Chapter Sixteen Putt-Putt! #3
Jacob pulls away, just far enough for him to look Owen in his bloodshot eyes. With his thumb, he reaches up to brush away
the tear on Owen’s cheek. “Please don’t apologize.”
“But I am sorry.”
Jacob lets out a husky sound, something not quite a laugh. “Well, apology not accepted.”
Owen can’t help but scoff. “Are you even allowed to do that?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, Owen,” he says instead, ignoring Owen’s question.
“It doesn’t feel that way,” Owen admits out loud.
“Just because you don’t know what you’re doing doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong,” Jacob says, words careful, like he wants them to be the right ones. “Not everyone has all of the answers all of the time.”
“I used to think I did, though,” Owen tells him. “I had my friends, and I was comfortable at the shop, and I had you. And
now . . . all of that’s slipping away, everyone’s moving on, moving forward with actual careers and degrees and I wonder what
I have to show for all of my failures and . . . it feels like I’m being left behind.”
“There are days when I wake up and I wonder what I’m doing,” Jacob says. “And I don’t just mean on the days when I have to
wake up at three in the morning to check data. Don’t you think Kaitlyn wishes that her day didn’t involve sending people diagnoses
that ruin their lives? Trusting herself that she got the information correct? Or Ravi? He tells me all the time that he regrets
getting his degree. He studied business, Owen.”
Owen forces a smile.
“Not everyone knows what they’re doing. And that’s okay. There’s no time limit; there’s no finish line you’re supposed to
reach.” The words are soft, and yet they feel like they carry the weight of the world. “What matters is that you’re happy.”
“I’m not,” Owen says, knowing that much is true. “I haven’t been in a long time.”
“And that’s okay too, but maybe it’s time to ask yourself what your version of being happy looks like, and what you can do
to achieve that.”
Owen hiccups against Jacob’s chest, trying not to feel embarrassed by the sounds he’s making as he digests Jacob’s advice.
He knows that Jacob is right. Because of course he is.
Owen has spent so long feeling sorry for himself, too long.
Even before Jacob left the country, when he went back to Duke and Owen could feel the first fractures the distance created in their relationship.
He could’ve fought harder for Jacob, sure, but he also could’ve fought harder for himself, to make sure that he was being seen.
What would make him happy? Confidence in his relationships, in himself, in his work? All of that? None of it? Owen can’t be sure, not
on the spot. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know how to be happy.” Not in this new version of his life.
“That’s okay,” Jacob assures him. “Maybe we can figure it out?”
“We?” Owen can’t help himself.
“I didn’t mean to imply—” Jacob looks at him, panic flashing in his eyes.
“I like being a ‘we,’” Owen tells him. “I like having you in my life, Jacob Morrison.”
He smiles at Owen, so hard that Jacob’s eyes disappear. “I like having you in my life too, Owen Henson. And I . . . I want
to figure out how to make it work. Not as boyfriends or whatever, but as—”
Owen interrupts him. “As a ‘we’?”
“Yeah, as a ‘we,’” Jacob repeats, pulling Owen into another hug. “I’m sick of not talking to you. I never even told you about
Larry! He’s this Humboldt squid back at Duke that I taught how to solve a Rubik’s Cube!”
“You’re joking . . .” Owen looks up at him, chin settled right in the middle of Jacob’s pecs. “And you’re just telling me
about this now?”
“Well, he can solve half of it.”
“Hmm . . .” Owen pretends to think. “I’m less impressed now.”
“My prowess as a squid whisperer is known far and wide, I’ll have you know,” Jacob says with a feigned cockiness. “My talents
have been celebrated around the world.”
Owen just rolls his eyes. “God, you’re such a cornball.”
“Mm-hmm!” Jacob nods proudly.
There’s no single word to describe the feeling of warmth that spreads through Owen’s body when Jacob looks at him the way
he does now. All from such a simple expression. It feels right. And maybe that gets to be enough. Maybe there doesn’t have
to be a reason for the way they want to love each other, maybe it doesn’t have to make any sense at all.
“I love you,” Owen tells him, his voice a quiet murmur, barely audible from where his face is buried in Jacob’s chest.
He’s almost afraid that Jacob doesn’t hear him.
But he does.
“I love you too,” Jacob says, resting his chin on Owen’s head. And for the first time in a long time, everything feels like
it’ll be okay again.
Until they hear the ship’s foghorn sound.
Owen can feel Jacob looking up first, then he follows, staring as the boat begins to slowly drift away from port. And as their
only route back home begins to float away, all Owen and Jacob can do is stand there, watching.
“Do you have your phone?” Owen asks Jacob.
“No . . .” Jacob says, finally looking back at Owen. “Left it on the charger. You?”
Owen shakes his head.
And Jacob nods slowly. “Welp . . . fuck.”