16. Owen
The moment my foot first sank into the bucket of grapes, I let out a yelp that Cal mercilessly teased me about for the rest of the day.
What could I say? Have you ever crushed grapes with your feet? Unless you’ve done it, it was a difficult sensation to explain. The squishy texture, the way they popped open under pressure, spilling their guts out all over my toes. The coolness from being housed in the shade of the barn for god knew how long. And the liquid that collected the further the grapes broke down.
All of it was weird.
And I was having the time of my life.
Needing a bit of space from Delia, mostly to give her a chance to sort herself out, I found myself in a bucket between Ella and Brie. The two could not be more different, both from each other and from Delia. As the youngest, Brie was quiet—presumably from a lifetime of yielding her voice to her older and more extroverted siblings. She reminded me a lot of my brother Finn, the soft, careful foil to his loud and proud twin, West. From an outsider’s perspective, she seemed more intentional, both with her words and her actions. When I’d first met her, she’d still been in college—about the same age as my sister was now—and it was pretty impressive to see the growth she’d undergone in the five years since.
Ella, on the other hand, wasn’t quiet so much as she was sullen. Where her sisters’ skin was unmarred by ink, Ella’s arms were lined with tattoos. Her hair was chopped to her shoulders and bright pink streaks framed her face. With her denim shorts—that had to be men’s, based on the length and the fact that they were cinched like a paper bag with a brown, braided belt at her waist, and not in the fashionable way—and oversized band tee tucked into one side, she gave off a starving artist vibe.
I’d spent enough time around people, studying them and learning their ticks, to recognize the clothes, the hair, the heavy eyeliner and ink, were only masking some deep-seated insecurities.
But that was none of my business.
After grape crushing concluded, we hosed off and headed over to the winery, where Ezra had been slaving away all day to prepare an epic buffet-style feast for the family. As plates were loaded and we settled at the long table, a pang of jealousy echoed through my chest.
Being around the Delatous, I couldn’t help but miss my own family. I hadn’t been home in ages, coming up on two years if my quick mental calculation was correct. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to see my mom and siblings, because I did. The easy rapport between the Delatou sisters reminded me of how easily my brothers and I conversed. Our ages old inside jokes weaving into every conversation, years and years of it being the Lawlesses against the world, every formative moment of my life until I left for college involving them. All of it made me feel safe and seen in a way no other people or place ever had.
No, the reason I didn’t like going home was because every corner of that town, of Dusk Valley and our ranch, held a memory of my dad. And most days, it was simply too much for me to face. For a man who’d make a career of staring down two hundred and fifty pound guys, knowing any one of them could break through my offensive line and drive my ass into the ground, I was a coward where that was concerned.
Hell, he’d been gone nearly seventeen years and I still hadn’t visited his grave.
At least, not since the day we buried him.
“Lawless!” my roommate Bucky shouted from the living room. “Get your ass out here and entertain our guests!”
“They’re your guests! And I’m busy!” I hollered back.
Not technically a lie, though Bucky wouldn’t appreciate why I wasn’t joining the party. The end of the semester neared, and I had a lot of studying to do. Could I have saved it for our daily, team sanctioned tutoring sessions? Absolutely. But I didn’t get to be the starting quarterback for the University of Oregon Ducks by only working out and doing drills when my coaches told me to. I applied that same drive to earning my degree.
It was Thanksgiving weekend, and we were on bye until we played in the Pac-12 championship the following Saturday. Still, we had to practice, which meant I wasn’t able to go home for the holiday. I wasn’t overly heartbroken by that fact. As the eldest of seven kids—including five boisterous younger brothers—I relished the separation from my family more often than not. Maybe that sounded bad. Truthfully, I loved my family, but growing up in that farmhouse damn near bursting at the seams to contain us all, sharing a room with my next oldest brother, Trey…well, having a room to myself for the first time since the twins had been born thirteen years ago was a luxury I wasn’t eager to be rid of.
The pregame going on in the living room didn’t bother me, though. Since I’d moved off campus at the start of my sophomore season last year, Bucky and I had roomed together, and I’d gotten used to his noise. It was early enough yet that things were chill, just a few guys from the team and random jersey chasers hanging out on our couches, watching the few college games on and shooting the shit. By midnight, they’d all clear out, leaving our apartment for greener pastures—namely the football house, where four of our teammates lived and routinely held parties.
I avoided those like I always did. I wasn’t much for drinking to begin with, never having gotten the taste for it like other teenagers from back home and my college classmates had. Maybe that was the natural born leader in me. Or the fact that my only goal in life since I’d first picked up a football at age ten had been to play professionally. I wouldn’t stop until I got there, and things like underage drinking—I was only twenty, after all—or blowing off my homework, while innocuous enough decisions in the moment, could be a slippery slope that led to dangerous consequences.
Okay, maybe I was a bit of a tight ass, but I liked to think of it as simply knowing what I wanted and going after it.
I was halfway through the end-of-semester bookkeeping project that counted for half my GPA in my accounting class when my stomach let out a loud grumble. I briefly lifted my eyes to my alarm clock on my nightstand, noting it had indeed been longer than I’d thought since I’d last eaten. After inputting one final formula on the spreadsheet I had opened on my desktop, and tapping the save button to make sure I didn’t lose my work, I rose from my chair.
Since I’d started college roughly two and a half years ago, I’d filled out a lot. The twig I’d been in high school had nothing on the muscular man I was now. Working out harder than ever meant I had to eat a lot more to maintain my weight and bulk, and it seemed like every day my diet changed, necessitating the addition of higher protein and more calories to counteract the loss I sustained while lifting or running drills.
When I swung open my bedroom door, Bucky let out a low whistle.
“The troll emerges,” he said in a low, theatrical voice.
“I’m not a troll,” I grumbled.
“My bad,” Bucky said with a chuckle. “A hobbit? A…goblin? No.” He looked at his friends, as if searching for the correct term in their faces. “What are those things that burrow?”
“Gophers?” one of the girls supplied.
“Gophers!” Bucky said happily, snapping his fingers. “That’s what you are, Zero.”
“Zero?” another girl asked.
“His jersey number,” Bucky said.
The first girl who had spoken widened her eyes. “Wait, you’re Owen Lawless?”
Ugh, I hated Bucky in that moment. Why couldn’t he have kept his big mouth shut?
“I am,” I said, not impolitely but definitely indicating I wasn’t interested in further conversation. I turned my back on them and headed for the kitchen.
“You know you’re, like, leading the fan vote for the Heisman, right?”
Narrowly, I leashed my surprise. I hadn’t known that, but the news had pride swelling in my chest. Next to a victory in the Rose Bowl, which I had every intention of leading my team to in January, winning the Heisman Trophy—awarded to college football’s best player—was something I wanted desperately. I had another season to play after this, but to earn the Heisman as a junior, while not unheard of, would be an impressive feat because it happened less frequently than senior players winning. I’d have to call my dad and tell him.
Pulling open the fridge, I selected a few Tupperware containers, the team nutritionist and chef having drilled into me the importance of meal prepping so I didn’t have to waste any of my precious free time during the week cooking. All I had to do was mix my protein—which happened to be chicken—rice, and vegetables in another container and nuke it. While I waited for it to heat, I went to my room and grabbed my water bottle, then returned to fill it.
The girl was still talking about me, as though I wasn’t standing there, as though the other two men in the apartment didn’t also play football.
I was blessed to have gotten a full ride to college to play the sport I loved so much. But I’d be damned if being a quarterback wasn’t the loneliest thing in the world sometimes. Despite performing in front of tens of thousands of people every weekend, I didn’t particularly enjoy the spotlight.
“He’s unreal,” she continued. “The best quarterback the Ducks have had in two decades.”
“ He is standing right here,” I growled.
“Bro,” Bucky said, cutting me with a glare.
I shrugged. “If she wants to fangirl, she can go somewhere else.”
“Wow,” she said, huffing out an incredulous laugh. “No one told me you were an asshole.”
“I’m not an asshole,” I said. And really, I wasn’t. This girl was just grating on my last nerve. “I just don’t fuck with jersey chasers.”
“An asshole and a virgin,” she sneered. “It all makes sense now.”
Before I said anything further, I turned my back on her, hoping I faced away in time to prevent her from seeing the way my cheeks heated with her comment.
She’d struck a little too close to home.
For the record, there was nothing wrong with being a virgin at twenty. My priorities were elsewhere. Between school and football, I didn’t have the time for—nor did I care about—relationships with girls.
I supposed I was a bit of an enigma in that regard. I’d fooled around in high school, and a bit my freshman year, but I’d never…what’s the baseball euphemism? Crossed home plate? Hit a home run? Either way, I’d never done it, and that was fine.
When the microwave beeped, I heaved a sigh of relief, removed my food, and retreated to my bedroom.
My phone rang before I could take a bite.
Call it intuition, my sixth sense perking up and taking notice, but the moment I saw my brother West’s name on the caller ID, I knew something was wrong. My heart sank like a lead weight into my stomach.
West never called me. Normally it was everyone else calling me about West, even five-year-old Aria who didn’t even have a phone of her own.
With shaking fingers, I answered.
“Hello?”
“O,” West said, his voice hoarse. Flat. Stunned.
My heart dropped into my ass.
“What’s going on, little brother?”
“I…”
I heard it then, and it had the hair on my arms rising. In the background, someone let out a keening wail, the sound so full of pain and despair it shot me right in the chest. My blood ran cold.
“West,” I said sternly, my tone edged in panic. “What happened?”
“It’s Dad,” he said, voice cracking on the last word. “He’s g-g-g-gone!”
And then my heart stopped.
I tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to explain further, but he’d started crying so hard I couldn’t understand anything beyond his blubbering. After interminable minutes of freaking out but unable to get any answers, Trey came on the line.
“You gotta come home, big bro.”
That was it. Six words had me throwing random shit in my backpack, homework and dinner long forgotten.
My limbs were shaking so bad I could barely stand as I once again emerged into the living room, my teammates and their guests glancing up at me with wide eyes. My anguish must have been written all over my face.
“What happened?” Bucky asked, setting his beer on our shitty coffee table and rising to his feet.
And so, for the first time, I uttered the words that would become the most painful new reality I’d ever have to endure.
“My dad died.”
I made the normally-nine hour drive from Eugene to Dusk Valley in just over seven, breaking more than a few traffic laws, ignoring every speed limit in my desperation to reach my family.
My dad died. My dad died. My dad died.
Those three words were an irritatingly persistent companion, a metronome marking the passage of time.
But I didn’t cry.
No, I saved that for the moment I pulled up in front of the main house on the ranch. When my mother walked out, right down the porch steps, and collapsed in my arms.
Together, we clung to each other, her hoarse sobs mixing with the fresh sounds of mine, my tears dampening the top of her head as hers soaked the front of my shirt. Suddenly, I was seven again and had just fallen off my horse, snapping my left tibia and fibula clean in half. That was the last time I’d cried so hard, and the last time my mother held me as I did.
I finally collected myself enough to inhale more than the shallowest of breaths, and I pulled back from my mom. Her face was pale beneath the pink splotches, eyes red-rimmed and puffy. She offered me a smile that wobbled at the edges, and I returned it.
“It’s good to see you, baby,” she said, reaching up to pat my cheek .
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What happened?”
“We don’t know the details yet,” she said. “He was out in pasture Y with the ranch hands installing a new fence and, according to them, he just dropped. There one second, gone the next. Oh, Owen,” she wailed, burrowing her face into my chest. “What are we going to do?”
Something clicked into place for me then, all of my tears magically drying up like I’d turned off a faucet. I couldn’t afford to fall apart, not when my entire family was busy doing the same thing. Not when Mom had just lost the love of her life, her soulmate, the man she should’ve grown old with. Someone had to hold it together, to handle funeral arrangements and all the other details that needed sorting now that he was gone.
Someone had to keep this family—and ranch—afloat.
At that moment, I decided that someone was me.
As it turned out once the medical examiner in Boise had done an autopsy, my father had an intracranial aneurysm that ruptured, killing him instantly. It was of little comfort that he hadn’t felt any pain, but more so that he’d gone doing something he loved—working his ranch.
In the days and weeks and months that followed, while I was physically in Eugene, on flights and football fields with my team, my mind was a million miles away, back in Dusk Valley, Idaho with my family.
Despite my obvious grief, I powered through, leading us first to a Pac-12 championship, and then a Rose Bowl victory.
And the moment my season wrapped up, I hired an agent and declared for the draft, forgoing my final year of college eligibility. A lot of people thought it was because my dad would’ve wanted that, and that was part of it. But the truth of the matter was I had to take care of my family, and my rookie signing bonus and an NFL contract set us all up for life.
The rest was history.
“Owen?” someone asked softly from beside me.
Coming back to myself, I blinked to clear the cobwebs of my memories and turned to meet Delia’s eyes. My food, half eaten, had grown cold in front of me. No one else at the table seemed aware of the mental journey I’d just taken.
“Hi,” I said, giving her a small smile.
“Hi,” she said back, concern obvious in the single syllable. “Where did you just go?”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to dive into all my trauma but wanting to be truthful with her.
“I miss my family,” I told her quietly. “But this is…wonderful. Thank you for inviting me.”
Her gaze softened, some of the tension that had lingered between us all day lightening. “Anytime, QB.”
God, how desperately I hoped she meant that.
I’d meant what I said earlier. The second she figured out what she wanted, I wanted to know.
We hadn’t even done anything beyond the most innocent touches and shared a few almost moments. But it didn’t matter. Every moment I spent with her simply solidified the fact that we were friends— good friends. Being around her was as easy as breathing. And I’ve always thought friendship was a solid foundation for the best, more intimate types of relationships. Look at my parents. They had been best friends, and I got that same vibe from Delia’s as well. So when she got her head on straight and decided what she wanted, I hoped that thing was me , because I was done for. Completely and utterly gone for this woman.