Page 169 of Save You

“Believe me, I’m perfectly capable of speaking to a pretty girl of my own free will,” he says in the end.

I open my mouth and shut it again.Then I take a closer look at Wren.His lips aren’t twitching like the boys who’ve come on to me at my school, and there’s no funny glimmer in his eyes.

Maybe he genuinely wants to flirt.Not for some dare, or some stupid joke, but just because he finds me as attractive as I do him.

I’m pretty sure he’s the last person I ought to be speaking to this evening.I don’t know what to make of this, and I can’t get a handle on him—but that’s exactly why I’m curious.

“I’m Ember,” I say belatedly.

“Nice to meet you, Ember.”

I like the way he says my name.Kind of uncertainly, like he needs to practice it a bit.

“Likewise, Wren.”

I am actually good at small talk.But at this moment, I have absolutely no idea what to say.I know Wren’s online image, just as I know the wayIappear to my followers—always cheerful, optimistic, and up for fun.But there are so many evenings where I’m feeling down and cry in secret in my room.Nobody knows about that, not even my sister.So I’m hesitant to judge people by the way they present themselves on socials.And I’m curious about what Wren is really like—whether there’s anything more behind the façade.

Maybe I should pull myself together and push my prejudices down a bit.At any rate, there’s no harm in having a conversation with him.

“What school are you at, then?”Wren asks, nabbing a glass of orange juice from a tray as a waiter pushes past us.“Eastview?”

I shake my head.“Gormsey High.”

For an instant, Wren seems to freeze.He stops in mid-sip and looks wide-eyed at me, then he blinks and the moment is over.“Sounds exotic.”

I wonder if I was only imagining his weird reaction.“It’s in the middle of nowhere,” I say slowly.“Not surprising if you’ve never heard of it.”

“So are you somebody’s plus-one?”he asks, looking at me with interest.

“I’m here with my sister.She switched to Maxton Hall a couple of years ago.”

“Well, that’s lucky for me, isn’t it?”says Wren.

At first I’m not sure what he means.“Why’s that?”

Now he’s smiling properly—showing his teeth and the little lines around his mouth.“Well, if your sister wasn’t at this school, we’d never have met.And that really would be a shame.Don’t you think?”

He whispers those last words, sounding so intimate that it gives me goose bumps.I can only nod, as if he’d hypnotized me, even though every single alarm bell is going off in my head, warning me to be careful.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Ember?”he asks quietly, the smile slowly ebbing away and making way for something else.He takes a step toward me until we’re almost touching.I’d only have to stretch my hand out a little way to take hold of his.I’m wondering how that would feel.Whether his skin is warm.

I clear my throat.“I…”

Wren comes closer still.So close that I can feel his breath on my temple.Again, I feel the urge to look around, but I ignore it.

“Maybe we should find somewhere a little quieter so we can get to kn—”

“Wren.”A deep voice interrupts him, and I’m snapped out of my trance.I instantly take a step back and turn my head.

It’s James Beaufort.

The James who broke my big sister’s heart.

The James who kissed another girl, as a result of which, Ruby spent Christmas acting like a lovesick zombie.

A wave of fury washes over me as he speaks again.

“I see you’ve met Ruby’s sister,” he says, his voice free of any intonation.