Chapter 20
THEA
After what feels like days, I peel myself away from Owen, already missing his warmth and the strength of his hands as they ran over my back.
He puts himself back together in seconds, then leans against the shelf, his eyes trailing my movements.
There’s something so intimate about him watching me put myself together after so thoroughly taking each other apart.
When I look up from buttoning my shorts, he’s in front of me, stern determination written on the lines of his handsome face. He brings his mouth to mine in a slow, decadent kiss.
“Owen,” I scold against his lips.
“Just one more,” he mumbles, like he’s talking to himself more than to me. The idea that he can’t walk away is intoxicating, and I sigh into the kiss.
Minutes or hours later, I push him away with a laugh. “You’re dangerous.”
He shrugs, that tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s going to be torture not being able to kiss you. You can’t fault me for savoring every second.”
I run my hand up the side of his neck and into his hair, watching the fascinating way his eyes drop closed at the contact.
I’ve never had what he’s given me in the last twenty minutes.
When I get difficult, people walk away. Even Vaughn and Addy give me space when I get upset.
No one’s ever sat with me through it, like a captain ushering a ship through a storm, knowing there’s beauty on the other side.
I kiss him lightly but push him away when he groans and tries to deepen it. “Thank you. For all of it.”
I eye his bare chest, lean, strong muscles, and my mind swirls with images of all the potential ways he maintains this physique.
Owen back in the swim trunks he wore at Sliding Rock, water sluicing down his body as he pushes out of the pool.
Owen on a rowing machine, his back muscles flexing and releasing with each pull.
Owen braced over me, using our activities as his own personal cardio.
“Are you planning on walking around topless?” I ask.
He scoffs, holding up the soiled shirt. “I’m not putting this on.”
My laughter catches me off guard, deep and genuine in a way I don’t think it normally sounds. His lips kick up another millimeter, and he gives me one last peck before I open the door.
Two steps out and we run into Gabriel, staring at us with wide eyes. I can just imagine what we look like—Owen in only his jeans and my hair a wild mess.
Gabriel steps forward—why is this kid everywhere?—clutching his chest. “Thea, I thought we had something special.”
“It’s not what it looks like,” Owen says.
“Suuuuuure,” he answers. “Thea, did you forget your bra in there?”
Owen thankfully steps in front of me to block Gabriel’s view.
“Never had one to begin with,” I say over his shoulder. “Now stop looking at my tits.”
Gabriel’s laugh booms through the space. “Yeah, and Owen always walks around without a shirt on.”
“She spilled coffee on my shirt and we were looking for something to clean it,” Owen says, coming up with a valid excuse that Gabriel doesn’t buy for a second.
“Just admit you two were hooking up.”
Owen denies it, but I can see from Gabriel’s expression that we aren’t getting away with this.
“Okay, fine,” I say, hoping to at least control the narrative. “It was a bit of a backslide, but nothing else is going to happen, so can we keep this between us? We don’t want to give anyone—especially Diana—the wrong impression.”
Gabriel eyes us speculatively. “Fine, I won’t send that very interesting message I was already writing in my head to the group chat, but on one condition.”
Owen groans. “What do you want from me?”
“Not you,” he says, jerking his chin in my direction. “Her.”
I narrow my eyes. “If this is a weird sex thing, I’m gonna pass.”
Gabriel barks out a laugh. “No, I want you to perform with us at the rehearsal dinner and wedding.”
I didn’t see that one coming. “You can’t be serious.”
“As the grave,” Gabriel says, bouncing his eyebrows. “How important is my silence?”
“You’re ridiculous,” I say with a laugh. “I can’t perform with you guys. I don’t know your songs.”
“I’ll send you our set list. We’ll do a mix of you singing the covers and one of us singing the originals.”
“Even if I know the songs you’re covering, I don’t know how you perform them.”
He shrugs. “I think you can make time for one measly hour-long rehearsal. You didn’t practice with us before the bar performance, and look how that turned out.”
“What are you even doing here?” Owen asks Gabriel, and I know it’s an attempt to distract him, to give me a second to think.
He tosses something in the air and catches it, and it only takes a glimpse of bright yellow for me to recognize the bus keys. “I’m sneaking these into Lynne’s desk drawer so she grabs them and has to drive the next time.”
Owen lets out a bone-weary sigh as I stifle a giggle in his back. “You’re going to lose them. Just wait until we get closer to the next time we’re using it.”
“Everyone will be on their guard by then. I already tried handing them off, and I couldn’t get anyone to take them.”
“Gabe—”
“Unless you want to take them,” he says, grinning like he’s about to yell checkmate.
Owen sighs again and reaches out, but I grab his arm and twist it behind his back. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Gabriel sticks the keys back in his pocket, turning his attention to me. “What’s it gonna be, Thea?”
It’s a strange sensation, having someone want me involved in something enough to blackmail me into it. But singing with their band really was a rush, and if it will keep this quiet, it’ll be a perfect win-win situation. Addy said it was fine, and he’s right, I can find an hour.
“Fine, I’ll do it.”
Gabriel gives a triumphant whoop as Owen digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “If you’re going to sneak the keys into Lynne’s desk, go now. I need to talk to Thea.”
Gabriel waggles his eyebrows. “For more canoodling?”
“Cut it the fuck out, Gabriel,” Owen says, and Gabriel’s body jerks, jumping to attention like a soldier spotting their general approaching.
“If gossip starts swirling around us, it’ll distract from the wedding.
Neither of us want that for Harrison and Addy.
You’re going to hurt people because you care more about the laugh than common decency. ”
Gabriel blinks a few times, then faces me. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re fine. But Owen’s right.”
“I’ll keep it to myself,” he says, looking fully chastised before rushing down the hall.
Owen pulls me to the side once he’s turned the corner. “If you don’t want to perform, I can get Gabriel to back off. Seems like he heard me.”
Based on the reaction from Gabriel when Owen called him out, I’m sure he’s right. But I don’t want to say no. “It’s okay. Sounds kind of fun. And if you say this to Gabriel I’ll deny it, but it’s nice to feel wanted.”
Owen looks over his shoulder, then risks a step closer. “Do I not make you feel wanted enough, Thea?”
No one has ever made me feel as wanted as Owen. “I like you like this. Happy and teasing.”
He shrugs with a self-deprecating smile. “It’s not my normal style. But it’s easier with you.”
I get what he means. I don’t stress about what I’m saying with him. I just am. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
I love having this with Owen, but the second that thought crosses my mind, it feels like a bomb detonating inside me.
The word “love” in relation to another person besides Addy and Vaughn has never crossed my mind.
It’s big and too unpredictable. I don’t love him—I hardly know him—but I think I could, and that’s terrifying.
There’s so much at risk, and not just my own heart. It’s only been ten minutes since we decided to give this thing a try, and we’ve already been discovered. How are we supposed to keep it together for another week? I’m mad at Addy, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to play around with her future.
I open my mouth, but Owen cuts me off. “Nope. We’re not doing that.”
“Not—we’re not—what are you talking about?” I sputter out.
“I can see it on your face,” he says with a little half smile. “You’re spiraling over Gabriel catching us and coming up with all the worst-case scenarios. Were you about to tell me we couldn’t be together?”
My mouth opens and closes like a fish desperate for water. I don’t have an answer for him, because I was about to say that.
Owen glances up and down the hallway, then plants a quick kiss on my forehead. “If you decide I’m not it for you, I’ll respect that. But don’t let fear and our families steal it from us, okay?”
I look up at him, the determined set of his jaw and the earnestness in his breathtaking eyes, and nod. How could I make any other decision when he’s in front of me?
“Okay then,” he says, a boyish smile taking over his face. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He sends another furtive glance up and down the hallway before lifting my hand and placing a kiss in the center of my palm. Then he walks off, leaving me boneless in his wake.
I blessedly make it back to my room without running into anyone and take a quick shower, already regretting the loss of Owen’s scent on my skin. I need to steal something of his, a shirt or hoodie that I can throw under the bed if someone comes to my room.
My phone buzzes and Vaughn’s name flashes across it. I answer on the first ring. “Hey, friend!”
His bark of laughter rings through the line. “Oh my god, you got laid.”
I drop onto the bed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Vaughn hums. “Of course not. You always answer the phone all chipper like that. I guess my call to check in on how things are going was unnecessary.”
My head jumps to how things are going with an image of Owen on his knees before me, the tight grip of his fingers on my thigh grounding me, the sweep of his tongue over me.
“You still with me, Thee?”
“Yup.” I snap out of the vision and am suddenly flooded with everything else that’s happened today, my stomach roiling over the argument I’ve been ignoring in favor of the memories of Owen. “Addy and I got into a fight.”
“Not what I thought you were going to say,” Vaughn says, his voice louder like I was on speakerphone, but my comment was enough to make him sit and pick up the phone. “What happened?”
A wildly complicated question. As hurtful as Addy’s comments were, there are parts of her side that I get. Does the fact that our mother birthed her automatically earn her a position of respect?
Addy’s all anger toward Mom. She doesn’t remember the good parts—or really any parts—but those good parts did exist. Dance parties when she got a new job and long walks in state parks describing the dream home she’d never get.
She got clean while pregnant with and nursing Addy because she loved us.
Almost two years of perfection. But when neither of us was reliant on her body to survive, her illness let her justify starting back up.
It’s easy to focus on the bad when she can’t remember the good, but Addy can remember the good with me.
At least, I think there was good. I tried to be there for her, to make sure she knew through all the instability that I was there.
That she was loved. That I’d do anything—sacrifice anything—to keep her happy.
Her lumping me in with her worst childhood experiences feels like a dismissal of all that.
I don’t know how to describe this to Vaughn. He’s always been quick to judge Addy, and I don’t want to get into it with him.
“Not a big deal. She made a comment that hit a tender spot, and I lost it. But I let off some steam, so it’s fine.”
Vaughn’s sigh is long and pained. “You plan to ignore it.”
It’s a comment, not a question. More than anything, it feels like a judgment on my relationship with Addy, and the surge of defensiveness I knew was coming rears up.
“Look, so far, all I’ve done since I arrived is screw up.
I was late to the welcome party; sat in the damn cake; caused drama because everyone thinks I dated Owen; showed up to her shower late, dressed like a gremlin and with no gift; and started fucking her soon-to-be brother-in-law behind her back.
So yeah, I think it’s fair for me to let go of this one interaction. ”
“An interaction that hurt you,” he says. “I can hear it in your voice.”
Yeah, it hurt. It hurts to know I’m not good enough for her when all I want is to have a place in her family and her future, but I won’t find that place by causing even more drama.
The idea of pushing for a conversation and alienating her further makes me feel sick.
What if she asks me to leave and I miss the chance to see her walk down the aisle?
“You deserve to speak your truth, Thea,” Vaughn says. “Give her a chance to prove you wrong.”
“I find it very inconvenient that you’ve gotten into therapy. Can’t you just let me sit in my unhealthy behaviors?”
He laughs, and the familiar sound brings my stress levels down some. “I know you don’t like conflict—”
“What are you talking about?” I interrupt. “I’m constantly arguing with people.”
“People you don’t care about. But you avoid it with us, me and Addy. There are plenty of times I’ve pissed you off and you don’t say anything.”
“Not tr—”
“Yes, it is. You can be mad at us and yell at us if we deserve it. We aren’t going anywhere.”
There’s a lump in my throat preventing me from answering him. Shit, he’s right. It’s what I just did with Addy. Instead of staying and explaining why what she said hurt me, I ran, too scared that if I showed my anger, it’d push her away like everyone else in my past.
“You okay?” Vaughn asks.
“Ish?” I squeak out.
“If you promise you’ll think about what I said, I’ll distract you with a batshit story.”
I accept, and that’s how I end up spending the next thirty minutes listening to a story about how an old hookup of Vaughn’s got the keys to his apartment, let herself in, and presented herself—naked—on his bed for when he came home.
Unfortunately, he’d also brought home the new guy he was seeing, and when she saw them both, she said she was willing to share.
Vaughn paused just a beat too long before saying no and scared his date off.
I’m laughing so hard I’m sure it can be heard all the way down the hall, and I feel lighter than I have since I arrived in North Carolina.
And with Owen’s assurances of Addy’s love for me and Vaughn’s encouragement to be honest about my feelings, I feel strong enough to pull on my big-girl pants and go talk to my sister.