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We’ve been alone—a lot over the last five weeks. But none of those evenings included a bed.
Still, Owen stands. He walks around the bed so that he’s standing right in front of me. With his hands beneath his arms, he flaps his elbows, lifts his knees, and pecks with his head.
He’s ridiculous. And I’m gone.
Owen Bailey is winning over my heart with a chicken dance.
I giggle and then burst with a laugh as his jerking head pecks right in my face. “Okay. Okay!” I laugh, holding out both hands. “You’re done. I can’t look at that anymore.”
“You asked for it,” he says, tossing himself back onto the bed with a bounce. He leans back, hands behind his head, pleased with himself. His biceps contract and I can’t look away. I am hypnotized. “Your turn.”
“Huh?” I mumble, lifting my eyes to his face.
“Your turn,” he tells me.
“Right.” I lick my lips, pretending to think, but I know what I’m picking. “Truth.”
He stares at me as if I haven’t fooled him for a minute. “Why are you so afraid to fall in love?”
Oof, right out of the gate? Where’s thewho was your biggest crush?Orhow old were you when you had your first kiss?Thenagain, Owen knows those things. But this—this is a question that hits to my core. I was sure I’d never kept a thing from Owen, but this question is proving me wrong. So, of course it’s the question Owen would ask me.
“The truth, Annie, or I get a free dare. And I already know exactly what it is.” His brows raise, and somehowOwen—my Owen—looks menacing.
I huff out a breath. “Fine. Maddox.”
“Maddox?” He thinks. But he knows my ex. “Like six years ago, Maddox from college?”
Yep, Owen always liked Maddox. He even baked him that dumb pie. If he’s loved me all this time, why didn’t he hate the man? But then, I don’t think Owen hates. And he’s only ever wanted me to be happy.
“Is that why you broke up with him?” He shakes his head. “I’m confused.”
I bite my inner cheek, wishing that a single name could be answer enough for him. “I didn’t break up with him, Owen.” I press my lips together. “I know you assumed, and I let you believe that. But he dumped me.” I swallow—why does that feel so shameful? People break up every day. And if someone wrote me about shame and a breakup, I would tell them tolet go, to move on, to not allow shame to shape their future.
“So… you still like him?”
“What?” I shake my head. “No. I’m not still hung up on Maddox Powell. I don’t have feelings for him. I wasn’t even that hurt when he broke up with me.”
“So, what is it?” His hands are in his lap now, his back straight and tall, and his tone all too serious for thisgame.
“When I didn’t cry, he told me that I was false. He called me fake.” My head drops, and I glance down at the bow-and-arrow inked on my wrist.Straight and true. “He told me he couldn’t be with anyone as unlovable as I was. That no one could be.” I swallow again. “I’ve spent the last few years proving that I’mtrue. But how do you prove you’re lovable, Owen?” I shake my head. “I never figured that one out. I always just believed him. And my dating history continued to prove him right, year after year. Man after man.”
A curse falls from my angelic best friend’s lips. “I baked that joker a pie. Ilikedhim.”
My lips bubble with a delirious laugh. “You did. Too bad it wasn’t filled with X-lax.”
He lifts his gaze to me. “Annie—”
I shake my head. I wanted to play, to make things easy and comfortable. I haven’t. “It’s your turn, Owen. Truth or dare?”
He pulls in a deep breath and rubs at his brow. “Sure. Dare.”
Over the next sixty minutes, I proceed to make Owen jump on the bed like a monkey, call for room service, asking for black jelly beans only, mime out teaching a lesson to his class, and write Levi a loving, sappy poem to be delivered tomorrow.
And he has performed award-winning routines, all while giving me easy-peasy truths after telling him about Maddox, that is. Until now—
“How badly do you want to kiss me right now?”
It’s payback—I should never have made him write that sonnet.
