Chapter Twelve #2
“I just—” He cuts himself off as Shutout returns.
The dog drops his ball at Owen’s feet, and Owen bends over to retrieve it.
As he does so, his shirt rides up, revealing a muscular expanse of his back.
And that’s a problem I absolutely do not need.
There are two little dimples in the skin above his hipbones, the perfect place to press my thumbs—
Get ahold of yourself, Remy. Seriously. I cover my mouth with one hand, suddenly paranoid that I am honest-to-God drooling. Behind me, one of the housewives gasps.
“I’m bad at this,” Owen says. That’s not deflection. That’s honesty.
I pretend that I wasn’t just imagining the warmth of his skin against mine. “Bad at what? Talking like a normal person?”
“Yeah. Kinda.” His jaw works.
I sigh. “Have you tried, I don’t know, not running for the hills at the sight of me?”
His mouth quirks, and he gives me a subtle side-eye. “Yeah, I tried it. Didn’t work out, so this is the new plan.”
This time, when Shutout returns, he brings the ball to me. It’s a little… damp, but I pick it up and throw it as hard as I can. Shutout lurches back into an ungainly run.
“Are you going to tell me how to resolve whatever’s going on, then?”
He wrinkles his nose and pretends to think about it. “Eh. Probably not.”
Shutout comes back, moving slower than before, but still wagging his tail madly. It’s Owen’s turn to receive the slobbery ball this time. He whips it out to the farthest part of the field.
“Owen—” I groan.
He turns away from me and stalks toward the gate. For a moment, all I can do is glare at his back.
Shutout limps over to me. He tries to shove the ball into my hand, but I shake my head. I’m already babysitting Owen. I’m not going to babysit his dog, too.
“We only threw the damn ball three times!” I call after Owen.
The Thirst Club shoots me disapproving glares, but Owen just shrugs. “He loves to run, but he’ll go until his hips lock up. This is the compromise. Come on, buddy, let’s go get you a treat!”
Shutout gives up on me and bounds after his master. Judging by the way he’s walking, Owen’s probably right—any more of this, and he’d be limping for the rest of the day.
We follow Owen out past his car toward the nearby shopping center. Shutout whines when Owen insists on tossing the nasty ball into the bed of the truck, but his spirits revive when he sees that our next stop is the PetSmart. He bounds ahead, tongue lolling, no leash in sight.
“You can’t just let him run off!” I scold Owen, and dart after the dog before he has a chance to cause more mayhem.
Shutout can’t get through the doors on his own, and to my relief, Owen does have a leash. I plod after them as we wander the aisles, giving Shutout time to pick a new toy. Personally, I think a new tennis ball is in order, but the dog seems more interested in rawhides and chew toys.
Shutout is sniffing the options when a couple rounds the endcap and spots Owen. “Oh, my gosh!” the woman exclaims.
“Holy she—oh, wow, Owen Rourke? Can we get a photo?”
Owen hands me the leash. “Sure.” He glances over his shoulder to wink and mouths the words, “Good PR!” At least he’s trying.
If looks could kill, I would be arrested where I stand. Owen takes his time chatting up the couple, and it’s only by sheer luck that I happen to glance at Shutout at the very moment that the dog begins to lift his leg.
“Shutout, no!” I drag on the leash to hustle him outside. If this dog pees on the display, I will literally die of mortification. And he’ll be the cause. I thought Owen and I were making progress, but it’s clear that I was wrong. Apparently, I imagined that.
Shutout decides that this would be a great moment to starfish. He lets all of his legs go limp. In a last-ditch attempt to salvage the tatters of my dignity, I scoop both arms under Shutout’s chest and manhandle him through the sliding door.
“Oof, you’re a stinky boy,” I grumble.
Shutout wags his tail. As soon as I put him down, he totters over to one of the entryway’s support pillars.
He lifts his leg and lets fly. Another customer, who looks uncannily like how I remember my grandmother, shoots me a nasty look and tightens her grip on her Pomeranian, who I swear to God is also judging me.
I respond with a small wave. It’s the best I can muster.
Two minutes later, Owen emerges from the store, looking bewildered. “Where did you go? One minute you were there, and the next…”
“Shutout had to go,” I snap.
“Ah.” Owen nods down at his dog. “Old bladder couldn’t handle all the excitement, huh, boy?”
Shutout wags his tail.
Owen pats his pup’s head with one hand and holds out the other to me. “Sorry about that. I figured talking to the fans would be a good move. How can I make it up to you?”
By talking to me. By telling me what’s going on!
But I have a feeling that won’t fly, so I tell him, “You could start by getting me a Frappuccino.”
Owen cocks his head. “That, I can do. Besides, we love a pup cup, don’t we, bud?”
Shutout wags his tail, though I’m starting to think that this is less because he understands Owen and more because he’s just a naturally happy, airheaded noodle.
It’s interesting that Owen keeps this goofy elder dog as a pet rather than the kind I would have expected.
A pitbull or a rottie would seem more on-brand.
We head back to the car. At least for this part of the drive, Shutout is much calmer than before. That makes one of us. The stress of the day is catching up with me, and I would kill for an ibuprofen. Specifically, I would consider killing Owen, the undeniable source of this headache.
The peace and quiet only lasts until we pull into the Starbucks drive-through. Shutout rallies for another round of ear-splitting howls.
“All the baristas know him,” Owen shouts over the din.
“He’s hard to forget!” I agree over the sound of Shutout’s caterwauling.
We place our order and pull up to the window. The woman on the other side of the glass takes one look at Owen and lights up.
“Look who it is. Our favorite goalie!” She beams at him. “Staying out of trouble?”
“Doing my best.” Owen glances over his shoulder at me.
She hands over our drinks and Shutout’s pup cup. It seems to take an extra minute for her to handle the payment, and when she hands Owen’s card back, I see why. The bottom of his receipt reads, Call me! Mara, followed by a phone number.
That’s a complication I definitely didn’t factor into this.
“Does that happen often?” I asked.
Owen nods. “All the time. Like I said, they know us there.”
Ugh, that’s so unprofessional. Surely Owen’s not hooking up with any of the baristas? They looked way too young for him. Talk about a PR nightmare.
Shutout demolishes his pup cup, while I slurp my drink in silence. Owen drives us back to his place, where he gets out of the truck with no commentary or acknowledgement of the fact that my car’s still at the arena.
“What now?” I unbuckle my seatbelt and pop out of the truck. Owen breezes through the front door without offering me anything by way of guidance. I get that he’s not a talker, but I don’t understand what he’s doing right now. And I really don’t enjoy not understanding him.
“I don’t have any big plans.” He heads toward the kitchen. “I can call you an Uber.”
“Owen.” I stalk after him. Shutout wanders over to a giant dog bed and collapses with a weary sigh. Unlike him, I’m getting fired up all over again. “Owen, come back here! We need to talk about today.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He sets his half-finished drink on the counter, then opens the fridge door.
“I’ve been chasing after you for hours.”
Owen closes the fridge doors without taking anything out. He stands there, holding the door handles, with his back to me. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“Shadowing you is literally my job. I’m not your enemy. I’m trying to help you, and you’re making it incredibly difficult.” I stalk toward him. “Look at me.”
This is the part where he either shuts down… or doesn’t.
“I don’t think…”
“Look at me.”
Owen grumbles to himself, but he turns around and crosses his arms over his chest. “Okay. I’m looking.”
“Why were you avoiding me today?”
“Because…” He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “Because you scare me.”
That’s not what I expected at all. “What? Why?”
Tendons in his neck stand out. His chest heaves like he’s either exerting himself, or fighting off a panic attack. He’s silent for a long moment, long enough that I think he might be ignoring me, until he says, “Because I want you to like me.”
That does something to me I don’t have a name for.
I’m now fully bewildered by his logic. “That’s a problem?”
“It shouldn’t matter, should it?” His eyes flick toward me, then away again. “I shouldn’t care what you think. I should care what everyone else thinks. That’s your job, right? To fix my image?”
“Yes.” I sound less certain of this fact than I should be.
“I don’t lose sleep over my image, Remy. But you?” Owen’s voice drops an octave. “You keep me up at night.”
Everything tilts.
He’s too close. I stumble away from him, but he follows. My back hits the counter of the kitchen island.
“I was avoiding you because I shouldn’t want…” His eyes drop to my mouth. “What I want.”
There are a lot of very good, deeply important reasons that I should put a stop to this right here and now. If only I could remember what they are. Owen’s been driving me crazy all day, but the hunger in his gaze is making my knees wobble. “W-what do you want?”
I already know the answer. I just need to hear him say it.
“I know better than to answer that. You should go, Remy.”
I should. I really should. But I’m thinking about the phrasing, that he’s lost sleep over me, which leads me to imagine Owen lying back in the dark, his fist wrapped around his cock. My mouth waters at the fantasy.
“What do you want?” I repeat, with more authority this time.
Owen shifts closer, though he still doesn’t touch me. I’m caged in against the island, with only enough space between us for me to feel the heat of his body. His breath is warm on my cheek. My lips part without my permission.
He leans in just a fraction. Always a man of few words, he whispers, “You.”