Chapter 10 Owen #2
“I know.” I checked something off on my clipboard.
“The electrical contractor is coming on Monday. The plumber’s scheduled for next week.
The inspector already approved the timeline.
But this stuff”—I gestured at the roof, the windows, the porch where two firefighters were replacing rotted boards—“this we can handle ourselves.”
“I can’t afford—”
“You’re not paying for labor. Just materials. And Cal owed me for covering his shift last month, so technically you’re doing him a favor.”
“That’s not how favors work.”
“It is now.”
Grace opened her mouth to argue. Then she closed it. Looked around at the crew swarming over her grandmother’s house, fixing things that had been broken for years.
Something in her face shifted. Crumpled. She pressed both hands to her mouth and started to cry.
I stepped closer, ready to comfort her, but Lucy was already there. She handed Gabrielle to Elena and wrapped an arm around Grace’s shoulders, guiding her toward the porch steps.
“Come on,” Lucy said. “Let’s get you some tea. The boys can handle the demolition.”
I watched them go. Grace leaned into Lucy like she’d forgotten what it felt like to be held by something bigger than herself. Like she’d forgotten this was allowed.
Like she’d spent so long surviving alone, she didn’t recognize help when it arrived with open hands.
By the end of the day, the B&B had new gutters, a patched roof, three replaced windows, and a porch that didn’t creak. The crew had worked through lunch, through the afternoon heat, through the golden hour when the mountains turned purple in the distance.
Now they sprawled across the back porch, pizza boxes and beer bottles scattered between them, the easy warmth of people who’d become family.
Cal was telling a story about a call from last year, something involving a raccoon and a chimney.
Liam had his arm around Riley, her head on his shoulder, both of them looking tired and content.
Mia had claimed Lucy’s side sometime in the last hour, chattering about her day at school while Lucy braided her hair with absent, practiced fingers.
Kowalski was teaching Gabrielle to high-five, celebrating every successful slap like she’d won an Olympic medal.
Grace sat in the middle of it all, looking stunned.
She’d changed out of her robe at some point, put on one of those loose dresses she wore now that hid nothing. Her hand rested on her belly, and she was laughing at something Cal said, and I realized I’d been standing still, watching her, longer than I meant to.
This was what she’d been missing. Not just help with the house, but this. People. Connection. The reminder that she wasn’t alone, that she’d never been alone, that there were people who would show up for her if she let them.
Lucy appeared beside me.
“You look different around her,” she said quietly.
I tore my eyes away from Grace. “What?”
“Grace.” Lucy nodded toward her. “I’ve known you for years, Owen. I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Like what?”
Lucy just smiled. That knowing smile she had, the one that made you feel like she could see straight through you.
Mrs. Patterson appeared from inside with fresh coffee, surveyed the scene, and caught my eye. She nodded once, approving, then disappeared back into the house.
I felt seen in a way that made my chest tight, like there was no place left to hide.
The crew left as the sun set.
Hugs and handshakes and promises to do this again. Cal clapped me on the shoulder. Riley pulled Grace into a hug that lasted longer than necessary, whispering something that made Grace’s eyes fill again. Liam shook my hand and gave me a look that said he understood more than I’d told him.
Then they were gone, taillights disappearing down the driveway, and the B&B went quiet.
I started cleaning up. Pizza boxes, beer bottles, and the paper plates someone had left on the railing.
The work was mindless, automatic. My body moved while my mind stayed stuck on Grace’s face when she’d seen the nursery.
Stayed stuck on the way Grace had laughed at Cal’s raccoon story.
Head thrown back, eyes crinkling, the sound of it carrying across the porch.
I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in weeks.
“Owen.”
I turned.
Grace stood in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes were wet, her hand resting on her belly, the baby visible now in a way that couldn’t be ignored. She looked exhausted and overwhelmed and something else. Something that made my pulse skip.
“Thank you,” she said. “For today. For all of it.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with gratitude I didn’t think I’d earned. “That’s what family does.”
Grace crossed the kitchen toward me.
I went still.
She moved slowly, deliberately, barefoot on the kitchen floor. I could hear her breathing. Could smell her shampoo, something floral and clean. Could see the way her throat worked when she swallowed.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, stopping too close. “Let people help. Let people in. My grandmother did everything alone. My mother needed people too much. I don’t know what the middle looks like.”
My hands were full of garbage. Pizza boxes and napkins, the debris of the day. I set them down carefully on the counter.
“You don’t have to know,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. “You just have to let it happen.”
Grace looked at me. Her eyes searched my face like she was seeing something for the first time. Like I was a question she hadn’t thought to ask until now.
Then she leaned up and kissed me.
My brain stopped working.
For half a second, I froze, my hands hovering at my sides, my whole body locked in place. Then her mouth moved against mine, warm and real and tasting like the pizza we’d had for dinner, and sixteen years of friendship caught fire.
I kissed her back before I could think. Before I could talk myself out of it.
My hands found her waist, careful of her belly—always careful—and I pulled her closer.
Her hands slid up my chest, over my shoulders, into my hair.
She made a sound, small and surprised, like she hadn’t expected this either, and I felt it move through my entire body.
Her body was warm against mine, her belly pressed between us, the baby between us even now.
Every warning I should’ve listened to went quiet at once.
I just kissed her like I’d been waiting my whole life without knowing what I was waiting for.
Like every Saturday morning and every batch of cinnamon rolls and every quiet hour in her kitchen had been building to this exact moment.
My hands moved to her face, thumbs tracing her cheekbones. Her fingers tightened in my hair. The kiss deepened, slowed, and became something that felt like falling and flying at once.
I was in love with her.
The truth hit me with devastating clarity: whatever this was, it wasn’t new—and it wasn’t going away. I was in love with my best friend, and she was kissing me in her grandmother’s kitchen, and Marcus’s baby was between us, and nothing about this made sense.
I didn’t care.
I just wanted—
Grace pulled back.
Abrupt, like she’d touched something hot. She stumbled backward, one hand going to her mouth, the other to her belly. Her eyes were wide. Panicked.
I could still taste her. Could feel the ghost of her fingers in my hair. Could see the way her chest rose and fell too fast, the flush spreading across her cheeks.
“I can’t.” Her voice came out strangled. “Owen, I’m pregnant with Marcus’s baby. I’d be using you. I can’t—”
“Grace—”
But she was already gone. Moving faster than I’d seen her move in months, out of the kitchen, up the stairs, the sound of her bedroom door closing like a period at the end of a sentence.
There were no words after that. Just the echo.
I stood there in the empty kitchen, heart pounding, hands shaking, the taste of her still on my lips.
I didn’t sleep.
The carriage house was too quiet. Too dark. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face. Not as my friend, but as something else. Something I hadn’t let myself want until she showed me it was possible.
The kiss played on repeat. The way she’d leaned into me. The sound she’d made. The way she’d run.
I’d been here before. With Sarah. With the others. Making myself useful until useful became invisible. Showing up until showing up became expected, then taken for granted, then resented.
You’re doing it again, Sarah’s voice whispered in my memory. Making yourself essential. Making yourself furniture.
But this didn’t feel like furniture.
This felt like falling.
And I didn’t know what you did when stopping meant losing her.
I stared at the ceiling until the light changed, gray to gold to the bright white of morning. Somewhere in the main house, Grace was waking up. Making coffee. Moving through the routine we’d built together over sixteen years.
I didn’t know what came next. Didn’t know if she’d pretend it never happened, or if she’d ask me to leave, or if she’d look at me across the kitchen table and decide that whatever this was, it was worth the risk.
I only knew one thing for certain.
I was in love with Grace Lin.
And for the first time, just showing up didn’t feel like enough.