Chapter 19
Owen
Bee dropped a piece of candy into my mouth, and I chewed it contentedly, leaning back against a stack of pillows like a king being cooled with palm fronds. We had moved to sit on a soft blanket in front of the fire, cuddled close under the comforter, sharing food and stories. Bee made me laugh more than I thought possible. Even when she wasn’t trying, she was funny. I never knew what she was going to say, yet I felt like I understood her inherently.
I discovered she was one of the most ticklish people on the planet, and she flailed violently when tickled.
I also discovered her elbows were sharp enough to temporarily knock the wind out of me.
“Serves you right,” she said when she could breathe again.
I rubbed at my chest as I eyed her smooth shoulder where the blanket fell down, insatiable and already wanting her again. She threatened to throw a candy at me. “Don’t even think about it. I need to hydrate.”
“You can’t control what I’m thinking. I’m thinking so hard right now,” I said as she had earlier but in a deep voice and far more innuendo.
She licked her lips, grinned, and reached for me until I held her on my lap. We hadn’t stopped touching each other in hours. We were desperate for each other, as though we were making up for something. It wasn’t only the incredible lovemaking either. I couldn’t stop inhaling her neck and hair, kissing any bit of exposed skin, rubbing my hands along her hips and curves. She, too, always found ways to grip my shoulders, scratch her nails through my hair, or lean into me. We were two magnets that always needed to find at least one area to touch.
“You aren’t mocking the junk food now, are you?” she said.
“Certified genius,” I said.
For all the rigorous activities we’d partaken in the past few hours, we needed all the instant sugary energy we could get. This was as close to bliss as I’d ever been.
She went to drop another candy in my mouth, but I shook my head, lips zipped. She twisted up the rest and set it on the nightstand before burrowing back into my lap. I crossed my arms around her and held her close.
I kissed her head.
“This has been a really great time,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “This must have been your plan all along.”
She made a soft sound and rested her head back on my chest. “I have a confession,” she said.
I stiffened. “Okay,” I said cautiously. This would be a really bad time to learn that she was married. Or a convicted organ harvester, and maybe this was her plan all along. The sad thing was, I was in too deep to say for certain that it would matter. I hadn’t been lying when I told Bee there was never going back to the life I had before. There had always been something between us, but I was too damn scared to act on it. It took an actual catastrophe to get me to talk to her.
“I’m not as strong as I’ve been letting on,” she said in a rush.
I blinked but didn’t speak, thankful she couldn’t see the confusion on my face.
“I know I come off as this super confident, successful, sexy woman, and maybe a little scary and elegant person who knows what they want and who they are,” she said.
An image of her stuck in the snowsuit popped into my head, arms up and flailing like those inflatables. Or when her hair stuck up all around her, the first time I found her in the bathroom …
I opened my mouth and closed it.
“But that’s all a front. Especially lately. I am intimidating. True. And incredibly good-looking. Obviously. Especially now. With this hair.” She sighed and twirled her finger around my nipple, shooting electricity down my spine. “But the truth is, I’m not doing well. I’ve been struggling.”
I let out a breath and pulled her closer. I was tempted to mention that I could tell she wasn’t doing well when I caught her cutting her own hair in the bathroom of a tourist shop at the top of an abandoned mountain on a holiday when people usually celebrated with their loved ones, but she was sharing, and I wouldn’t derail her.
“Struggling with what?” I asked.
“Loneliness,” she said simply. Her raw honesty twisted the knife in my chest that she’d lodged there the first moment I held her. “I want to be okay with being single and quirky, but isolation can be so suffocating,” she said. “I’m in my head so much. My parents are living their best-retired life. Deckard is a good friend but has his own stuff going on. And as close as we are, we were never each other’s person. You know?” She turned to face me, still resting on my chest. Her features were so beautiful and expressive. My heart hammered loudly as the feeling of being on a precipice tingled my toes. This was all so unexpected and maybe too fast, but looking down in those dark, vivacious eyes, I had already fallen. I was in a free fall now.
I nodded, tucking her short hair behind her ear. “I’m lonely too,” I admitted, not knowing just how true it was until I said it out loud.
“I’m sorry, Owen,” she said. She trailed her fingers over the back of my hands. “I talk big about living in the moment. And I do. But it used to be easier. Nothing changes. No matter how I act or dress, I’m still invisible. I want to live a life that is mine, but at the end of the day, I want to be able to tell somebody about it.”
I leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I understand.”
She held my gaze, searching. Had I said the wrong thing? Was I meant to say more? Loneliness was a universal epidemic but so rarely talked about. Ivy. Myself. Most of the people at Golden Sunset. Probably half this town. We were all these solo-manned vessels orbiting around each other, so rarely connecting, desperate for a real moment to tie us to this time on Earth. I’d felt a connection with her tonight. I felt the universe shifting around me.
“I’m so sorry I got you mixed up in my turning thirty crisis,” she said, her voice cracking when I was silent too long.
“I’m not sorry. There is no other place I’d rather be.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. “Really? Even with all the stupid things I’ve done because I’m scared of fading into oblivion?”
“Really. You’re just trying to change your life, and I admire that,” I said, understanding that so much of Bee’s persona was protection. The faux confidence, quick temper, and tempestuous decision-making were all the masks of a little girl screaming out for attention or love.
“I’m scared,” she said with a shaky voice. “I feel myself fading away, and I’m already a wisp of a person in this town. Nobody sees me. Nobody cares about me. And soon, I’ll just be a ghost. I’ll be worse than the abandoned statue—” Her breaths came faster, her eyes welled.
I pulled her up my body to cup her face gently.
“That’s simply not true. I see you, Bee.” I poured everything into my words. “You are the most vivid thing in every room, and it’s everybody else’s loss that they can’t see what’s right in front of them.”
She closed her eyes in pain and nuzzled into my hand. When she opened them again, she said, “And after tonight? This morning.” We both turned to the window where, outside, the storm had moved on to reveal the gentle hues of pink and dark purple, signaling the sun’s imminent arrival. Thereby ending this bubble of seclusion that led to this most wonderful turn of events. “What happens when you aren’t forced to be with me? Are you going to remember me?”
“Of course,” I said without hesitation. Would she want to see me when I was walking around town and she saw how people responded to me?
“You’re just saying that because you just rocked my world.”
I blushed. “I was always aware of you but chickened out every time I tried to talk to you. I’m drawn to you. Before … now… tomorrow,” I said, watching her face closely. “We will figure out what comes next since it’s new for us both,” I answered honestly.
What was after today? What did she want? What would she think of me when I had to complete my contract with Benny Jr.? Could I complete my contract after all this? The thought suddenly made me feel very sick.
“I’ve been waiting for you for so long,” she said on a sharp exhale like she’d been holding her breath too long.
“Me too,” I admitted.
An emotion so strong swelled in my chest that my palms went icy. This didn’t feel like a crush. It didn’t feel like a pressure or a weight to bear at all. It felt like the opposite. It was taking off a heavy mask that had been weighing me down. It was being able to take a full breath in.
It was the relief of meeting a person who inherently seemed to understand me and knowing that I was meant to have her in my life. It was knowing we’d never be the same again.
There you are .
“I’m glad you shared your past with me, Owen. Now you don’t have to carry it anymore. You aren’t that boy who didn’t know his own strength. You are the man who saved a kitten while being attacked. Who saved my life probably a few times tonight. Who made me come several times with his gentle touch.” I flushed. “You are so much more than that story in your head.”
“Bee …” I closed my eyes and held her.
Soon, she turned to me, and we were kissing again. I had to show her how much I needed her.
I kissed her hard, and we fell back. I cherished her, held her, and reached for her time and time again.
She was worried that the light of day would change everything, and though I assured her, I couldn’t know for sure.
I would never be the same after tonight. Bee had changed me. But Ivy had given me a life, and I couldn’t betray her just because I met a person who made me want to live it.
The morning would bring an end to this perfect bubble, and only time would tell where we went next. I already felt my heart being torn in two directions. I wasn’t sure there was a right choice where someone I cared about didn’t get hurt.