Page 59 of Resonance

I took a deep breath, saluted them both—with my hand and not my finger as I was tempted to—and headed out.

* * *

A warm,pungent garlicky scent that most assuredly didn’t come from takeout or a freezer meal greeted me as I walked into the house. Poking my head in the kitchen revealed Owen with a pair of tongs in one hand prodding something in a frying pan. Porter & Graves played softly from his phone on the counter nearby.

“Is it dead?” I asked as he gave the pan’s contents another aggressive nudge.

He glanced over his shoulder at me and smiled, eyes bright and sparkling and so damn inviting. “Dead for sure, but not burned.”

“What is it?”

“Chicken piccata and usually I burn the hell out of it because undercooked chicken is so disgusting I can’t even think about it. But so far it’s coming out really nice. Should be ready in a few minutes if you’re hungry.”

“Lemme put my stuff down.”

He nodded and went back to prodding as I turned for the bedroom. I returned minus my satchel, and as I sat down at the table, he plunked a glass of red wine in front of me, which I eyed a moment, along with the plates and napkins set out. “You even set the table. Full service?”

“Full service. Fit for a king”—Owen waggled his brows—“except I forgot and only got one of those little bottles of white wine, and I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to pair white with this.”

He retreated to the stove as I took a sip of the wine. Nice and robust, it unfolded on the back of my tongue and brought with it a warmth that spread through me sluggishly as I watched him. The back of his arms, the wiggle of his hips as he grabbed the handle of the pan and shook it gently. His ass. Good lord. I ran a hand down the side of my face and blinked up to find his head cocked at me. Busted.

“What were you like growing up?” I asked in an attempt to cover up.

Owen’s expression shifted to one of surprise and then he smiled softly. “Quiet mostly.” He laughed at my obvious disbelief. “Iknow. But it’s true. The verbosity came later, during one of my on-again-off-again love affairs with confidence. But I was a stammerer. Not a stutterer quite, and I discovered if I just kept barging through the words, I didn’t stammer as much, so… I guess I just kinda got stuck in that pattern.”

“How does one have an on-again-off-again affair with confidence?”

Owen turned back to the stove for a second to stir, then set the spatula down and skirted to the side, facing me as he leaned against the counter and shrugged.

He had a towel tucked in the collar of his T-shirt, and another in the waistband of his jeans. The tickle at the corner of my lips wanted to be a smile, but I held it back.

“I dunno, it just comes and goes. I don’t know how it is for everyone else, just that sometimes I wake up with it and sometimes I don’t. Maybe that’s weird. I don’t know. Are you confident all the time?”

I barked out a laugh, because while I was confident about a number of things in my life, Owen could unsettle the shit out of me.

“See, but to me you always seemed confident until we went to Arkansas, and then I saw it, those tiny little cracks—which was a relief in a way because anyone who always has their shit together scares the hell out of me, and I don’t trust it. Ru is the same. He’s cocky as hell, but he worries about his music and Quinn. Ivy does it, too.” He shrugged again.

I took a swallow from my glass, digesting that last bit and wondering what it was about him that got me so bad. Vibrance, maybe. It was like a halo around him. He was just so damn present and alive and vivid.

“What about you?” He turned back to the stove and adjusted the burner. “What were you like when you were younger?”

“Mm. I was a firecracker. Always into something. Always in trouble. I think I almost got held back every year of school because I couldn’t settle down.”

He chuckled. “Really? I figured you for one of the cool mellow dudes who sat in the back of the class, got along with everyone. Jocks, nerds, whatever. Always had someone to eat lunch with.”

“Nah. I mean, I had some friends. Got my ass kicked hard-core senior year, though. Think that’s what toned me down the most.”

“Who kicked your ass?” He turned another curious look over his shoulder, then hissed as he forgot himself and rested his knuckles against the pan.

“Careful there,” I said as he flinched away.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” He scooted over to the sink to run his hand under the faucet. “So who was it?”

“Buncha football players.”

“Why?”

“They said because I’d been eyeing up one of the guy’s girlfriends. And I mean, I had. I’d looked. God, she was pretty. But that wasn’t the real reason.” I paused for another sip of wine, and he huffed.