Page 23 of Double Trouble
Another meant-to-be joke, although I was the only one who giggled at it. I could still feel a bit of wine coating my lower lip, though I’d have sensed its presence even otherwise with the way that Owen was looking at me.
My heart dropped. The way he gazed at me made time stop. It made me want to reach for the wine bottle to better be able to handle it.
When Owen took a swig of wine himself, I was well-relieved.
“I can see why you guys like boxing,” I said suddenly, my gaze lost on the never-ending waves in the water before us.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I took another sip of wine, the fruity expansiveness floating through me. My eyes closed, recalling it all. “The exhilaration of that walk in, the howling crowd, the absolute real humanness of it. Fist connecting with flesh.” I felt weird saying the words, revealing to Owen what I hadn’t even admitted to myself yet. “There’s lots of things you can fake these days but not that. The final frontier of realness is what boxing is. No bullshit, no games. Just one man’s brute force against another’s.”
The silence after I spoke made me feel self-conscious all over again.
“I was a bit nervous you’d think it was barbaric,” Owen said, another expression I couldn’t place taking over his features, one by one. “Most girls he and I have dated do.”
“I did, at first,” I admitted. “But then I stopped thinking in ‘should’s’ and how my parents or my sister would want me to react, and just let myself take it all in. The fullness of the fight – from the collective held breaths to the gurgle and crackle of flesh hitting flesh in the ring.” I exhaled. “Although I couldn’t take seeing Jake lose.”
“Neither can I,” Owen admitted. “Lucky for us though, Jake’s been having a winning streak these past few months and looks all set to continue it. You have a sister?”
“Yeah, I don’t mention her that much.”
“Guessing you’re not close, then.”
I smiled ruefully. “No, in fact, we’re almost opposites. She’s like my parents. Decisive, always knows the right thing to do and does it.”
“And you don’t?”
I fixed him with a stare that he returned unflinchingly.
“I’m dating two brothers at the same time,” I said. “How can that be right?”
“What if it is?” he countered.
I looked at him for a moment before continuing. “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt,” I finally said.
Our gazes held for another few seconds.
“You’ve been hurt badly in the past,” Owen said, as though his gaze had somehow looked into to my brain. “Haven’t you?”
“Hasn’t everyone?”
He shook his head. “Not what I meant.”
The way Owen had of waiting for you to respond even when it was unbearably uncomfortable was singular.
When he finally held out the foil wrapped dark chocolate bar that he’d bought to pair with the wine, I released a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding. “Thanks.”
“It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me.” Owen’s words were understanding and sad. “There are some things I can’t tell people either.”
Though I didn’t look his way, my thoughts turned toward Owen. How briefly we’d known each other. How fast we’d taken to each other. How, with two more sips of wine, I almost felt like I could tell him about Brent.
So, with the chocolatey darkness melting in my mouth, I sipped the wine once, twice, and, keeping my gaze careful on the red ombre skyline, I asked, “You ever been in love?”
His response was immediate, “No.”
It shoved my oncoming response back in my throat. If he hadn’t, how could he understand?
And then maybe it was the third sip of wine, or maybe it was the way his arm settled around mine, but next thing I knew, I found myself telling him. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
15
Owen
‘There’s something I want to tell you’ – not those words again.
Didn’t girls understand that saying any variant of ‘we need to talk’ or ‘I need to tell you something’ was akin to a knife stab in the gut while saying ‘don’t worry’.
“It’s about my past,” she was saying, her eyes still turned toward the sunset.
I only let her head settle on my shoulder, saying nothing. It wasn’t time for that. The gulls were fluttering the skies, quiet, the waves were purring on the shore, quiet. And I too, had to be quiet to leave space for her words. It was time to listen.
“My former fiancé,” she clarified. “Brent.”
She took a deep breath and stiffened slightly under my arm.
“We were high school sweethearts,” she said. “Met at sixteen, engaged at twenty. He was my everything – my best friend, my lover, my greatest supporter. We had it all figured out – the house we were going to move to, the day we were to have our wedding. And then…”
