CHAPTER 12: June Moves In
1437 Words
WREN POV
“This man has too much money and it’s actually annoying me!”
That was the first thing June said when she walked through the door.
Two bags on her shoulders. Eyes a little red around the edges. But her mouth was already running so I knew she was okay.
“The lobby alone!” she said. “Wren. The lobby. I felt underdressed and I was wearing my good jeans!”
Seth was by the window with his coffee. He looked at her and said “Your good jeans have a hole in the left knee.”
June stopped walking.
Stared at him.
“It’s a fashion hole,” she said.
“There’s no such thing.”
June stared at him for one more second. Then she laughed. Just burst out laughing right there in the doorway with her two bags still on her shoulders.
I stood there watching them and I genuinely did not know what to do with what I was feeling. Something warm. Something weird. I pushed it down.
“Come on,” I said and grabbed one of her bags. “I’ll show you the room.”
“There are multiple rooms?” June said loudly as I pulled her down the hall. “Wren. There are multiple rooms in this man’s apartment!”
“Keep your voice down!”
“I will not!”
I showed her the guest room. She dropped her bag on the floor and sat on the bed and bounced on it twice.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m scared but at least the mattress is nice.”
I sat next to her. “Cal swept your apartment this morning.”
Her face changed. “And?”
“The window on the fire escape side. Someone opened it without breaking it. Closed it again on the way out.”
“So they just walked in.”
“Yes.”
June was quiet for a second. “That’s scarier than if they had broken something.”
“I know.”
“Who does that Wren?”
“Someone who knows what they’re doing,” I said. “Cal thinks it’s connected to a private investigation firm. They found the same method linked to two other incidents before.”
“Which firm?”
“He’s still looking into it.”
She nodded slowly. Then she looked around the room again. “Okay. Okay I’m fine. I’m fine.”
She was not fully fine. But she was June so she would be.
We went back to the living area. Cal was at the kitchen table with his laptop and a folder open next to it. Seth was still by the window but he had put the coffee down.
“I have a name,” Cal said without looking up.
I sat down across from him. June pulled a chair and sat beside me.
“The firm has had documented clients,” Cal said. “Most of them are under legal protection. But one name came up in a lawsuit three years ago. Public record.” He looked up. “Ingrid Vael.”
I looked at June.
June looked at me.
“I don’t know that name,” I said.
“Neither do I,” June said.
I looked at Seth.
He was standing in the doorway. Coffee back in his hand. Still.
Too still.
I felt it immediately. That specific stillness he got when something landed that he did not expect. I had seen it twice before and both times it meant something.
I filed it. Stored it. Did not ask.
Not yet. Not with June sitting right there picking up on everything like she always did.
“Keep going,” I told Cal.
“That’s all I have on her for now,” Cal said. “I’m running a deeper search. Should have more by tonight.”
“Good.”
My phone buzzed on the table. I looked at the screen.
It was my lawyer.
“I have to take this,” I said and stepped away.
“Wren.” My lawyer’s voice was careful in that way lawyers get when they’re about to say something they know you won’t like. “Owen’s team sent a second letter this morning. They’re pushing for a faster timeline on the divorce settlement.”
“How fast?”
“They want a response within ten days.”
I almost laughed. “Tell them I want a full asset disclosure. Five years of Briggs Group finances.”
Silence on her end.
“Wren, that’s aggressive.”
“Good.”
“It could slow things down considerably and…”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Send the request. All five years.”
Another pause. “Okay. I’ll draft it today.”
I hung up and walked back into the kitchen. Seth was looking at me.
“Owen’s lawyer?” he said.
“Pushing for speed. I pushed back harder.”
Something moved in his face. Not quite a smile. Close though.
June was watching the two of us with her chin resting in her hand. That expression she got. The one that meant she was thinking something she hadn’t decided to say yet.
I ignored it.
The rest of the afternoon moved fast. Cal worked. June took over a corner of the couch with her laptop and started doing whatever it was she did when she needed to feel normal again. I sat at the kitchen island going through the documents Cal had pulled on Diane.
Seth moved in and out of his office. Every time he passed through the kitchen he refilled his coffee and sometimes said something to Cal and sometimes didn’t.
Once he put a plate of food next to my laptop without saying anything.
I looked at it. Then at him.
He was already walking away.
I ate it.
Around seven June appeared in my room doorway and closed the door behind her.
“Sit down,” she said.
“I am sitting down.”
“Good.” She came and dropped onto the bed next to me. “I want to ask you something and I want a real answer.”
I put my phone down. “Okay.”
“Do you have actual feelings for Seth?” she said. “Real ones. Not the deal, not the arrangement, not the PR thing. Actual feelings.”
I opened my mouth.
“And don’t say it’s just the deal,” she said immediately. “Because I’ve been here for eight hours and I’ve watched you watch him four times and you do this thing with your face.”
“What thing?”
“This soft thing. Like you forgot to put your guard up.”
“I don’t do a soft thing.”
“Wren.”
“June.”
“Answer the question!”
I looked at my hands. Picked at the edge of my nail. Opened my mouth again.
“It’s just the deal,” I said.
June stared at me.
That face. That specific younger sister face that meant she was not buying a single word coming out of my mouth.
I stopped.
Started again.
“I don’t know,” I said.
June’s expression shifted. Softened.
“There it is,” she said quietly.
“Don’t make it a thing.”
“I’m not making it a thing.”
“You have that look.”
“What look?”
“The look you get right before you make something a very big thing!”
“Wren I’m just sitting here!”
I pressed my hand over my face. “I don’t know what I feel okay? It’s been less than two weeks and there’s already a person on a rooftop and Diane Briggs and the divorce and now some name neither of us has ever heard of and I genuinely do not have the space in my brain to figure out what I feel about Seth Maren right now.”
June was quiet for a second.
Then she said “That’s the most honest thing you’ve said in months.”
I looked at her through my fingers.
She was smiling. Small and real.
“I’m just saying,” she said, “that the way he put that plate next to you? No words, just food? That’s not a deal thing Wren. That’s a person who’s paying attention.”
I had nothing to say to that.
So I said nothing.
And June, being June, let me have the silence.
- Writer
