18. Delia
Agreeing to workout with Owen was the worst idea I’d ever had for so many reasons, mostly because I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for what seeing him shirtless and sweaty would do to me.
No, that’s a lie—well, not the entire truth anyway.
While Owen’s glistening bronze skin was surely distracting, I hated to admit he’d been right. I wasn’t particularly strong, and the workout he’d created for us put me through the ringer, working muscles I didn’t even know I had.
Oh, but Owen knew, and he tortured me for an hour.
I should’ve known better than to think he’d take it easy on me.
Then again, I didn’t want someone to take it easy on me, had prided myself on doing the exact opposite whenever possible. Take the night before for example. It would’ve been much easier to keep my mouth shut and not share with Owen the darkest, most embarrassingly painful story of my entire life. But I wanted him to know, wanted him to understand where I was coming from where this thing between us was concerned. And he’d taken it all in stride, simply being a calming, stolid presence next to me while I dumped the whole thing in his lap.
My crush for him deepened in that moment. Actually, it was well past a simple crush .
When I walked into the gym, Owen stood in the center of an empty expanse of rubber floor mats, rapidly jumping rope. I had to snap my mouth shut to avoid drooling. He was dressed head to toe in Detroit Mustangs gear, a black ball cap flipped backward. The ends of his hair were already damp and clinging to his neck. Vibrant orange shorts hung low on his hips, displaying the band of his boxer briefs. His tee was black, the Mustangs logo so faded from wear it was practically nonexistent. The sleeves were ripped off, presumably by him, the bottom half missing to reveal the peaks and valleys of his lower abdominals.
God, I wanted to press my tongue into those grooves, to taste the salty perspiration off his skin.
There was this guy on TikTok who posted thirst traps of himself sweaty and lifting weights, and like…if Owen spontaneously grew a mustache? I’d be taking him for a ride without a second thought.
“What are you doing?” I asked, forcefully shaking myself from my trance. “Is this your idea of a workout?”
“I’m warming up,” he said, his breath relatively even despite how quickly he was moving. “Grab one and join me.”
“Okay…” I trailed off, moving over to the collection of hooks on the far wall and selecting a rope that seemed about right for my height.
I rejoined him and said, “ Now what?”
“Now jump.”
So I did, thinking it couldn’t be all that difficult if kids routinely participated in the activity.
I was humbled quickly.
It had been a long damn time since I’d used both the muscles and coordination skills necessary to perform such a task, and after the third time of catching the rope around my ankle and nearly eating shit, Owen—who, mind you, could barely stop laughing long enough to get the words out—took pity on me and told me to do jumping jacks instead.
Now that he was no longer playing, Owen told me he liked to participate in what he called “functional” strength training versus the traditional kind that required lots of barbell and pulley machine usage.
Instead, he asked me to grab a couple dumbbells from the racks at a weight I felt confident I could repeatedly lift over my head, then once again met me in the center of the gym.
“So first,” he said, hefting his own dumbbells—more than twice as heavy as my measly ten pounders—up to his shoulders, “we’re going to do squat to overhead presses, or squat thrusts.”
He demonstrated the movement, his thighs straining against his shorts as he dropped into the squat, straightened back up, simultaneously pushing the dumbbells over his head, then returned them to the neutral position at his shoulders.
His biceps bulged deliciously, and I struggled to concentrate around mental images of him manhandling me in bed.
“When you reach the top of the movement”—he held the dumbbells overhead again—“I want you to squeeze your glutes together. Keep your belly button pulled in, core engaged, and avoid rounding your back.”
“Okay,” I said, bobbing my head, my ponytail swishing, attempting to get myself in the game. “I can do this.”
“That’s the spirit,” Owen said, grinning. “We’ll start with three sets of ten reps. I’ll do them with you.”
Though I used my leg muscles regularly to run, it was nothing compared to the hell squats unleashed. By the end of the first set, my quads, glutes, and shoulders were on fire. I wasn’t sure how I’d make it through two more rounds, nor how I’d survive an entire workout with this man.
As though sensing my struggle, Owen said, “You can switch those out for lighter weights if you want.”
And give him the satisfaction? Absolutely fucking not.
So I powered through, grateful when he gave me a thirty second break between sets, though it was barely long enough for me to gulp down some water and attempt to marshal my breathing.
We alternated upper and lower body movements, or combined the two for a whole body exercise, though always targeting the same muscle groups. Owen made everything look easy. It wasn’t that he wasn’t breaking a sweat doing everything he instructed me to do, it was more that everything appeared so effortless for him. I had to actively remind myself he was an athlete, had played professional football for a decade. He was used to this.
The bastard even made burpees look easy.
At one point, while I struggled to lift myself off the floor in the middle of one, Owen paused briefly to whip his shirt off, claiming it was getting in the way.
Personally, I thought he only wanted to torture me further. To show me what I was missing.
His body was a work of art, every muscle beautifully defined, as though a sculptor had carefully drawn his modeling tool across a mass of clay, deftly shaping every hill and hollow of his shoulders, arms, chest, and abs.
The man even had a goddamn gold chain around his neck, an oblong circle hanging from it. He was sex on a stick, a goddamn snack I wanted to consume.
Jumping to my feet at last, I paused and smirked at him, inclining my head toward the chain and pendant. “Is that so you won’t forget your name?”
Owen glanced down at his chest, where the circle hung in the valley of his pecs. “Nah,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s my number. When I started playing football, I chose the number zero because it looked like an O, but then I carried it with me through each level I played in after that. My college and pro teammates all called me Zero.”
“That’s sweet,” I said, giving him a smile. Briefly, he returned it before barking at me to finish my burpees.
I only survived them by imagining that chain dangling in my face as Owen rocked in and out of my body.
It went on like that, Owen showing me moves that he made look as easy as lifting a twig off the ground while I huffed and puffed my way through them. Still, I couldn’t help but enjoy the jelly sensation that overtook my limbs the longer I worked, and the way my mind went blissfully quiet of everything save executing the movements properly to avoid injuring myself.
And I definitely enjoyed every time Owen corrected my form.
I nearly gave into the attraction between us in one such instance. He had me doing bent over rows, here I hinged at the hip, arms extended, then brought my elbows to my hips and back down again. Apparently, I wasn’t hinging correctly—okay, I knew I wasn’t; the twinge in my lower back before he put me straight proved that—so he set down his own weights to assist.
Every nerve ending in my body lit up when he put his hands on me, and there was no way he missed the way I shivered at the contact.
One hand he placed on the small of my back, right over my tailbone, his pinky one brazen flex away from my ass, and the other he spread over my stomach.
God, his palms were massive, spanning nearly the entire width of my torso.
I was a goner the moment he pressed lightly, shifting me, and said, “Tilt your hips, Whiskey.”
It was impossible not to imagine him speaking those same words in bed, my ass in the air, him positioning me right where he wanted before he took me from behind.
I had to guess Owen had the same idea, because as soon as he said it, he stilled a beat before pulling his hands from my body like I’d burned him.
Things were awkward after that, which annoyed me to no end. We were physically attracted to each other, and I didn’t understand why we couldn’t explore that without feelings getting involved.
I had to admit, though, exercising had done the trick. I was more settled than I’d been before we started, like that typical buzz of energy coursing through my veins was quieter. Not gone entirely but…still .
Workout done, Owen and I found ourselves seated on the floor, doing some stretches to cool down, when I decided to throw caution to the wind.
“Owen, I have a question.”
“Shoot,” he said, his voice muffled by the floor where he had his forehead pressed in child’s pose.
“You’re physically attracted to me.”
“Not a question,” he said, raising slightly to look me in the eye. “But yes.”
“And I’m physically attracted to you.”
“I thought you had a question.”
“I’m just wondering…why can’t we explore that? Why aren’t we exploring that?”
Owen rose fully from his forward fold and rocked onto his butt, extending his legs in front of him, resting back on his palms. The portrait of calm, cool, and collected while my insides squirmed. All that work we’d done to quiet my inner chaos was undone in a heartbeat with the way he looked at me. Like I was a gift he wanted to unwrap.
“I’m too old for games,” he said at last. “I’m playing for keeps now. I want you, badly, in ways I can’t quite explain. But those ways include more than just your body, and until you decide you’re ready to give me everything…we’re at an impasse.”
My heart rate ratcheted up, skin tingling with the promise in those words.
“So you’re saying you won’t take my body unless I give you my heart too?”
“Yes. I’m a greedy and possessive man, Delia. It’s all or nothing for me. ”
My relationship, if you even wanted to call it that, with TJ had been doomed from the start. I’d wanted to start dating, and he was the first man who’d asked. But I wasn’t entirely sure “man” was an appropriate term for him, because compared to Owen? This chiseled, perfect male specimen sitting before me?
TJ was a mediocre appetizer.
Owen was a five course meal at a Michelin starred restaurant.
To consider them the same species was laughable.
Owen saw who I was, who’d I’d been, and who I could be, and hadn’t balked at any of it. Even in the beginning, after our first little bump in the road, he’d quickly altered course, becoming a collaborative business partner and good friend—and I’d done the same in return. He put up with my constant photography and videography for our socials, my endless questions from the comment sections that I only asked to annoy him. He was hard working and had his shit together. Not to mention, he got along great with my family.
Hell, even my dad loved him.
And then there was last night, when I’d laid my bleeding heart bear and he took it all in stride. I didn’t miss the anger flashing in his eyes as I’d shared my trauma, and I could only imagine the scenarios of murder that had filtered through his head, but he never let that emotion bubble out.
He was cool in the face of pressure, attentive, kind, loyal. A natural leader and caretaker.
In short, I could do a lot worse than Owen Lawless.
But…I thought maybe Owen Lawless could do a lot better than me.
“Maybe—” I started, but my words were cut off by the door from the men’s locker room flying open.
I leapt off the floor quickly, feeling like I’d been caught in a compromising position and wanting to distance myself from Owen.
And a good thing too, because none other than Calvin Ryder walked through the door, fully dressed in business attire.
“What do we have here?” he asked, a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Helping Delia blow off some steam,” Owen said, rising to his feet next to me.
“I’ll bet,” Cal said with a wink in my direction.
“What’re you doing here?” Owen asked. “You stalking me?”
“Yeah, actually,” Cal said. “I wanted to see if you wanted to get lunch.”
Ignoring Cal for the moment, Owen stared at me, exasperation clear on his face. It was obvious he wanted me to finish what I’d been about to say, but I couldn’t. Not in front of Cal, and not when I still wasn’t sure myself.
About any of it.
So we agreed to have lunch with Cal—on the condition that he invited my sister—at Birdie’s, which was right down the road from the gym. It was closed, but knowing the owner had its perks. Together, we constructed a meal out of leftovers Owen’s chef had in the fridge, including the creamiest mac and cheese I’d ever had, thick slices of beefsteak tomatoes we sprinkled with flaky salt, pepper, and drizzled with balsamic, and bell peppers stuffed with a turkey burger concoction.
I tried hard to ignore the fact that the whole thing felt like a double date. We sat at a booth in the dining room, laughing and talking. Amara and Cal were on one side, their fingers laced, her hand absently resting on the swollen belly carrying their child. Owen and I were side by side on the other, and though we didn’t touch each other, something still sizzled in the air between us. It was getting harder and harder to deny myself, and I wondered how far I could bend before I broke.
When Cal and Owen rose from the table to bring our empty plates back to the kitchen, my sister’s gaze narrowed on me.
“You like him,” she said, those shrewd golden eyes, brighter than my own, practically boring a hole in my skull.
It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t treat it as such.
“I do,” I whispered.
“Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”
“I don’t know if I can let myself go there. For a number of reasons, the least of which is that we’re partners. I’d never forgive myself if our business went up in flames because I couldn’t keep my proverbial dick in my pants.”
“That’s actually Owen’s job,” my sister said with a snort, and I swatted at her.
“You know what I mean, Mar. I just…the whole working together and fucking thing didn’t exactly work out for you and Cal. So who am I to think it would for me?”
“Working together and being together may not have worked out for me and Cal,” she said, nodding in agreement. “But being together did . And you and Owen aren’t us. There’s a level of respect and collaboration between you two that Cal and I sorely lacked in the beginning, which was the root of all our problems.” She settled a hand on the small swell over her abdomen. “Even so, what I got in return is everything to me. ”
“There’s also the fact that you’ve fucked him,” I blurted.
My sister pursed her lips, clearly unimpressed with my deflection. “Don’t use me as an excuse, Lia. If you want him, and he wants you, there’s nothing insurmountable stopping you from taking and running with the happiness you could find.”
The next day, I found myself at the job site, wanting to shoot some progress content and start measuring for furniture and artwork. Jay and his team had made impressive progress, with the entirety of the building framed in, trusses up and roof on, and walls insulated and ready for drywall. It was starting to look like a real business, and the thought of decorating had me giddy.
I was inside, after Jay instructed me to put on a hardhat and watch my step, standing in the middle of the cavernous space, spinning in a slow circle. Plans whirled in my head, thoughts of fabrics and textures, fixtures and paint, art and other tchotchkes. The door creaked open behind me just as I withdrew my tape measure, and I turned to find Owen striding toward me.
I couldn’t help the wide grin that spread across my face. “What’re you doing here?” I asked.
“Same as you,” he said, shrugging. “Checking on progress.” As if noticing it for the first time, he frowned at the tape measure in my hand. “What’re you up to?”
“Measuring for furniture,” I said. “I know there’s a lot of work to be done before we get to the staging part of the process, but I wanted to get a jumpstart on ordering. Think it would be okay if I just stored everything up here? I could pile it all up in the center of the room and throw drop cloths over it or something.”
“Why not just use the barn? Wouldn’t it all be safer there?”
“Well, that’s family property.”
“And you don’t think your family would be okay with you storing stuff there?”
“I guess I never thought to ask.”
“They love you, Delia. I think they’ll be fine with it.”
I waved him off, not liking the way his words twisted up my insides. It was too early in the day for feelings talk.
“That reminds me,” I said. “I want to travel somewhere and do research. Check out different bars and get inspiration, you know? I was thinking Chicago, maybe.”
“Actually,” Owen said, “there’s something I wanted to run by you.”
“Okay…”
“I got asked to shoot a Super Bowl commercial and a print ad for a company I’ve worked with in the past, and I’ll have to go to New York for a few days. Why don’t you come with me?”