Chapter Seven You Were Totally Prepared to Become a Climate Terrorist #2
Owen finds the ball, lining up the easy shot, watching as the ball sinks into the hole.
“Wow, you’re already showing improvement!” Jacob pulls Owen’s attention away from the game yet again.
“That sounded sarcastic.” Owen smirks.
Holding his hands up, Jacob says, “No, no. I’m being one hundred percent serious.” His tone indicates otherwise.
“Okay, I don’t need the sass.”
Jacob smiles at Owen, reflections of the nearby string lights reflecting in those brown eyes. It’s so easy to dive headfirst
into them, and Owen hates himself for it.
But he’s not angry.
“Hey!” A shout comes from just a few yards away, around the other side of that damn hippo. Both Jacob and Owen turn suddenly to look at the adult man waving his club in the air. “Are you two gonna stop flirting and clear the course or not?”
Owen prays the flush on his cheeks isn’t obvious.
Jacob looks down at Owen’s ball, right next to his foot. “Do you actually want to finish the game?” he asks.
Owen chuckles. “If I bastardize this game any further, they might actually throw me in ship jail.”
“I think it’s called the brig?” Jacob corrects.
Owen rolls his eyes, squatting to pick up the ball at the same time Jacob does, their fingertips brushing against each other
as they both reach for it.
“Sorry.” Owen forces out a sound that he means as a laugh, but he’s not certain it comes out that way, only furthering his
embarrassment.
Their eyes meet, and Owen feels that tug in his heart. The very same one he remembers from the day they met face-to-face for
the first time, when Jacob opened the door to his apartment and let Owen in.
“Come on.” Jacob picks the ball up, dropping it into Owen’s open palm. Their eyes meet once again, and for a moment, it almost
feels like everything is normal. Then Owen has to remind himself that this means nothing, it’s just an act of civility.
That’s all they have now, and maybe that’s all they’ll ever have.
“Please, please, please!” Kaitlyn begs. “You have to win it for me, he’s so cute!” She presses her nose against the glass window of the claw machine, gawking excitedly at the pile of plush Kirbys, all designed to look like they’re napping. “Look at his little nightcap, Owen!”
“Why don’t you ask your wife?” Owen questions, leaning against the machine.
“You know how uncoordinated she is.” She pulls out a plastic card loaded with credits for the ship’s twenty-four-hour arcade.
“Give me some room,” Owen says, taking the card.
He may be awful at Putt-Putt, but claw machines? Owen Henson knows claw machines.
Kaitlyn does as she’s told, stepping back and watching as Owen maneuvers the handle carefully, grateful that it’s not one
of those two-press machines that doesn’t let him take his time to line things up.
The first attempt is just to get the plushie in a more advantageous position. Owen considers trying to loop the claw through
the tag, but that’d involve turning the entire thing around. On the second attempt he hits the button a touch too early, the
claw closing around Kirby’s hat, barely gripping with enough pressure to lift the pink plush an inch or two before it slips
away. On the third attempt, Owen nails it, timing the double tap perfectly.
“Yes?” Kaitlyn’s cheers are almost hesitant, like she’s waiting for the claw to release. “Yes, yes!” She’s a little more enthusiastic
this time and even starts jumping up and down as the claw hovers over the opening at the bottom, dropping her prize right
down the chute. “Ahh!!!!!!”
“You could say thank you.”
“Thank you, Owen!” Kaitlyn says, bouncing up and down before pulling Owen in close for a group hug with the plush.
“You’re welcome.”
It took them all of five minutes of being in the arcade for everyone to go their separate ways.
Kevin and Abigail wound up at some dance game.
Jacob started hunting down this Japanese game that involves hitting a huge taiko drum.
And Kaitlyn had looped her arm through Owen’s, dragging him down the long aisle of claw machines, pointing out all the prizes that she wanted before Owen made her pick just one.
He honestly would’ve loved nothing more than to go back to the suite, sit on the couch with his iPad, and draw a bit while
he finishes an audiobook. But two nights in a row of sequestering himself away in the suite feels a slap in the face of everything
Kaitlyn and Abigail spent for him to be here.
Besides, tonight has been fun, despite all the time alone with Jacob.
Then he gets a text from Ravi.
Ravi: Got an update from Henry . . .
Ravi: Wish I had better news, but he thinks that the economy is in “too good a place” to find something within your budget.
Ravi: Don’t ask me to explain what the economy being “too good” to open up a business means. I don’t think I could do that to a
friend without cringing so hard that I actually die from it.
Ravi: The good news is! We still have time to change the business proposal around, ask for more money. You have decent enough credit, even with your student loans, so asking for a bit more shouldn’t be a problem.
Ravi: So long as you’re okay with it of course!
Ravi: Owen, this is Hailey. I’m confiscating Ravi’s phone because you’re on vacation and he simply refuses to accept that you might
not want to talk about your business proposal right now. Fitz is good and getting plenty of exercise from Pari chasing him
around. I’ve sent a bunch of photos to Jacob but I’ll send you some too. GO HAVE FUN!!!!!!!11
Owen stares at the text messages as they come in, dread settling heavy in his stomach. That has to be some sort of sign, right?
The way his mood worsens at even the tiniest thing that goes wrong with the Full Metal plan. Then Owen gets even angrier with
himself for catastrophizing.
His parents’ words echo in the back of his mind, words they threw at him years ago, when he first admitted to them that he’d
flunked out of school, that he didn’t want to go back, that he didn’t think he could handle it. They’re words that love to
pop back up any time he thinks that he’s forgotten them, that tell him the thing he wants isn’t worth having. Simply because
he wants it.
“God, I think I’m hungry again,” Kaitlyn says, rubbing her stomach. “Is it too early to have pregnancy cravings?”
“When do we get to Sitka?” Owen asks, ignoring her as they walk past the flashing machines.
“Day after tomorrow, so one more full day at sea,” Kaitlyn reminds him. “They’re doing a whole New Year’s Eve party the night we’re docked, dancing and everything.”
Owen hums in reply.
Kaitlyn continues on, like Owen actually gave her an answer. “One of the guides told us we should be able to see the northern
lights too.”
Owen remains silent, his mind still a million miles away.
“They also said that they’re giving us all a barrel of oil each that we get to dump into the water,” Kaitlyn adds, watching
for any change in Owen’s expression. “Then we get the choice: join the polar bear hunt where we get to keep the pelt, or we
get on a boat and fire harpoons at baby whales.”
“That sounds like fun . . .” Owen nods, obviously not hearing her.
“Owen . . .”
He finally looks at her. “Yeah?”
“What’s going on with you? You were totally prepared to become a climate terrorist.” Kaitlyn loops her arm around Owen’s shoulder,
pulling him closer.
“That’s nothing,” he jokes. “Wait until you see what I’ve got in store for hippos.”
She gives him a curious look.
Owen supposes that if anyone could sympathize with his feelings, it’d be Kaitlyn. She’s been there for the worst of Owen’s
episodes, both the arthritic and the depressive.
Kaitlyn nudges him again. “Come on. What’s going on in that big head of yours?”
“Were you scared?” he asks, pausing when he realizes that he’s not sure what he’s asking Kaitlyn about specifically. “When you started the IVF treatments.”
“Yeah, dude,” Kaitlyn says without an ounce of hesitation. “I was scared shitless.”
“Really?” Owen doesn’t know why that information surprises him. He supposes, in his mind, that Kaitlyn has always been the
stronger of the two Morrison siblings. Where Jacob is always so spontaneous and impulsive, Kaitlyn has kept her life structured,
sticking to a plan she’d made for herself as a teenager, working jobs that wore her down to the bone just to put herself through
school. Her getting pregnant could only be the result of years of planning, mostly on her part.
“You and Abby hid everything so well,” he tells her. “I had no idea.”
“Seriously?” Kaitlyn exclaims with boisterous laughter. “Oh my God, that’s such a relief, I thought I gave it away like a
billion times.”
“I mean, we both know I’m not the most observant,” Owen says. Otherwise, he might’ve seen the breakup coming before he did.
Then again, maybe he just hadn’t wanted to admit things to himself.
“Why are you asking me?”
“I don’t know.” Owen shrugs. “You and Abby, you’re taking this huge leap, you’re going to be moms. And school is killing Kevin,
but he’s working on a doctorate, something that’s going to matter. And Ravi and Hailey are so busy being parents. And Jacob . . .
he’s . . . Sometimes it feels like I’m getting left behind is all.” Owen swallows, waiting for the relief to flood through
him. And he does feel something, though he’s not quite sure what.
“Owen . . .” He hates the pity in her voice.
“It’s silly.” He remembers back to just a few years ago, when he’d first come to the realization that he had stability, that he had a family again.
People who wanted to spend time with him for the sake of it, who cared for him and were cared for by him.
Now, Kevin and Jacob don’t even live in the city anymore, and Owen’s lucky if he sees Hailey or Ravi more than once every few weeks.
And in a few short months, it’ll be the same with Kaitlyn and Abigail.
“I think I’ve just been feeling a lot of things lately,” he says, the emotions overwhelming in a way that makes Owen want
to crawl out of his skin. “And I’m not sure what to do with all of them.”