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“Hey. I wasn’t expecting you. What brings you by?”
He lifted his arm, a six-pack of my favorite beer dangling from his fingers. “I was on my way home from the clinic and figured I’d stop in. Haven’t talked to you in a while, so I thought we might have a beer and catch up.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” I stepped aside so he could enter, waiting until his back was to me to lift the collar of my shirt and give it a sniff to make sure I didn’t smell too strongly of his sister. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to change after having to walk away from her at the pizzeria earlier, so there was a subtle hint of her perfume still clinging to me, something soft and floral, like lavender. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, all I knew was that smelling it somehow calmed me.
“You want one?” Owen asked, jerking his head toward the beers he’d just set down on my dining room table.
“Yeah, sure. Let’s take them out back. It’s a nice night, we can drink on the deck.” I cast a look at my lazy dog. “It’d be good for Otis to get some exercise too.”
Owen laughed as he looked down to my dog’s prone body. If it wasn’t for the rise and fall of his chest and the occasional fart that was bad enough to clear the room, it would be easy to think he was dead.
However, the instant Owen let out a sharp whistle and patted his thigh, Otis sprang to life and jumped to his stubby legs, moving faster than he ever moved for me. I shook my head and followed them both to the backyard.
“I swear to Christ, that dog hates my guts.”
“Nah,” Owen assured me as we both collapsed into the Adirondack chairs that overlooked the backyard. I didn’t have much, really, the furniture inside wasn’t the best quality, and there sure as hell wasn’t a lot of it. I was a single man living by himself, I didn’t really require more than a bed and somewhere to sit while I watched TV, but what Ididhave was an incredible view of the foothills and mountains beyond. That had been the selling factor for this place, that view, and the badass deck the previous owner had built to take full advantage of it.
I kicked my bare feet up on the railing and looked out at the sky slowly darkening in the twilight. The sun was starting its dip behind the mountains, and in no time at all, the sky was going to be speckled with white stars, like someone had taken a brush dipped in white paint and flung it at the midnight sky. It wasn’t rare for me to sit out here for hours and stare up at them as time passed by.
Still dressed in his scrubs from the clinic, Owen reached into his pocket and tossed a treat onto the wooden planks close to Otis.
“Of course you’d have dog treats in your pocket,” I said with a snort before taking a swallow of my beer.
He shrugged unapologetically. “It’s the vet in me. What can I say?”
“Yeah, well, no more for him. He’s starting to lose his girlish figure.”
As if he understood what I was saying, Otis turned his head at me and blinked those beady black eyes, then twisted around and lifted his tail, giving me a bird’s-eye view down the barrel of something I would rather not see before plopping down and resuming his nap.
“Jesus,” Owen grunted before letting out a laugh. “I think that might have been the pet equivalent of telling you to go fuck yourself.”
“At least he didn’t fart,” I grumbled. I’d been the bearer of that particular gift before, and it wasn’t one I wanted to keep. “He’s still pissed at me for making him go on a run with me this morning. He’s usually a little bitch for about a day when I force him to be physically active.”
Owen chuckled around the lip of his bottle as he shook his head and took a pull. “I’m not sure I’ve ever met a dog quite like him. Part of me thinks maybe he’d be less of an asshole if there was a woman around. It seems he’s decided he’s the dominant one out of the two of you.”
At Owen’s words, my mind immediately conjured up the image of Hardin and Hazel hanging around, snuggling up with Otis and cheering up his otherwise surly demeanor.
I quickly shook my head to rid that thought, like my mind was an Etch-A-Sketch, and the thoughts were the sand. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing with Hardin Shields, but I knew domestic bliss wasn’t the end game. If she’d have given me the all clear on a casual, no-strings fling, I gladly would have taken it. But when she said she confessed she didn’t think she could do it, something a whole hell of a lot like panic had gripped my chest and squeezed it like a vise. The thought of ending whatever the hell we had only just started sent me in a tailspin, and the words started pouring from my mouth before I could give them a moment’s thought.
Hell, I still couldn’t wrap my head around the relief I felt when she caved and told me she’d think about it, but as the hours passed since I left Junior’s and headed home, that unease had returned and was starting to grow. It wouldn’t be hard for her to overthink things and decide that a day-by-day kind of relationship wasn’t her cup of tea. She could still shoot me down, and the thought of that happening had my insides so twisted up, the beer I drank was sitting like a lead weight in the pit of my stomach.
I did my best to shake the tension off, feeling like an ass for thinking those things about Hardin when her brother was sitting right next to me. God only knew how he’d take it if he found out I was fucking his little sister. Something told me he wouldn’t exactly jump for joy. He knew me as the persona I’d put firmly into place when I moved to town. I was known for not settling down. I didn’t have the reputation of a player, per se, but I wasn’t exactly the picture of stability and security either. Owen had talked about Hardin’s ex enough that I knew he wanted better for her, and I didn’t think he’d look at me and see better. Especially since there was a guaranteed end to whatever it was we were doing.
I did my best to pull my head out of the shame spiral that was starting, and focused on Owen. “So, how have you been?”
“Good, just working at the clinic and getting the house set up. Asher’s got it in her head that it has to be absolutely perfect. She’s already repainted our bedroom three times.”
He shook his head good-naturedly. “She’ll settle on a color, then decide she hates it, but that’s onlyaftershe finished all four walls and put all the furniture back into place. And when I bitch about why she can’t figure out she hates it before we reach the finish line, she says some shit about not being able to truly tell until the room is complete. I’m telling you, man. If I never see another paint roller in my life, it'll be too damn soon.”
“I bet,” I said on a chuckle. I’d been in his shoes before. Years ago I’d been about as miserable as he was now.
There was a brief lull in the conversation as Owen shifted in his chair, and I knew he hadn’t just swung by for the sake of it. There was something specific on his mind.
I waited patiently, silently, for him to get around to it. Finally, he spoke, and what he said threw me for a loop.
“I’m gonna ask Asher to marry me.”
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, it was the next logical step for them, and it was obvious the two of them were gone for each other. But still, the announcement was like a dagger to my fucking chest.
