herself. The problem was, she couldn’t agree. Because she wasn’t actually ever all that hard on herself.
She never made any mistakes. Not in the way that she thought of mistakes. Because she had always, without fail, done exactly what she had been charged with.
By your father.
And still, her father had never been effusive about his pride in her. But she had lived for that praise. Because who didn’t? Who didn’t want to make their father happy? And her father was... He was a monster.
All these thoughts had her feeling absolutely and completely off-kilter. And that was only serving to make her even angrier at Creed. How could she handle all of this stuff and him? And how dare he cut her so close to the bone?
He didn’t know her. He didn’t have the right to say the things he’d said. To say things that made her feel more seen than anything anyone in her family had ever said. That was for sure.
“So, the Cooper family is just all rainbows and butterflies?” she asked as they made their way through the aisles of wine.
“And horseshit,” he said. “Which wine were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Pick something good.”
“The array of wine upstairs is good,” he said. “That’s why I picked them.”
“Something different.” She felt difficult and she didn’t care.
“Rainbows and butterflies,” he reiterated. “And my dad’s not a criminal.”
“And all of you work here at the family winery because you just love each other so much.”
“Is that difficult for you to believe?”
It wasn’t. Not really. There was a reason she was choosing to stay at the Maxfield winery, after all.
A reason that went beyond just being afraid to start over, or not knowing what else she would do.
Emerson was her rock, and Cricket needed her.
“I’m close with my sisters,” Wren said. “I love them.”
“And I love my family. You ought to love your family.”
“I’m just saying. I’m not in a box. I just know who I am.” Those words had never felt less true. Not that she loved her family. She did love her family. It was just that right now she felt like she was wearing a Wren suit and somewhere inside was a different creature. She felt like she was inhabiting the wrong body. The wrong space.
“Honestly, Wren, if you believed that, you wouldn’t be so bound and determined to try to convince me.”
“You don’t know me,” she said. “You’re not my friend.”
“Something we can agree on.”
“You don’t get to say what I know or don’t know. You just don’t.”
“Too late. I did.”
“You’re such a... You’re ridiculous.”
“Just take a bottle of wine so we can get on with this. I will feel a lot better dealing with you if I’m drunker.”
“This isn’t exactly a picnic for me either,” she said. “You are without a doubt the most insufferable man I’ve ever known.”
“You don’t like me, Wren?” he asked, taking a step toward her. “However will I survive?”
“The same as you always do, I imagine,” she said. “High on an unearned sense of self-confidence and a little testosterone poisoning.”
He huffed. “You like it,” he said.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“You like it. My testosterone. You’d like to be poisoned by it, admit it.”
“There’s that sense of unearned self-confidence,” she said, her heart hammering steadily against her chest. “Right on time.”
“It’s not unearned. I watch you. When we fight. Your face gets all flushed.”
“That’s called anger.”
“Why? What is it about me that makes you so damned angry?”
“You... You are just...a useless, base ape.”
“Base?” He asked the question with a dangerous sort of softness to his voice, and it made her tremble. “That’s what you think? That I’m like an animal who can’t control himself?”
“Yes,” she spat. “I know all about you and your reputation. You get drunk at the bar, you pick up women every night of the week.”
“I don’t get drunk,” he said. “That’s not me.”
“Maybe that’s how you see yourself, but it’s not what I hear. I hear that you’re just a big, dumb, blunt instrument. You might go on and on about how you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, but your daddy made all this happen. You might wear a cowboy hat, but there’s a silver spoon in your mouth the same as mine. So don’t you dare go acting like you’re better than me just because you can’t be bothered to put on an ounce of refinement. Because you don’t have the manners to leave my dad out of a conversation. Just because you can’t be bothered to try to