Purposefully accidental, p.29
Purposefully Accidental, page 29
Wren smiled down at her. “Anytime.”
Then she realized how this must have looked and closed her eyes for a second. Wren let her go, stepping away as Madison opened her eyes, looking rueful. “Sorry.”
The flashing had increased. The shouts were louder. Madison realized many were wolf whistling.
‘How about a kiss?’ reached her ears and Madison’s face heated up immediately.
Wren’s car was already being driven up by the valet—how had that happened so fast? Had the manager inside called ahead as they’d paid? A very shiny Tesla was in front, and behind sat Madison’s car. To the left and right, a path to their cars at least left free, were crowded paparazzi, cameras held up. Some people stood with microphones, calling for their attention.
There was a crowd of younger people, holding merchandise mostly for Wren, waving at Wren. Though many were definitely yelling Trinity’s name.
“I love you, Wren! Please tell us you’re together?”
Trinity slid up next to Madison, linking their arms as Wren started signing some of the stuff held out, broad grin on her face, chatting easily.
“Please tell me that was an accident?” Madison asked out the side of her mouth.
Paul and Lataya stood to one side, cell phones out and heads bent together as they discussed something.
“It really was. Sorry!”
Madison turned her head, narrowing her eyes. “You don’t sound very sorry.”
Batting her eyelashes, Trinity tried to look innocent. “Who, me? It was one hundred percent an accident, maybe I’m not too sorry.”
“They got photos.”
“I know,” she said, sounding thrilled.
“You suck.”
“I know,” she said, still sounding thrilled.
Wren was standing still, a pen in hand as she held a bi flag someone had given her to sign. She was looking from one fan to another, eyes a little wide.
A girl in front of her was gushing, phones held out around her as she said her piece. “I want you to know that you being out changed my life. But, like, not only mine. So many people’s that I know. My mom is such a huge fan of yours, as is my grandma, and when I came out, they both mentioned you, and I just know—I really, like, know—that they would have had a harder time if they didn’t have you out to see that it’s fine, you know? That me being bi isn’t going to ruin my life, or mean I’m doomed to be alone and sad. Especially now you have a girlfriend. Like, a doctor? My mom is getting so many stereotypes just slammed out of her.”
The girl was grinning up at Wren. She was maybe sixteen. Wren, standing there with flashing lights around her, lit up by lights from filming phones, was tall and stunning, yet her smile was humble.
“I’m so happy to hear that,” she said. “But—”
“My dad was the same,” a boy interrupted, probably the same age. “He saw that you two were together, and I heard him saying to my mom that things had changed. And he wasn’t saying it in a bad way, either.”
“I—”
“And look at this photo!”
Another girl held out her phone, and by squinting from where she was, Madison managed to make out a photo of Wren clutching Madison to her after Madison had fallen, both smiling at each other.
Madison sighed.
Trinity snorted.
Wren blinked at it.
“You two clearly really love each other and I think that people can’t argue against us all, in the face of that, you know?”
Wren nodded. “That’s true. With proof that we all just live lives like everyone else, they can’t argue much, can they?”
That was dangerously close to telling the crowd they were together. Madison stepped forward. Then questions started pouring out from the gathered fans.
“Who asked who out?”
“Who kissed who first?”
“Dude, you can’t ask that, that’s rude!”
“Sorry!”
“How long have you been together?”
“Is it true you’ve known each other forever? That’s so romantic.”
Flashes. More flashes.
“We—we did know each other when we were younger. I don’t know, it all just happened.”
Madison’s eyes went wide. Wren bit her lip immediately. Trinity choked next to her. Paul and Lataya looked up from their phones, appearing utterly delighted.
The questions kept pouring out. Paparazzi tried to crowd in, and a bodyguard stepped up, pushing them back.
Wren turned her head, guilt plastered all over her face, as behind her, the crowd of fans took photos, faces delighted. One was speaking at her phone as she filmed herself, face lit up in excitement.
“Did she just basically fucking confirm it?” Madison hissed.
“Uh. Yeah.”
“I’m going to kill her.”
Chapter Seventeen
Look, when Wren fucked up, she did so spectacularly. She would be the first to admit that, always.
But everyone else should try standing surrounded by a crowd of mostly under twenty-year-olds, who are all incredibly excited and saying things like their parents only accepted them being queer because Wren was in a relationship with someone whom she was definitely not in one with.
Whom she would love to be in one with. Or, you know, just go out with. Maybe kiss. Definitely kiss. See where things went. Hopefully to a bed. Where Wren could straddle Madison’s lap.
Which wasn’t happening, because they weren’t together, and Wren had pretty much told the world they were.
Maybe ‘the world’ was too extreme, but the people that had heard that would be spreading it to the world pretty damn quick, so, whatever.
“Wren, Twitter has told me that, ‘Wren Acker Determines Doctor Tryst as True.’ Fuck me, that’s a tongue twister. What the hell?”
Felix’s voice over the Bluetooth in the car was too loud. She reached to turn it down and Trinity smacked her hand away.
“Oh, no. I want this in full effect.”
Wren pouted as she sat idling in traffic, headlights everywhere in front of her. There was no way out of this. Eleven p.m. traffic was always a nightmare. All traffic was a nightmare in LA.
“Hi, Trin!”
“Hi, Felix! I was there. It was glorious.”
“Want to fill me in?”
“I’m right here,” Wren interjected. “I can fill you in.”
“Nah, you’re driving. I want Trinity to tell me. You’ll hold back, anyway.”
Wren sighed as loudly as she could and inched the car forward in traffic, wishing she were home already. She remembered the words slipping from her lips only ten minutes ago, and cringed. Then she remembered the tight, stormy expression on Madison’s face as she’d got into her car, and Wren hunched her shoulders, wishing she could retreat into herself rather than simply go home. Disappear. Poof. Gone.
“So, some of the producers tried to talk Wren and Madison into going along with the rumors rather than deny them to drum up publicity, and—”
“Typical gross tactics, but unsurprising. It would certainly work. Sorry to interrupt. Do continue.”
“Right?” Trinity agreed. “Madison didn’t seem sold—she’s not used to all the fakeness of Hollywood, I don’t think, and said she’d think about it.”
“She’d consider it?”
Wren decided to chime in as she finally got to pick up a little speed as traffic smoothed out. “I got the vibe that she said that in the way your parents would say, ‘We’ll see’ when you were a kid, but we all know it meant no.”
Trinity cackled. “You know, you’re completely right. It was exactly like that.”
“Wasn’t it? But it was fair enough.” Wren shrugged. “Her life would get pried into even more than it already is if she went along with it. I can’t blame her.”
“Maybe being tied to you grosses her out,” Felix said impertinently.
“Don’t make me hang up on you,” she warned, flicking the turn signal to change lanes and finally giving up and nosing in cautiously because no one was going to let her in in a thousand years.
“Sorry,” he said contritely, although she knew his expression would be anything but. “So, why then did Wren Acker—” there was a pause, then the sound of him clearly reading something “—‘Confirm Dastardly Dykey Doctor Affair’—who writes this shit? And who says ‘Dyke?’”
“I kind of like Dyke,” Wren said. “But only when I say it. Wait, check, are they a lesbian themselves? Or just an asshole?”
“Wait, digging for info.” There was another pause, and Trinity grabbed her own phone, the screen lighting up her face even more than the headlights outside. “Bio I found says, ‘Witney Bell, she/they. Lesbian, enby, Dyke, writer, blogger. Find me at…’—then a whole list of places they write for.”
“Fine. I’ll accept that horrible, horrible headline as at least not being offensive.”
Trinity snickered.
“What?” Wren asked.
“Yeah, what?” Felix chimed in.
“The photos are already trending.”
Wren groaned.
“Aren’t they great?” Felix crowed.
“Totally. This one is completely zoomed in on their faces. They look besotted.”
“I had just saved her from being tripped, it’s not as if—”
“Wait, finish the story. This sounds better than I’d imagined,” Felix interrupted. Asshole.
“So!” Trinity continued. “Madison was clearly on the fence, but probably more falling over into the field of ‘hell no.’ We were walking out, I accidentally tripped her—”
“Accidentally?” Felix and Wren scoffed at the same time.
She wished he were there so she could fist bump him.
“Really! I wouldn’t do that on purpose, what if she faceplanted? That’s just cruel.”
Wren still wasn’t entirely sure she believed her. Trinity was nothing if not impulsive.
“Regardless, she tripped, Wren grabbed her, and it all looked very ‘damsel in distress?’” Felix asked.
“Exactly!” Trinity tugged a leg up on the seat and got far too cozy and excited to tell this story.
Wren focused on the road and triple checked every intersection before she crossed it despite the green light indicating she had right of way, as she did every time now since the car accident. Even if she felt like throwing Trinity out the window, she didn’t want to actually harm her. Much.
She still got sweaty palms at intersections.
Trinity continued. “So, everyone went bananas for that moment, and then Wren got pulled into a group of little groupies—”
“Aw, no Trinity groupies there?”
“I am not complaining—I’m more than happy to be a bit on the DL. They started waxing poetic about Wren’s effect on their experiences coming out and one spoke about how Wren being in a relationship with someone like Madison had already affected their homophobic parents’ view of her being queer, another agreed, and then Wren just basically agreed with them about her relationship with Madison. Like, basically said how ‘it all just happened’ and they went bananas again and here we are.”
The sound of Felix’s snickering floated through the speakers.
“Yes. Ha ha. Wren is a fool. It’s all hilarious.” Wren gripped the steering wheel tighter.
The snickering turned into outright laughter. “Aw, come on, Wren, that’s hilarious. You’re always great at putting your foot in your mouth but this is classic.”
“Neither of you are remotely helpful, I don’t know why we’re friends.”
“Don’t you want to know what Madison hissed at me after?” Trinity asked, voice filled with a sickly innocence.
No. Wren did not want to know. But Felix’s laughter stopped immediately. “Yes! Yes, we do.”
“We don’t,” Wren snapped.
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
Silence filled the car. Wren knew what they were doing. It would not work. It wouldn’t. Not for a second.
It worked in three seconds.
“Okay fine, what did she say?”
Trinity turned in her seat to grin at her.
“Knew you’d cave,” Felix said.
“She said… Wait, let me get her tone right.” Trinity paused, cleared her throat. When she spoke, it was in a hissing tone filled with horror. “‘I’m going to kill her.’”
Felix’s laughter started back up. Trinity was grinning.
Wren stared out the windshield. “She may kill me, but I’m going to kill both of you in a minute.”
Yes. She’d spectacularly fucked up.
* * *
After basically kicking Trinity out of the passenger seat at Trinity’s house and hanging up on Felix (literally), Wren rounded the corner fifteen minutes later to see a car idling outside her gate.
The car Madison had slid into before she’d left that night.
Wren stopped at her driveway, right behind Madison’s car, and debated just…driving away. Dyeing her hair. Changing her name.
No one would figure it out, right?
It was amazing what she could get away with when people didn’t expect her to be somewhere and she didn’t have makeup on. Maybe she could get a whole new life. One where Madison wouldn’t murder her before her next birthday. She had so much she wanted to do still.
So many movies to make.
So many plans.
Sadly, it was extremely likely that Madison had noticed her, what with her being half turned into her driveway and stopped behind her. Fine. No fleeing. Tonight, anyway. Tomorrow was still open.
Fishing around in the ashtray that had never once held cigarette butts but instead housed loose change, one earring, and a spare set of keys, she pulled out the fob that opened the gate and pressed it. The gate opened smoothly—as it should, it was new—and Madison pulled in.
Maybe she could close the gate, trapping Madison in there, and then run away?
Instead, she slowly pulled into the driveway, the gate closing behind them, and pulled up behind Madison. She was an adult who faced the repercussions of her actions.
Except then Madison’s door opened and Madison herself got out, spinning on the spot and glaring through the windshield at Wren.
Wren’s thumb jerked instinctively on the ‘lock’ button on her car key and the lights flashed, indicating it was locked.
Shit.
Madison’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead and she said, incredulously, voice slightly muted through the windows of Wren’s car, “Did you just lock yourself in as if I’m about to come over there and physically drag you from the car?”
Wren squeaked. Then cleared her throat. Adult. Own up to actions. Face repercussions.
What had happened to her whole ‘do not make Madison uncomfortable’ thing?
That had gone out the window.
She nodded bashfully.
Madison crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Are you going to come out so we can talk?”
Sheepishly, Wren pressed the unlock button and the lights flashed again. She opened the door and got out with as much dignity as she could muster—which wasn’t a lot right then, but she sprinkled the leftovers of it over herself anyway like a kid desperately throwing glitter on themselves, convinced it was fairy dust.
Madison stayed in her open door, arms crossed.
Closing her own door, Wren hit the lock button again. “Want to talk inside? Or would you prefer to yell at me here? Either is fine.”
Madison considered that for a moment. “Inside. Don’t know how nosey your neighbors are.”
Well, that was something. It meant this was probably going to be a conversation rather than Madison yelling and leaving. Which would be a perfectly understandable reaction. Maybe not too much yelling. Wren wasn’t much of a yeller, and didn’t like yelling. But in this situation, it could be seen as acceptable. She led the way up the stairs, the sound of Madison’s car door shutting and locking behind her reassuring her that Madison hadn’t changed her mind and wasn’t just going to drive off.
Hathor greeted them at the door with a long, drawn-out yowling meow that indicated her disdain for having been abandoned all night, and immediately began to wind her way around Wren’s ankles, almost tripping her multiple times. At least she didn’t do it on purpose, unlike Trinity. Or at least, Wren assumed she didn’t. Hathor could be a butthead.
Madison closed the front door behind her and Wren scooped up Hathor, holding her to her chest. She pretended it was to scratch Hathor on the head and calm her down, Hathor purring heavily at the attention, but truthfully, Wren was kind of holding her up like a shield.
She’d never admit that out loud, though.
“Kitchen?” Wren asked.
Madison nodded.
She wound her way through the corridor and into the kitchen, flicking on lights as she went. Hathor meeped in protest every time Wren’s hand left her head where she’d been scratching. The second they reached the kitchen, Hathor abandoned ship in a manner filled with claws to leap onto the counter and sit there, staring at Madison, who slipped onto a chair at the breakfast bar. Madison stared right back. Then blinked slowly.
“I read if you blink at them, it’s polite,” she said.
Which was not adorable at all.
Hathor blinked back.
Wren walked into the kitchen and pulled out a glass bottle of water she always kept cold. With two glasses on the bench, she started pouring.
“You read that?” she asked, pushing over a glass.
“Some article that popped up weeks ago. She seems to like it.”
Hathor had stalked over to Madison’s hand and immediately started headbutting her when she reached for her water. Madison rubbed a hand along her back.
Content she’d finally gotten attention and wasn’t abandoned, Hathor jumped off the counter and wandered away.
Madison was left blinking at the suddenly empty space.
“She does that,” Wren said.
“I see.” Madison took a sip of water, put the glass down, then looked straight at Wren. “So, what the ever-loving fuck was that?”
