Handle With Care (Shacking Up 5)

“Okay. Ready to go.” She drops her bag on the counter. It looks like she’s packed for a week, not a night.

Most of the time I get to see Wren either in dresses or naked, so I’m digging the faded jeans and T-shirt ensemble.

“Oh no, this is no good. Obviously I need to change.” She spins around and takes a step toward her bedroom.

I grab her wrist before she can get too far. “What? Why? You look hot.”

She motions from her chest to mine and then to the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. “Look at us. We’re all matchy-matchy.”

I take in our reflections. We’re both wearing white shirts and jeans. “This is like the perfect couple selfie opportunity, isn’t it?”

Wren rolls her eyes. “We look ridiculous.”

I wrap my arms around her from behind and kiss my way up her neck to her ear with a chuckle. “I’ll put my hoodie on, and no one will know but us.”

“It’s too warm for hoodies,” Wren argues.

“We can wear them just until we’re in the car. Then we can lose them.” I kind of like the matchy-matchy, so I take a bunch of crappy selfies while Wren tries to free herself from my hold.

We both cover the T-shirts with hoodies—not matching ones—and shed them once we’re in the protective cover of the vehicle’s tinted windows and head out of the city toward the campground. It’s about an hour upstate. We’re going early, so we can make sure it’s all set up when Cosy and Griffin arrive.

I’m not sure camping after a six-hour flight and a meeting would be something I’d jump at, but apparently Cosy is superexcited, and Griffin does pretty much anything to make that woman happy.

“Can I ask you something? It’s kind of personal, though.” Wren’s sitting in the passenger seat, hair pulled up in a loose ponytail, lips glossy. She went for highlights a week ago, so there are more blond streaks. It softens her face and makes her look sun-kissed. She’s mind-numbingly gorgeous.

“Sure.”

“How did you and Griffin manage to stay so close when you were in boarding school?”

“We wrote letters to each other until computers became a thing, then we’d email and stuff. He’d keep me informed as to what was going on with Armstrong, since there was usually some trouble.”

“Even back then?”

“Armstrong was always … different, I guess. I don’t really know what’s wrong with him, but he’s always been an instigator. He used to push my buttons constantly, and then when I snapped on him, he’d go crying to the nanny or Gwendolyn. It drove me up the wall, honestly. He had a hard time with rules, as if they didn’t apply to him.”

Wren covers my hand with hers, fingers laced between mine. “That must’ve been difficult.”

“It was frustrating. At first when I got sent to boarding school, I’d been so angry. I’d considered it a punishment because they were taking me away from everything familiar. Griffin and I spent a ton of time together. I spent weekends at their place and so would Armstrong. He and Lex were super tight back then, actually.”

“You mean the Lex that’s with Amalie? His ex-wife?”

I grin at how shocked she is. “It’s like a soap opera.”

“It really is.”

“Anyway, it was hard at first, because Griffin and I were close, but he’d come up for a weekend once a month. After a while, I realized it was better for me to be out of that house and away from all the dissention. The more distance I had, the more I realized I was always the one Gwendolyn favored, and Armstrong could never seem to meet her expectations. It was a difficult position to be in.

“Whenever I came back for holidays or whatever, it seemed to make the animosity between us grow. So I stayed where I was, or found camps or charity stuff to do during the summer. When we were a little older, Griffin would do the same thing, so we’d have those months together.”

“And that’s how you stayed close.”

I nod. “Exactly. We went to the same college and shared an apartment for four years. In a lot of ways, he’s like another sibling. We were both the oldest; we both liked to travel. We have the same core values. Griffin was always a relationship-oriented guy. He was with the same girl all through high school, and then he dated the same girl all through college, but then, his parents were solid, so I guess it makes sense.”

“Wow, that’s uncommon in this generation.”

“Mmm, it can be, depending. Anyway, early last year I spent some time in China between projects, and Griffin was there. It was before everything imploded with Imogen, and we had time to just be guys and hang out and do good stuff. Griff excels at the hotel business, and he likes it, but he’s always taking extra side trips, doing volunteer work where he can. He never says anything about it, just works it into every trip he goes on, makes it part of the job.”