Lahat ng Kabanata ng Destined to Love the Twin Brothers: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

Wren didn't tell Rory about the kiss.It wasn't a decision so much as an absence of one, the days passing without a natural opening to say it, and the longer she waited the heavier the not saying became, until by Wednesday it had turned into something that felt less like an oversight and more like a choice she hadn't meant to make.She went to the workshop that afternoon with sketches for the judge's cabinet doors, telling herself it was a normal visit, though some part of her recognized the specific nervousness in her own chest for what it was.Rory was at the back bench, same as always, and looked up when she came in with the particular attentiveness that still, weeks in, caught her off guard every time."You look like you're bracing for something," he said."I'm not bracing for anything.""You're doing the thing where you hold your shoulders too straight. You do that when you're nervous." He set down his tools, giving her his full attention in a way that made the nervousness worse

Priya showed up at Wren's apartment uninvited on Sunday morning, two coffees in hand and an expression that suggested she'd already decided this conversation was happening whether Wren wanted it to or not."You've been dodging my texts for four days," she said, pushing past Wren into the kitchen without waiting for an invitation. "That's either a very good sign or a very bad one, and I need to know which before I can properly worry about you.""It's complicated.""Everything about this has been complicated since day one. Sit down. Tell me the complicated part."Wren told her, in pieces at first and then in a rush once she got going, the dinner with Declan, the kiss by the river, the conversation with Rory in the workshop, the fracture between the brothers that she'd caused just by existing in the space between them.Priya listened without interrupting, her expression shifting through several distinct stages of concern before settling into something steadier."Okay," she said, once Wre

Nobody called her for three days.Wren had expected that, had even braced for it on the drive home from Declan's apartment, but knowing it was coming didn't make the silence any easier to sit inside once it actually arrived. She threw herself into work, finished the judge's cabinet door sketches, took on an extra project she didn't strictly have time for, anything to keep her hands and her mind occupied enough that the waiting didn't have room to become unbearable.Priya checked in every day, careful in a way that suggested she understood this wasn't a moment for teasing."No word from either of them?" she asked, on the third evening, settling onto Wren's couch with the same two glasses of wine as always."Nothing. Which I told myself I was prepared for, and apparently I wasn't.""That's not nothing, though. Silence isn't a no. It's them actually taking the question seriously instead of reacting to it." Priya handed over a glass, her expression thoughtful rather than her usual sharp h

The strangest part, Wren discovered over the following two weeks, wasn't the big moments. It was the small ones.It was Tuesday morning, standing in the workshop reviewing the judge's cabinet hardware with Rory, when Declan walked in with coffee for all three of them without being asked, setting hers down first out of habit, and neither brother remarked on it, the small courtesy simply absorbed into the rhythm of an ordinary day.It was Thursday evening, when Declan took her to dinner, just the two of them, a real date with candles this time, and she came home afterward to a text from Rory asking, plainly, how it had gone, no jealousy in the question, just genuine interest, the kind of thing a friend might ask, except warmer, except more than that.It was the following Saturday, when Rory picked her up for an afternoon at the reservoir, quiet and easy, and she texted Declan a photo of the water without thinking twice about whether that was allowed, and got back a simple heart in respo

Marcus found Rory in the garage two days later, elbow deep in an old lawnmower engine that had been half repaired for the better part of a year, a project Rory returned to whenever his hands needed something to do that his mind didn't have to think too hard about."Your mother told me," Marcus said, without preamble, settling onto an overturned crate near the workbench. "About Wren. About all of it."Rory's hands stilled on the engine, bracing for a version of the conversation he'd already had once with Eleanor. "And?""And I've been sitting with it for two days, same as her, trying to figure out what I actually think instead of just reacting to how strange it sounds." Marcus picked up a wrench from the bench, turning it over in his hands, the particular fidgeting he did when he was working toward something. "Can I tell you something about your mother and me, that I don't think either of you has ever heard?""Okay.""When we got married, my family didn't approve. Not because of anythi