Page 82 of The Big Fix

“Thank you,” Owen said, sitting up and turning on the chaise to look at me. “I appreciate your honesty.”

“He was a good man until right there at the end,” I said, my breath shaky.

Owen nodded, smiling at me. “I remember that night, running out to see you, to shake your hand. You listened all through dinner about school and swimming.”

“You were so happy.” I smiled at him.

“I was,” he agreed. “Now tell me about her…and me.”

I shook my head. “You know we—”

“It’s necessary, Jared. We’ve been dancing around this for years. You’ve never told me everything, and it’s time.”

I searched his face.

“I’m safe,” he stated, taking hold of my hand. “So are you. And we’ll figure out who’s behind all this, but it’s like Dante and Darius were discussing with all of us last night—whoever this is came out of that time with me and my parents. Whatever this is, it has to do with that.”

He was right. Dante had come to that conclusion weeks ago, and Darius had agreed, and now, basically, we were waiting both for me to heal and for the other shoe to drop.

“Hong Kong and Macau,” Dante told me the night before, sitting beside me on the couch, Darius staring at me from a computer screen. “That is where your connection to Asia is.”

The memory hurt. “No… This can’t have anything to do with—”

“You just don’t want to remember because it’s painful,” Darius pointed out. “Well, some memories are, and just because you’ve shoved them so far down that it’s hard to retrieve them doesn’t mean the events themselves aren’t connected to this.”

“There’s nothing else it can be, and you know it,” Dante insisted. “Now we just have to figure out what this is about.”

“It’s time,” Owen said, bringing me back to the present, using his best Rafiki voice from The Lion King.

I scowled at him.

“What? I’m trying to add some levity.”

I scrubbed my face with my hands.

“Look at me, Jared.”

Dropping my hands, I looked at him.

“I want you, okay? I mean, I can’t be more clear.”

No, he couldn’t.

“I want you to be mine because I know that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

He was everything to me. Had been since the moment he moved in with me. We started as friends, and it had evolved into him being my whole world. But that didn’t mean I was the best thing for him. “I just don’t want you to be missing out on—”

“I swear to you, I’m not missing out on anything.”

“People will think I’m your father or—”

“Not the way I’ll be looking at you they won’t,” he said with a wink.

“I’m being serious,” I growled at him.

“Oh, baby, so am I.”

Baby? “Owen, you really need to—”