Page 3 of I Love You, I Hate You
Victoria wrapped her arms around herself and paced back and forth in front of Owen’s 1930s bungalow, refusing to look up at the dormer and see if his light was still on. She kept her phone clutched in her fingers, desperately checking the progress of her driver, and perched momentarily on the retaining wall lining his sidewalk. But then she was up and pacing again, back and forth in front of his walk like the Energizer Bunny until her ride pulled up.
Safely ensconced in the cool backseat she opened up her Twitter app. She would have seen an alert from Luke if he’d DMed her, but she had been running on pure adrenaline and alcohol for the last few hours and could have overlooked it.
But no, no new messages waiting for her. She wrinkled her nose, because Luke almost always messaged her in the evening. It was silly to be disappointed, especially given what she’d just been up to, but her heart sank all the same. She looked forward to their nightly chats, their anonymity allowing her to be more honest with him than she had ever been with anyone. Plus, a message from Luke would be a welcome distraction from the way Owen’s scent was lingering on her skin, musky and male and far more appealing than she cared to admit. The car rumbled onto the freeway, the Minneapolis skyline bright in front of her, and her phonepingedwith a new Twitter notification.
A familiar bolt of excitement shot through her and she opened it immediately.
@Lukethebarnyardcat
Do you ever have a day that’s going really, really well—impossibly well—and then it all goes to shit? Because I just did
Sometimes, it was eerie how well they understood each other. And sometimes they would have days like this—mirrors of each other, twisted only slightly in reflection.
@Noraephronwasagenius
Yes, actually. Although today started shitty, got unexpectedly better, and then went straight to hell.
@Lukethebarnyardcat
Fuck, I’m sorry
At least we had shitty days together?
Victoria couldn’t help it. She smiled to herself. Whenever Luke messaged, her day got a little bit brighter. She settled back more comfortably and started to type.
Owen twisted the handle on his shower and water hissed out, splashing cold against the tile before warming up. He was about to step in when his phone rattled against the counter with a reply from Nora.
@Noraephronwasagenius
What is it about the universe? Is it conspiring against us?
@Lukethebarnyardcat
I think it is, yeah
Thank god we have each other, right?
He stepped into the scalding hot water and closed his eyes. Today had not gone the way he thought it would. He was supposed to meet a potential client for drinks at Whistle and Plum, only to get an email canceling just as the bartender handed over his old-fashioned. He should have gone home, but when he spotted the one and only Victoria Clemenceaux, looking glum halfway through her martini, he changed his mind.
Yes, it was petty of him, but he liked riling her up. She had such a picture-perfect facade, from her iron-straight dark hair—hair that he now very inconveniently knew was softer than silk—to her perfectly manicured nails. Nothing ever ruffled Victoria; not objections to her line of questioning, not reprimands from judges, not a sudden squall on a hot summer day. Nothing, it turned out, except for him. He discovered his talent for getting under her skin early on, and he had kept on antagonizing her partly because he liked her fire and partly because, deep down, Owen was sort of a dick.
He should have walked away tonight but instead he found himself leaning against the bar next to Victoria, goading her into snapping back at him and then eventually buying her a second drink, because he never did know when to cut his losses. And somehow they went from snarling at each other at the bar to trading heated kisses in the dingy hallway to the bathroom, and from there it was short work to call a car and stumble into his bed.
He initially figured he could handle it, but the moment he saw Victoria sprawled out on his pillow, eyes hazy and lips swollen from his kisses, he realized he was in way over his head. There was something powerful about seeing the implacable Victoria at the absolute limit of her control, and it made his heart do things it rarely bothered to do.
But of course he would be cursed to only get a glimpse of her like that, and ofcoursehe would be foolish enough to think it marked a shift in their relationship. Of course he would be the dumb, sentimental type who thought the Ice Queen would want to spend the night with him, rather than fuck him and leave. He’d covered as best he could, but the moment his front door slammed shut he forced himself out of bed to shower, because otherwise he’d just lie in bed, breathing in her lingering scent and feeling shitty about himself.
At least he had Nora. He wasn’t sure what he had with Nora, exactly, since all he knew was a nickname and a general location, but he was damn sure it was more real than whatever had just happened with Victoria. Nora was warm and funny, and while she shared a certain sharpness with Victoria, Nora’s wit was leavened by a humor and kindness that was utterly foreign to Victoria. Plus, Nora had alluded to growing up poor with a single mom—picturea less genteel Gilmore Girls, she said once—and Victoria clearly came from money. Victoria’s clothes were frequently nicer and better tailored than Ashley’s, and Owen’s stepmother didn’t exactly pinch pennies. Between that and an in-house position at Smorgasbord, one of the largest mid-range grocery chains in the United States, straight out of law school, which was a job you only got if you knew exactly the right people, he could tell Victoria grew up at least as rich as he had, if not more so.
Owen let the hot water beat down on his shoulder blades to erase the memory of Victoria’s teeth and nails on his skin. He reached for the shampoo and hesitated, and then cursed himself for being so stupidly mushy as to not want to wash her away completely. This was Victoria Fucking Clemenceaux he was dealing with here, not someone he actuallyliked. She was cold and robotic and sure, maybe there were a few more things he wanted to do with her, but those were all sex things, not romantic things.
Part of him wondered if he should gently broach the idea of meeting with Nora again, even though she had soundly shut him down the one and only time he tried. He wondered if Nora was worried he wouldn’t think she was attractive and considered telling her he didn’t give a shit what she looked like, but then realized it very well might be the other way around: she was worriedhewasn’t attractive. Or maybe she wasn’t who she said she was at all, and he’d gone and fallen in love with a cisgender man, which wasn’t really a dealbreaker for him so much as something he’d like to know about himself if it was a possibility. A simple selfie-exchange could fix all of that, but that would be breaking her anonymity rule, so he had to be content with simply knowing that somewhere out there, there was a woman named Nora who knew him better than he knew himself.
He’d just never actuallymether.
Direct Messages: Luke @Lukethebarnyardcat
@Noraephronwasagenius