his incessant need to drive Theo’s BMW around town and have him take him out for nice dinners. He could be funny, and incredibly tedious. Theo usually found himself wondering if it was Michael’s age, or his own newfound inflexibility that left him feeling impatient and old. 

“Hey, Mike, I’m sorry. I guess I turned my phone on silent by accident. Wren helped me finally catch Violet, but she ripped up his hand.” 

Michael approached the island counter, placing a hand on Theo’s shoulder. He felt his fingers brush the back of his neck, then the weight of his arm drape around his shoulders. A shiver crept up his spine, an ache settling at the base of his skull. His left elbow felt stiff, like it was seizing up. 

“Didn’t think you had to be shirtless to have a hand injury tended to.” Michael said, glancing at Wren, before leaning in to kiss Theo on the cheek.

Jesus fucking Christ. This was awful. Theo tried not to grimace as Michael pulled away, his desire to call him out on how obvious he was being tempered only by not wanting to make Wren uncomfortable by the bickering. Neither of them were particularly publicly affectionate people, and he knew the show Michael was putting on was for one person in particular. 

“Well, we caught her. Didn’t take too long either.” 

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expected, or what he even wanted from Michael. He wanted some sort of congratulations, that Theo had done something without help (not that that was true). He wanted some kind of reward for his weeks of agony, waiting for that damn cat to show its face. But Michael was fixating on his guest, rather than the cat. 

“So, Wren. That’s a kind of bird, right? How’d you meet Theo?” Michael asked. 

“We’re friends.” Theo supplied quickly (too quickly), glancing at Wren. Michael didn’t know about any of the groups he attended. His arm felt like a lead weight on his shoulders. 

“You never leave the house. How the hell did you make a friend?” He glanced at Wren, his smile spreading into a wide grin as if it were a hilarious joke. “He’s practically agoraphobic.” 

“Mike, fuck off, would you? I know his sister from college.” When in doubt, all roads lead to Robin. His mood was plummeting into something sour, though he knew it wasn’t entirely Michael’s fault. It was a shitty aspect of his personality but he rarely felt compelled to control the up and downs of his mood anymore. It was too much trouble and he figured people just expected it from him by this point. 

“Would you just take a look at Violet? She’s in the bathroom.” 

“Alright, alright.” Michael replied, grin fading. He gave Wren a short glance, before heading off into the bathroom. At the sound of a yowl from Violet, Theo stood, gripping the counter. He began tidying up, placing the first aid bits and pieces back where they belonged. Trying to get back to the calm, he'd felt before. When it had just been Wren. He looked out the window as he washed his hands, watching the wind push the thick barrier of pine trees surrounding his home this way and that. Far down below, he could just barely see white caps forming in the water. He wondered when the weather had picked up. 

“Sorry about him. He can be an ass, sometimes.” His voice was lowered, though his words conveyed further sense of familiarity with Violet’s ‘doctor’. As he tidied up, his eyes fell on the casserole dish that certainly did not belong to him. He lifted it from the counter and turned to look at Wren. 

“Did you bring me lunch?” Theo asked, brightening a little. He smiled, and looked down at the casserole. That was fucking adorable. 

“I’ll heat it up, maybe we can eat outside on the deck …” 

He wanted to add that Michael would leave soon, but he didn’t know if that was strictly true. 

As if on cue, he was back in the kitchen, a towel draped over the grated opening of the carrier, which he set down on the floor. Theo could imagine her pacing back and forth, like a panther in a cage. 

“Theo, you guys really should have just left her until you had a trap. She could have a broken leg, ribs, anything … Hopefully she’s okay.” His words had the tang of chastisement, and Theo felt his hackles rising. He set the casserole on the island counter, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Are you serious? We didn’t really have a choice. Have you seen her eyes?” Theo countered. Was he seriously pissed off? “Don't you think she’s better off with a sore leg over crossing paths with a coyote later tonight? Or a transport truck for that matter?” 

“I just hope she isn’t hurt.” 

“She’s fine. Right, Wren?”

The first time Wren had visited Alison's office, he almost hadn't been able to find it. Wedged in the same block as the local art gallery and a shop selling trinkets for locals, he'd had to circle it twice before stumbling on the steps leading up to the third floor of what looked very much like a two-storey building. The third floor ended up to be more of a room, divided in half by some drywall and a door intended to separate waiting depressives with those actually in a session. That first time, he hadn't seen anybody else there; Alison had been waiting for him in the reception area and ushered him in almost immediately. And while he had spent a significant amount of time in the waiting room since, he still hadn't ever met another one of her patients. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only one.

This time, two weeks and one day after he'd last seen Theo, he was almost certain that he was.

He had just moved on to wondering if she had forgotten about him when Alison stuck her head through the door of her treatment room. “Come in!” she said, holding it open for him, standing aside as he pushed his way through the bead curtain on the other side, only just remembering to duck his head.

Walking over to the couch, he tried not to sneeze at the pungent incense wafting towards him from one corner. Maybe it had just been the three-week break that had dulled the memory of this room in his mind, or maybe Alison was trying to air the place out. She shut the door behind them, then walked over to a table in the left corner with a pitcher of water and a couple of glasses laid out. He had never been able to work out where the water came from, or how she washed the glasses—there was no sink up here, as far as he could tell—but tried not to let it bother him too much. As he tried to get comfortable, she filled up both glasses, handing him one before she sat down.

“You look well, Wren,” she commented. She must have forgotten what he'd looked like, because he knew for a fact that was not true. Or maybe she was testing him—they'd spoken briefly about taking compliments in an earlier session.

He drummed his fingers against the side of his glass. “Thanks.”

She smiled at him encouragingly, flashing teeth that he had always found a little predatory, and gave him a thumbs up. (Test, then.) “First of all, I'd like to apologise for having to cancel the past few sessions. Three weeks is a long break when routine is an essential part of your recovery, especially with so few sessions left, and I don't want you to feel as though this isn't a priority for me. Did you get the material I sent over?”

“It's okay,” he said. It kind of wasn't, but it also wasn't not-okay, and he didn't know what else to say. He was pretty sure she had gone on a cruise. Robin had followed her on Instagram and shown him a few photos she'd taken from a beach that wasn't the one she lived five minutes away from, but looked otherwise identical. “I got them, yeah.”

He tugged a couple of sheets of folded paper out of his pocket and set them on the table in between them. She beamed at him, and he felt a little like a dog whose owner had just gotten him to perform a trick.

“That's great,” she said. “I'm so glad. So...” She leaned forward, and for a moment he thought she was going to pick up the paper. Instead, she looked him straight in the eyes. “How have you been?”

“Oh,” he said. His thumb traced over the scar on his palm. “Uh. Fine.”

Lying was much easier than he'd thought it was going to be.

Wren had been trying not to think about it, but hadn't been able to stop. The scene had been replaying itself over and over in his mind. It changed a little every time, but the broad strokes were the same, marked by physical sensation. 

Theo's hands cupping his, the blood-soaked paper towel sticking to his skin. A sting as his fingers pushing closed his wound. The pressure of the bandage holding everything together.

A jolt of surprise. His pulse picking up. His teeth sinking into the inside of his lip as he searched for a response.

Then: an absence. The weight of his hand, unsupported. 

A stranger's voice driving an invisible wedge between them.

The image of Mike, that first glimpse, was burned into his brain. The first thing he'd noticed how young he was. He couldn't have been older than twenty-one, a vision even in scrubs and holding a cat carrier. He;d obviously been there for Violet, but his attitude suggested a level of familiarity beyond just being from the shelter.

He remembered the look on the young man's face as he saw him, the disbelief followed by suspicion.

Remembered standing up, the band-aids on his shoulder tautening.

A feeling blooming in his chest. Unease, or maybe guilt. He'd looked at Theo for a cue, or an introduction, but his attention had been elsewhere. Then Mike had wrapped his arm around Theo and the pieces fell into place. 

Of course.

More sensations: time slowing, blood freezing, stomach dropping. He had been so stupid. How could he have been so stupid? Michael's eyes had bored into him, ice cold. He felt as though he was being weighed up, but coming up short. He'd wanted to explain, but knew it wouldn't have helped. The feeling of vulnerability, exposure, exploded back. The next moments were fuzzy. He remembered resisting the urge to grab his clothes and run, gripping on to the edge of the countertop, a dry mouth, and being interrupted before he could introduce himself.

Theo's exact words were lost, but his tone remained clear. Curt. Maybe at Mike, but it hadn't felt directional. And Wren had been annoyed too, like he'd been dropped in the middle of a game where nobody had bothered to tell him the rules. Robin would have known what to do, exactly what to say to diffuse the tension, but he wasn't her.

He remembered Michael leaving, remembered waiting until he was completely out of sight before grabbing his bloodied t-shirt and sweater. Theo had said something to him, but he hadn't been listening so he'd had to wait a moment to process what he was talking about. Something about lunch, about taking it outside. The casserole dish.

“Oh,” he'd said. His own voice had sounded wrong to him, like Michael's arrival had robbed him of speech. “It's just leftovers. Nothing special.”

He hadn't said what he'd been thinking; as nice as lunch on the deck sounded—as nice as it would have been even five minutes earlier—he doubted Michael would have been appreciative of the company.

As if on cue he'd reappeared, having managed to wrangle Violet in half the time, with fewer injuries, and considerably more skill than he had. But he'd had something else on his mind, and at being dragged into the line of fire, Wren had frozen.

Deer-in-headlights, he'd glanced back and forth between the two other men, trying to figure out what to do. Theo had clearly wanted back-up but getting in the middle of this fight had seemed like a bad idea. Besides, what if he had hurt her? He'd tried to be as gentle as possible, but anything could have happened when he'd grabbed her. He couldn't in all conscience unilaterally back Theo up.

“I mean...” he'd said after a moment, “she seemed OK.” Great, he'd thought, he sounded like a fucking idiot. He'd tried again. “We tried not to hurt her. It may have been better to wait until we had a trap, but her eye looked pretty bad and we weren't sure if we'd see her again. We did the best we could.” We, we, we, like any of this had been his idea. Jesus fucking Christ. He couldn't believe he'd stood there, justifying himself to a kid.

He'd cleared his throat, turned to Theo. “Hey, thanks for patching me up. I should probably get going, though. Enjoy the casserole, and I'm sorry I didn't get around to putting the wardrobe up. Rain check?” Then looking at Michael, he said, “It was nice to meet you, Mike. See you around.”

He hadn't stuck around long enough to remember anything they might have said. 

In his mind, the next two weeks blended together, this time punctuated by his phone.

It had taken nearly an hour to walk back home, avoiding the beach. When he arrived, nobody had been in, though his mom had left a note for him stuck to the fridge saying she'd gone to help his dad out at the store. He'd thought about joining them, holing himself back up in their storeroom to continue the monumental task of sorting their books, but something about that had felt monumentally unappealing.

So instead he'd gone back upstairs and lain down in bed fully clothed, flat on his back. When he'd been a kid, his mom and dad had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling. Several of them had peeled off over the years, and they didn't really glow any more, but he could still pick out their outlines. He used to count them when he couldn't fall asleep. He hadn't wanted to fall asleep now, but found himself counting them anyway,

The next thing he'd known, he'd been woken up by his phone buzzing. A text, from Robin.

hey! having fun at theo's? he's cute, right? 😉

Shit. He'd forgotten about Robin's offer to drive him back. Of course she would want to know how things were going. He'd groaned, rolled over, thought about leaving it unanswered, but he'd known she wouldn't let it go. After a moment he'd replied: I'm at home. He has a boyfriend.

A couple of minutes went by until his phone buzzed again.

wanna talk about it?

After that, he'd just switched it off. He'd hoped Robin would get the hint. She was his twin, after all.

And to her credit, she didn't bring it up again. After the first awkward dinner where his parents tried to make him talk about his day, he'd thought that maybe he could put the past two days behind him, and forget they'd ever happened.

But then, a couple of days later, just when he'd thought he was safe, somebody left him a missed call. He hadn't recognised the number, but he'd known who it was.

And then he'd called again. Left a voicemail this time, so Wren couldn't pretend it was anyone else. Asked if he wanted to come over and watch a movie.

Wren had thought about calling him back. He'd felt a little guilty for not doing so. But every time he'd gotten close, that image of Michael planting a kiss onto Theo's cheek floated back up to the forefront of his mind. Nothing had happened—they both knew that. But it had sort of felt like something might have. And he didn't know why, or whether he wanted it to, but he knew it was a bad idea. Even if Theo hadn't had a secret boyfriend (was that fair?), given his track record of failed relationships, it probably wasn't smart to get involved with someone when he was like this. He fucked things up at the best of times, never mind the worst.

So, he didn't call back, excusing it as just needing time to think. But instead of thinking, he'd pushed it to the back of his mind. And then Theo had called again, and even though he'd caught it this time, he hadn't been able to bring himself to answer. So he hadn't. And Theo left him another voicemail, this one more passive-aggressive, telling him to—if he read between the lines—shit or get off the pot.

He got off the pot.

Which was why he didn't want to bring this up with Alison. There was nothing to say. Nothing had happened.

They went over his exercises. Alison had asked him to do a couple of things—note down anything that made him smile, and at the end of every day, note one or two things he was looking forward to the next day. He hadn't managed to do it consistently, but often enough so that he'd filled a page, and Alison seemed to think that was good progress, though she seemed particularly focused on the last entry he'd made.

“So you do this every year?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Well. Kind of. The last time I went to one must have been while I was still at college.”

“But you've been doing it for a while,” she pressed.

He had no idea why she was this interested. Camping out on the beach was hardly unusual. “I guess so. It started when we were small.. We'd camp on the beach every year with our parents and some friends, then eventually our parents stopped staying the whole night so it was just the kids. Robin came back for most of them, I think. This is the first one she's organising on her own. My parents can't come.”

“Well, I think it's great you've decided to go,” said Alison. “I think it will be really positive for you to spend some time with your peers.”

“Sure,” he said. “It should be fun.” He didn't mention how much he hated parties, or how he wasn't sure if Robin's friends really counted as his peers. It felt like a Pandora's box he wasn't brave enough to open.

It was only six, and Wren was exhausted.

He'd spent the afternoon helping to set up. While Robin and Ursula had arguably done most of the work, he'd been tasked with driving things to and from his parents' store, and he hated driving. Though most of the attendees were expected to bring some food or drink, his parents usually donated some things, and this year they'd been especially generous. Then he'd been sent to collect as much driftwood as he could find for the fire. His arms ached, and he was grateful for the reprieve. He'd even cracked open one of the beers he'd spent the day carrying around.

Sat by the fledgling fire, he was technically supposed to be making sure it didn't go out, but he was doing more people-watching than fire-watching. Their guests had started to arrive around an hour ago, in dribs and drabs at first but slowly more steadily, until the stream had started to die down again. He knew most of them, and had been expecting them—the few people who had stuck around, the crowd from high school who now lived in Portland—but some other faces were unfamiliar. Typically, everybody seemed to know him, or at least know of him; they'd said hello when they'd arrived, and he'd chatted with a few of the people he was closer with, but they'd all moved on eventually, clustering in groups of people whom they'd remained close to in the past eight years, presumably because they hadn't fallen off the face of the earth.

It suited him fine. He didn't feel like making small talk, and he'd never been a fan of large social gatherings. It had been different when they'd been younger, when it had just been him, Robin and their parents, even when it had just been their close friends. He wasn't close to any of these people any more. He'd accepted that a while ago.

“You okay?” Robin came out of nowhere, sitting down beside him. He had barely seen her that afternoon, they'd both been so busy, and he found himself surprisingly glad to see her.

“Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “I am. How about you?”

“More than okay,” she said. “You know I live for this shit. Maybe I should reconsider my career, become a party planner...”

He wasn't listening any more. Not after spotting their latest arrival, limping up the beach, dressed in—was that fucking cashmere?

“Robin.”

“Yes?”

“You didn't tell me you invited Theo.” He couldn't tell if he was angry or anxious. In any case, her reaction was totally wrong.

“Oh, he came?” she said, scanning the crowd, then waving when she saw him. “I wasn't sure if he would… Theo!”

“Why would you invite him?” he asked, completely aware that he sounded ridiculous.

Robin seemed to think so too, because she looked at him like he was nuts. “Why wouldn't I? He's my friend.”

“Yeah, but—“

He didn't get to finish his sentence. She was already standing up, ready to greet him.

“Hey!” she said, as soon as Theo was close enough to hear her. “I'm so glad you came! Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Can I get you a drink?”

Wren should have known Robin would do something like this. She'd invited people who would never have made it in a million years, so why not somebody who lived twenty minutes up the road? Especially if it offered her the opportunity to meddle in his life. Besides, she'd been cagey all week. On Saturday, Ursula had driven them up to Seaside for the day, and Robin had spent the whole car journey texting somebody, so preoccupied that at one point he'd had to repeat a question three times before she'd actually paid attention. Then, when—annoyed—he'd asked her who she'd been talking to, all she'd said was 'a friend'. The friend must have been Theo, and the fact she'd glossed over it proved she'd known he wouldn't have been okay with them speaking.

To be honest, he was angry. But as Theo approached the two of them, he tried to rearrange his face into something more neutral. It wasn't fair to take this out on the other man; his anger didn't lie with their guest. Luckily, Theo didn't seem to have picked up on any hostility, or at least had decided to take Robin's cue and ignore it. She was already making space for him, reaching a hand out to help with his bag.

“Hey, thanks! I don't think I can take full credit. It kind of organised itself,” she said, though the humility in her words were somewhat at odds with the way she beamed at Theo. Wren rolled his eyes, taking a long sip of his beer to cover it up.

She accepted the bottle of Merlot graciously, shooting Theo a grin. “Perfect,” she said. “I'll grab that beer.” And then she was gone, skipping over the sand towards the cooler with a surprising amount of speed, leaving behind an empty, unfillable space. Wren wondered if he was the only person who felt that way in her immediate absence. Her tendency to take over any space annoyed him, smothered him, sometimes, but it meant she filled in all his gaps, and the moments right after she left were when they stood out the most.

And now she'd left him alone with Theo, of all people, the one person in Cannon Beach he'd been actively trying to avoid. He had been imagining this scenario (albeit against varying backdrops) for the past couple of weeks. Running into Theo at his parents' store, or in the street, or in Alison's waiting room. Every one of them had been completely and utterly embarrassing. But as it turned out, he'd been catastrophizing again. Theo was already extending him a hand—quite literally—and the only person making things awkward was him.

After a moment of hesitation, he took it, bracing himself against the weight. Theo's fingers brushed against the scar on his palm, conjuring up an uneasy echo of the last time they'd held hands. He shook it off, reached for his beer again, not because he wanted any more, but for something to do. It took him a moment to notice Theo was looking at him—he guessed he'd just assumed they would both want to sit in uncomfortable silence until Robin returned—but at the sound of his voice, he looked back at him, watched him pull his boot off, and couldn't help but smile.

“She didn't mention the dress code, did she?” he asked, swilling his beer around in its can. Of course she hadn't. Judging by Theo's bag, but lack of tent, she also hadn't mentioned he might want something to sleep in. Why would she have? It would have meant thinking about somebody other than herself for a change. (Maybe that was being unfair, but he was having trouble feeling bad about it.)

Setting his can down, he looked over at the fire. It needed to be stoked, but standing up sounded hard, and it could wait for a few more minutes. Something about the beach made him want to lie down and fall asleep, and the warmth of the fire lapping over his skin just intensified the feeling. All he had ever wanted while living here was to leave, and he hadn't really thought about it while out on the East coat, but he'd missed this.

“It is nice,” he said after a moment, looking back at Theo. “I was pretty lucky. I guess you end up taking things for granted. This is the first time I've been down here since moving back, and our house is only a twenty minute walk away.”

Talking like this—like nothing had happened—felt weird, though he wasn't sure if that was just him. He guessed if Theo was going to pretend they were okay, then he could too.

A beat. He bit his lip, looked down at the sand, flames flickering across the floor, each grain a moment.

“So, how's Violet?” he asked. “And, uh, Mike?”

The tide was coming in, sending some pretty spectacular foam-covered waves crashing up through the turf. Closer to the water, a woman screeched and then howled with laughter. Theo watched as she ran up the beach and right into the arms of her boyfriend (or husband or whatever), her wet shoes held loosely in one hand and the cuffs of her jeans thoroughly soaked. He laughed and then bent to roll up her pant leg as she danced in the sand in discomfort. Further down the beach, a teenager from another group was chasing a dog, its pink tongue lolling stupidly from its open mouth and grey fur spikey from the salt water. Closer to where he was sitting, two guys who looked to be about his age were tossing a football back and forth, sand flying from their feet as one of them dove to catch a stray ball. More laughter. Theo leaned back, sinking into the sights and the sounds, the smells. The smiles. 

And then, so predictable that it was getting boring, he was left with the distinct, twisting feeling that he was missing out. He should have been used to it by now, but. Well. 

He pulled his cane in closer to his body, redirected his focus to his attempts to get his shoe back on. Beside him, Wren spoke, and he couldn’t help but smile ruefully at him as he re-tied his boot. His tremor was back, left hand quivering as he held the laces in place. 

“No. She also failed to mention that beaches on the West Coast typically have sand. I’ll have to mention that on her Yelp review.”

He offered a tight smile at Wren’s afterthought of a question regarding Michael. 

“Michael’s fine. He was supposed to come tonight but he bailed. Which is … fine.”

It was fine, probably even for the best. But it didn’t mean he wanted to talk about him.

“But Violet - Robin didn’t tell you?” He asked, eyebrow raised. “It’s been kind of hectic. The vets opened her up to spay her, only to find out she’d already been. So it’s most likely that someone ditched her. She also has a badly healed back leg, and they’re thinking maybe she was hit by a car or abused by her former owner.” 

He shrugged, staring at the fire. He hadn’t expected any of this, and just assumed she’d been feral, not traumatized. “The shelter got me to watch her until her eye heals. So she’s still at my place, swatting at me whenever I try to use the washroom. Otherwise she’s fine. No additional damage caused by our extra-judicial cat-napping.” Theo felt the need to reassure him, and took a bit of pleasure from the small jab at Michael. 

“I tried calling to let you know.” Theo said then, after a moment. Before Wren went thinking he’d forgotten about it. Or worse, he’d betrayed him by going to Robin first. 

She’d added him on Facebook the same day Wren had come over. He hadn’t really been surprised, since she seemed like the type. Theo had been fairly uninterested in the conversation at the beginning (his first reaction being that he felt her pushy and a little high-maintenance, when he just wanted to be left alone), though she’d quickly won him over, and over the course of a few days he’d found himself looking forward to the buzz of a new text reaching his phone. She was funny, and kept the conversation light and easy. He still felt a little bit like a cog in her machine, but he didn't think he cared.

He chewed his bottom lip, before looking at Wren. A moment passed before he was laying a hesitant hand on his shoulder. 

“Wren, it’s fine. I didn’t take it personally.” He gave him a small smile, and gave his shoulder a small squeeze before withdrawing. He looked away, at the beach, at the dying fire.

“I mean, I’m not a saint. I was a little ticked off,” He continued, not letting him off the hook that easily. “I kind of figured we had a fun time, if not a little chaotic … So maybe .... But, I mean. I know you’re going through some shit. I get it, I think maybe more than a lot of people.” His words weren’t coming out right. He looked away, shifting a little. 

Maybe it sounded cocky; simply assuming that Wren simply hadn’t called him back because of his own issues. But he didn’t mean it to. He figured they’d had a nice time; they’d laughed, and talked, and it had felt normal. Theo hadn’t felt like a crumpled up wad of thrown away newspaper, and he’d thought Wren had enjoyed himself too. He’d seen him smile, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t think Wren had been ignoring him because he didn’t like him (though admittedly he’d only come to this conclusion after many self-critical moments). 

Be he could recall Wren sinking to the floor, smiling widely as blood crept down his wrist. He had a disarmingly charming smile. One he hadn't been able to shake. 

"I also never really got a chance to properly thank you? Not many people would take a mauling for me." Theo added. Looked away. 

“What about you? Have things been okay?”

Wren found it hard to look at the ocean, sometimes. The past few weeks it had been getting worse. When he'd been growing up, he hadn't really thought about it; it had been a constant, like he'd told Theo, one of the things he took for granted. And since moving back, he hadn't been actively avoiding it. But he'd be lying if he had said that it was only the tourists keeping him away.

Every year, someone drowned. It was a fact of life. Mostly it was accidents, tragic and senseless; children caught by rip currents, people falling off boats, or being washed off rocks. He wasn't worried about that. They'd had beach safety drilled into them so often growing up it was practically second nature, and he and Robin had both spent a couple of summers as volunteer lifeguards.

No, it was the other drownings that scared him.

Sometimes the ocean felt like an inevitable conclusion.

Hard to see it now, the water bright and clear in the late afternoon sun. Easy to forget that it turned black at night.

He looked away, back to the fire.

Wren didn't know what he'd been expecting, asking about Michael, but Theo's answer told him what he needed to know. This was definitely a thing, not some kind of weird misunderstanding; Robin had probably invited him; Theo had planned on bringing him. He wasn't sure how that made him feel, or even how he should be feeling, but he was glad for the change of subject.

“Robin didn't tell me,” he said, quietly, eyes dropping to his lap. He didn't know why she hadn't mentioned it, apart from the fact she had a life outside of him now. Well, that had always been the case, and it had never bothered him before. He guessed it was just that his own life had been lacking lately. 

Shifting in the sand, he looked down at the can of beer he was still holding. Half-empty already. He should probably stop drinking, maybe slow down a bit. Setting it aside in one deliberate action, he looked across at Theo instead.

“Jesus. No wonder she was so wound up. I'm glad to hear she's doing better, though.”

Sometimes making conversation made him feel like a machine, receiving words in one end and spitting more out again. It worked, but he couldn't feel anything. Sometimes he couldn't remember if he had ever been any different.

But this was different. This wasn't mechanical.

When Theo mentioned calling him, he glanced away again, the guilt starting to creep up. He almost flinched at Theo's touch—almost. He wanted to look at Theo, meet his eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to, despite his assurances. This was what he'd been worried about, a confrontation, but—this wasn't so bad.

Alison had made him keep a journal for a couple of weeks, and he'd written about this before, this feeling he had sometimes of being surrounded by cotton wool, unable to reach out to anybody else, or even see them because they were so far away. And while the wool was suffocating, it was also comforting. It felt like home. He'd never been much of a writer, and the lyricism embarrassed him, but he hadn't been able to come up with a different way of wording it. Talking to Theo now felt kind of like the wool being peeled away, some clarity, welcoming but also terrifying.

He'd never showed the journal to Alison, and she'd never asked to see it, but he could hear her voice in his mind. Why are you so afraid of making a connection with somebody?

Plenty of reasons came to mind. He was selfish and shitty and bound to hurt somebody; they were going to figure out how selfish and shitty he was and hurt him first; he'd been so isolated for so long that he didn't know how to make connections any more. But none of them felt very compelling when faced with someone taking the time to reach out to him.

What had Robin said to him that day on the drive to the support group? Maybe she'd been right. Maybe he did need a friend.

“Thanks,” he said, after a moment. It was like a weight lifting. “And… look. I'm sorry. It was shitty of me, even if I had an excuse.”

Another beat, and then he smiled. “But don't thank me. I didn't know I was signing up for a mauling. So let's call it even.”

At Theo's question, he sighed, rubbed at his eye. “Things have been… I don't know. Not good, but not bad, I guess.” He'd have preferred one or the other. The past couple of weeks had been nothing but stretches of apathy only interrupted by periods of intense anxiety that went away as quickly as they'd arrived. Honestly, it was a struggle to even separate out the days. It could have been two weeks or a year for all he knew.

“I spent most of my time at the shop. My parents have an auditor coming around next week so I helped make sure they had everything ready for that,” he said. “They're not great at keeping their books organised, so it was a lot of time sifting through a few months' worth of receipts in a dark room. I wish they'd just hire a bookkeeper.”

He glanced back across at the fire. “But yeah, aside from that, not much. We went down to Seaside at the weekend, which was fun, I guess. Have you been down there yet?”

It was still bright, and it would be for another couple of hours, but the sun had dipped low enough in the sky that it was shining into his eyes. Wren squinted, shifted a little so he sat cross-legged, angled towards Theo. He wished he'd remembered to bring sunglasses out.

Summer days in Cannon Beach always felt longer than usual. It wasn't that it got any more daylight than New York did, though maybe it was a little sunnier than Boston. Wren guessed that maybe it was just context. Every time he'd been in Cannon Beach in summer, he'd been on break, or after graduation, vacation. By contrast, summers in New York had passed by without any fanfare, a backdrop rather than a feature to his day-to-day life. He realised that once, he'd used to look forward to summer. For the past couple of years he'd barely noticed when it arrived.

Was that natural? (Did it matter?) He'd thought… he'd used to think that he'd been happy, but maybe that should have been his first indication that things weren't right. When had he stopped noticing the weather?

He glanced over at Theo as he thanked him, then back down at his feet, not really sure of what to say. He didn't really think that he deserved a thanks, but it felt like he should treat this the same way Alison had told him to take a compliment. He didn't want to ruin the mood. That was the last thing he wanted, especially since Theo had already seemed to move on.

“It was pretty miserable,” he said. “Well. Maybe miserable isn't the right word. I feel like… you know how on those animal rescue shows, where a dog or something who's never been outside sees grass for the first time? I feel like that, but with the sun.” Not the most elegant metaphor, and he felt stupid as soon as he said it, but he couldn't think of another way to describe the sensation. 

He looked over again as Theo pulled something out of his bag, a thin tube that looked a little like an e-cigarette. “Go ahead,” he said, thankful for the change in topic, but Theo was already drawing on it, then breathing out a thin stream of vapour with a distinctive smell. 

After a moment's hesitation, he took the proffered vaporiser, examining the barrel as Theo explained what it was for. He glanced up at his demonstration of why he needed it, and frowned a little. He hadn't even noticed he'd been shaking that badly. 

He paused for a second before bringing it up to his lips. What the hell. Besides, they were hardly alone; he'd already seen a few joints being passed around elsewhere on the beach. The crowd had already started to segregate itself, people from different social groups reluctant to mix with each other, and Robin flitting in between them all. She'd probably forgotten about her promise of beers. He wondered how long it would be before she remembered.

He exhaled slowly, passing the vaporiser back to Theo. “Man. It's been a while since I've done this. Sitting on a beach, smoking with friends. The last time was probably when we were in high school.” Though their weed hadn't been nearly as good.

Stretching out one leg in front of him, he leant forward, hugging his other knee to his chest. “It's not much different, I guess,” he said, shrugging as he tried not to sound too defensive. He liked visiting Seaside. At least there was a minimal chance of being recognised there. “It's a lot bigger, and there's more to do, that's all. Maybe we could go up sometime. It's only twenty minutes away.” Nowhere near as far as Portland, which was a trip he could imagine being miserable for somebody with chronic pain.

“But yeah, you said you designed your house, right? Are you working on anything else in the area, or is it mostly based in the city?” Cannon Beach wasn't exactly known for its great construction projects, though he guessed the population was growing. 

At Theo's question, he chewed his lip, glanced over at the slowly-dwindling fire. He pushed himself up, crossing the few feet to it to pick up a long piece of driftwood he'd been using to stoke it with. Crouching by the fire, he started to turn a couple of the logs, before looking back up at Theo. “Yeah. I practice corporate law, specifically corporate finance.” It felt a little dishonest to say that when he hadn't actually been to work in over a month. “It's not very interesting, mostly speaking with clients or drafting up documents...”

And then he trailed off.

“Your mom is Lisa Ronstadt? Of Davis Ronstadt Woods? No fucking way.” He struggled to keep the awe out of his voice. “Our team worked with her on a couple of cases. She's a legend. Like, you might as well have said your dad is… I don't know. Mick Jagger or somebody.”