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“Yeah,” he says, his eyes like ocean waves rove over my face. “I can see you’re real broken up about my rough day.”
“So, did she make it? You said Mrs. Macey attempted to pick you up and carry you—”
“No, she didn’t make it! I’m six foot one and two hundred pounds, Annie.”
I give a one-shoulder shrug. “I thought she might be able to.”
“She got me off the ground for a second, but I forced her to let me go. I walked to the office.”
My full lips, just like Grammy’s, bunch to the side. I can’t help it. I’ve got a picture in my head, and I need Owen’s confirmation. “Forced, how? Like a wiggling toddler or like a WWE wrestler?”
Owen clears his throat. His blue eyes skirt my gaze.
I squeeze his fingers with my left hand while caressing his forearm with my right. “Oh, Owen. The toddler?” I smirk, and another giggle escapes me like floating bubbles in the bath.
“What was I supposed to do, slam Phyllis Macey into the ground like I’m Steve Austin? In front of all those kids?”
“Because you would have slammed her to the ground like Steven Austin had the kids not been there?”
Fact—from a girl who checks facts—Owen is the nicest human on the planet. He works in the community garden, and he volunteers a couple times a month at the old folks home. He wouldnever everhave slammed Mrs. Macey to the ground. I’m surprised he didn’tallowher to carry him down to the office just to build her confidence.
He’s not a pushover.
But he does genuinely care about other people and their feelings.
He blows out a sigh, leans his head back, and avoids the question. “My head hurts.”
“I’m sorry. I really am sorry, O.”
“Yeah. I know. I was supposed to go to Miles’s place. He was going to teach me how to dry brush tonight.”
“Are you interested in painting?”
Another fact: Owen has a lot of hobbies. He gardens, he games, he volunteers, he plays pickleball with his brothers.
And now he’s going to paint?
He bought this house, thisfixer-upper, and he’s learning how to repair everything himself. Even it’s becoming a hobby.
Ugh. Sometimes at night, I think about this house caving in on him, and it takes everything inside of me to not drive over and force him to pack a bag and move in with me.
“Aw, well.” His tone tells me he isn’t interested—not really. “It could come in handy after I learn to mud and tape.”
“I’m pretty sure that isn’t the type of painting Miles will be teaching you.”
“Truth.” He blows out a sigh. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
“Do you need me to play house? I can make you dinner and tuck you in.” I give Owen my biggest, cheesiest grin, but I only get a glimmer back. A funny, sad glimmer.
Once upon a time, my sophomore year of high school—the year I’m pretty sure Owen’s shoulders exploded and his abs came in—I thought that maybe we’devolve… into something more. That we’dplay housefor real one day.
But we didn’t.
Jeff Price asked me to the prom, and Owen asked Sarah Bennet. It was a fleeting thought, a little bitty crush—one that I’m reminded of as I make my joke.
We’re best friends. I know it. He knows it. We weren’t meant to be more.
I don’t know ifthe oneexists when it comes to love. But I’ve gotthe onewhen it comes to besties. I’ll throw on an apron and cook up some soup if Owen needs me to. But—
