AllFreeNovel
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I open the door, and my best friend beams down at me.
“Hey,” I say, gulping out the word.
I can’t help but examine him—with his tight button-up shirt and his dark blue slacks. Owen is built well—very well. His blond hair still holds a few streaks where the sun shone down on it just a couple months ago, and his eyes are bright with anticipation.
Crap. My best friend is kind of hot.
I swallow again, and suddenly I am looking at the skydirectly behind him. There’s a moon out there somewhere, I’ll find it. I don’t need to study Owen’s charming smile or strong forearms or chiseled jaw. I can’t escape the musky pine that radiates from him. Has he always smelled like the sweetest Christmas tree on the planet? Or is this new?
Sometime in the few seconds of me searching for the moon, Owen tangles his arms about my waist, my arms naturally rising and looping over his neck. He pulls me close and hugs me. In my heels, I’m able to rest my head on his shoulder.
This doesn’t feel like a best-friend hug.
And it doesn’t feel like something that’s about to flop.
I close my eyes, breathe him in, and pretend it’s all going to be okay.
45
Owen
Iknow that I shouldn’t be so presumptuous—but I feel as if Annie is already mine.
In a way, she’s always been mine. So, it’s really not that difficult for my head to conjure a reality where we are more than we’ve always been.
She feels right in my arms. Right and perfect, as if my arms were sculpted for exactly her shape. She belongs with me—not with James or Aiden or Paxton. Or any of the others. But right here with me. I know it.
I bury my face into her neck and submerge myself in orange blossoms. Pulling back, it feels natural to leave her with a kiss. This is right—she feels it too, right?
But when my eyes fall to her mouth and I move an inch closer, Annie steps back.
“Owen—I never knew you moved so fast.” She chuckles under her breath, her stretched-out palm keeping me at a distance. “Second date, remember?”
My lips quirk upward. “I guess it doesn’t feel fast for me. I’ve been inlo—”
Annie stops my word with two fingers to my lips. “We aren’t using the L word, remember?”
“Right,” I say, through her fingers. “I’ve hadsecret feelingsfor years. So, it doesn’t feel quick to me.”
“True.” One of her brows quirks up. “But then, I haven’t known that long.”
“True,” I say, moving an inch closer–but then her hand is still keeping me at bay.
She drops it to my chest and her eyes follow. Her brows cinch and her head tilts at something she sees there. “What is that?”
I peer down, wondering if I’ve been in this shirt an entire thirty minutes and I’ve already spilled on myself. But nope–I missed a button. Rather than keeping the top two buttons of my dress shirt undone, there are three loose –and with that third unlatched, Annie is seeing the edge of my new addition. My one-beer, depressed-state, bullseye tattoo.
I actually don’t mind the thing anymore–but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to show it to Annie.
“Is that a tattoo?”
I lean away from the girl of my dreams and button up that pesky third button.
“Owen!”
“What? It’s nothing.”
One of her pretty manicured brows hikes up on her head. “It’s definitely not nothing. Show me.” She reaches for my shirt, but I pull back.
