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"He's Stanley's friend—even though he's young enough to be his grandson. He's the only young person who goes to Stanley's church. There's twenty-two members, and the rest of them, besides John and my mom, are all really old."
"You have to be able to take a trip if you want to," Owen said.
I shifted to stare at him, and he gazed back at me like he was serious.
"That's not true. Not everybody can just do what they want in life."
"Yeah, but you can just run away if you want to no one can make you stay anywhere."
I tilted my head at him, realizing he was serious. "I can't imagine having that sort of freedom," I said.
He sat up, looking around like he might have to fight someone right that second. "You can leave here anytime you want, Corey. You're a grown woman, and no one can make you stay. They certainly can't make you marry someone."
"I know they can't. If they could make me, they would've done it by now." I smiled. "John is an okay guy. I could have worse fates than to marry a guy like him. He would help me with Stanley and my mom. He already does."
Owen shrugged. "Well, it sounds like you want to do it," he said. "I’m not going to try to talk you out of something that you want."
"I didn't say I wanted it."
"Then you can leave," he said.
"I guess I can," I said. "I never really even thought of it. In my mind, leaving Montana doesn’t seem like an option. My mom would say it's a big enough step that we opened that retail space. That's as far as she'll go. I feel like anxiety about the store is what gave her back problems in the first place."
Chapter 5
Owen and I sat on the rock and talked for quite a while after we ate. I told him the truth about my life, and he told me the truth about his. We were entirely opposite creatures, and we just stayed there and shared our stories and experiences, neither of us judging the other.
He told me about the way his mother served a formal Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner every year with a salad and dessert course and multiple forks. I told him about eating my mom's tortilla soup for holidays because that was Stanley's favorite. We shared other stories, and I was amazed by how different our experiences were yet how similar our personalities seemed to be.
"Thank you for this conversation, Owen. This has been amazing."
"Do you have to go?"
"I have to go in like five minutes. If I'm not at the shop soon, my mom will come looking for me."
He took a deep breath, and I turned to look at him. His blue eyes were so captivating that I began to tear up as I stared into them. The sight of their beauty made my eyes sting.
"What about a vacation from here?" he said.
I laughed and looked away.
"I'll pay."
"What?" I said.
"I would buy you a trip to L.A. We'll be out there filming the rest of this movie, and you could take a little trip and come see me. I stay in a big house, so you can stay there and have your own room and everything. I'll be in L.A. till October."
"I can actually tell that you're serious, and I—"
"I am serious."
"I know, and thank you, but I could never actually do that."
"Why not?" he asked, straight-faced.
I let out a sigh. "It would kill my mother. The worry alone. A trip sounds like a reasonable thing when you say it to me, but if I would go to her and say all of this, she would think I had lost my mind. All my mother's done, my whole life, was condition me to not trust men. It's barely Stanley and John who make the grade. She has a right to be paranoid. But, no. She would flip out if she knew I was here with you right now."
I stared at him after I spoke, and he gazed back at me. His expression was unreadable, and I had no idea what he was thinking. It seemed as though he started to say something and then he changed his mind and tilted his head at me, still staring.
