“He’s right. Soccer is just twenty-two idiots fighting over a ball. Who wants to see that?” Owen smirked. But underneath the calm exterior, I could see that Walter’s refusal to answer did affect him.
“He loves you and wants you to stay, you know that, right?”
“I know. And I know he’s mad at me, and I get that.”
“He’ll cool down. He’s just scared that you’ll go again, and at his age ...”
Owen glanced at me again. He then took a deep breath and looked away.
We were silent for a while.
“So, what does this Finn have that I don’t?” The relaxed smirk was back on, and Owen once again looked like the poster boy forkeeping it together.
I looked over at the gorgeous man guiding two elderly ladies into the pool. “Nothing. He’s just here.”
Theyou’re-guilting-me-too-now?expression flitted across his face again. “So, you think Walter lacks a male role model?” Owen looked at me with a teasing smile. But despite his well-rehearsed nonchalant, I could see that guilt weighed him down.
“Kinda.” I scoffed.
“It’s true what they say. You go back to being a kid when you grow old.”
Despite the sarcasm, I could tell that Owenunderstood Walter.
Warmth spread in my heart. Because of these two, and because Owen didn’t even notice how the K stuck in my throat for a second. Although he still felt like a stranger, my stutter was less pronounced like it did around people I felt comfortable with, as if their presence smoothed out the edges of the words.
Back in school, kids used to mimic me, and most annoying of all—complete my sentences for me. Owen had never done any of that. And he had opportunities, given that I was nervous around him and that his name began with an O.
Finn noticed us and waved. I waved back.
The word in Blueshore was that Finn and Anne, his ex-wife’s cousin, had an affair while he was still married. But working across the street from Anne’s bakery in Riviera View, I knew that was a crude distortion of the truth. Besides, Anne was one of the quietest, loveliest people I knew. I appreciated people who didn’t waste words.
“What?” I asked, catching Owen staring at my profile.
“Nothing,” he said, chuckling, knowing he’d been caught. “I was just going to ask what’s your secret to getting along with everyone, including Walter, but I know the answer, so ...”
“What’s the answer? What’s my secret?” I prodded with a smile so wide my lips hurt.
“You’re Rio Mio.” And there it was—the smile.
I bit my upper lip. “I don’t know what that means.”
Owen pulled up his Henley’s sleeves, and I tried not to stare at the veins or tattoos on his arms. One of them consisted of two lines in calligraphy-style Latin.
“You’ve always been good with finding the right path with people. Even annoying ones.” His accent sort of slipped to British in the word ‘path’.
“He’s not always annoying.”
Owen laughed.
Our thighs and shoulders brushed each other every time either one of us shifted.
Once upon a time, this man had touched every part of me with his hands, with his lips and tongue, his entire body.
“Remember that night—” Owen’s voice startled me. “At the pool?”
For a moment there, I thought he meant the night I was thinking about.
I turned to look at him again. “I remember.”
