Page 117 of Ship Happens

“He’s seen worse; remember that time you left out your packer—”

“Ah!” Owen puts a finger to his lips. “You swore you’d never bring that up again.”

Jacob snorts, his nose scrunching. “—and then you noticed the teeth marks he left in it?” He barely gets the words out through his laughter. “And you couldn’t even look at it when you threw it away.”

“Please, stop,” Owen says, laughing just as hard.

“Make me.” Jacob wraps Owen even tighter, kissing the top of his wet head over and over again.

“You’re being gay!”

“Mm-hmm!” he hums proudly, dotting Owen with more kisses. “Proudly so.”

Owen finally breaks away long enough to look Jacob in the eye again, their lips meeting one last time before there’s a soft knock at the door.

“Owen?” Kaitlyn’s voice doesn’t sound very brave at all. “You in there?”

“Yeah, naked, though.”

“Okay, well, um . . . would you be up to talk? About . . . you know? In a bit?”

“Yeah, let me just get dressed,” Owen tells her, dread settling in his stomach, libido quickly extinguished.

“Okay!” He can tell she wants to say something else, her shadow hovering in the crack underneath the door, but then she leaves.

“What are the chances I could just sneak out the back door?” Owen whispers to Jacob, resting his head against Jacob’s chest, reaching up to trace the tattoo of the tentacles.

“It’ll be good to get it out in the open.”

“I just got you back,” Owen tells him. “I can’t lose one of my best friends again.”

“You don’t have to.” Fingers stroke Owen’s hair. “Just talk with her, be open to what she has to say. But let her know that she fucked up, that you deserve an apology.”

“Ughhh . . .” He grunts, burying his face deeper into Jacob’s furry chest. “I hate being an adult.”

“It’ll be okay, you two love each other. You’ll get through it.”

“I also hate it when you make sense.”

“Sorry, baby.”

They both pause. Then Owen decides that he doesn’t want to care.

“Thank you, baby,” Owen says, pulling himself away, reaching into the closest suitcase to grab the first outfit he can find, all the while ducking away from Jacob reaching to tickle him, or dig his fingers up Owen’s legs the way Jacob knows that Owen hates. Slipping into an oversized pair of sweatpants and a sweater that hangs off one of his shoulders, Owen pauses at the door, half turning to Jacob. “Now go take a shower—I don’t want you stinking up my bed.”

“I will!” Jacob waves him off, not budging an inch as he hugs one of Owen’s pillows close to his chest.

Heading out into the living room to find Kaitlyn waiting for him by the front door, Owen stops to grab his pack of pre-rolls and his lighter, and steps into his lime-green Crocs before he follows her out onto the stoop.

It’s hard to think that they were just here a little more than a week ago. In the exact same spot. Owen squatting on the steps, Kaitlyn on the sidewalk in front of him.

“So . . .” Owen pulls a joint out with his teeth. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I owe you an apology,” Kaitlyn says, staring like she wants him to know that she means it. “The biggest fucking apology in the world.”

Owen cups his hand around the end of the joint, flicking the lighter a few times before it finally catches, and he breathes in the smoke. “I’d say so, yeah.”

Kaitlyn stands there for a beat. Maybe she thought he’d have something more to say, or maybe she thought he’d be angrier. But he doubts she expected this calm reaction. “I was telling the truth, when I told you and Jacob, and Abby, and Kevin . . . the trip didn’t start out as some scheme to get the two of you back together. When we found out we’re pregnant, we wanted to do something special. And I think that only made me realize that we’d all gotten so far away from one another, and that really scared the shit out of me.” The words come out in one long breath, Kaitlyn struggling to fit everything in toward the end.