Page 98 of Resonance
“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” I was still laughing as he steamrolled on top of me.
Epilogue
Summer
“You almost ready?” I nudged the bedroom door wider and leaned against the frame, watching the curve of Owen’s back shift as he mashed down on the clothing piled in his carry-on case.
“Yep, one more thing.” He flashed me a grin as he straightened and walked to the closet, flinging the door open and riffling through clothes hangers. Half the closet was an ode to my neutrals and plaids, the other half like a damn kaleidoscope had exploded. It’d started with the chartreuse dinner jacket Owen pulled out now and brandished at me like a flag.
Day by day, week by week, and month by month, the colors took root and spread, migrating from East Nashville in a steady drip. Pieces of his life—notebooks, his laptop, shoes, and guitars—appeared, gradually collecting alongside pieces of mine until he was as much a part of the house as I was. On the couch in the den lay the sequin sun-cloud pillow, in a constant state of flux depending on who happened to sit down next to it.
A month ago, Owen had plunked down on the back patio with his guitar, fingers playing over the strings while I cooked some burgers on the grill.
“My lease is up next month,” he mused. By then his apartment was glorified furniture storage. For all intents and purposes, he lived with me.
“About goddamn time.” I eyed the char on the burger patty before flipping it over. When I glanced up, Owen’s gaze was fastened to me. Incandescent and endless, it still had the power to hypnotize me. “You ready to make it official yet, or you want to re-up for another six months while you decide whether or not there’s enough counter space in the bathroom for all your hair products?”
His brows winged up a second before he dissolved into laughter. “I don’t have that many.”
“Want me to list ’em off, starting with that purple chalk shit that’s been all over the damn pillows lately?” And that I didn’t mind one bit. Smelled nice, too.
And that was how he’d officially moved in.
We both moved slowly, but it felt inexorable the way, when I looked back now, everything had felt between us. Except the physical chemistry, because God Almighty that was as hair-trigger instantaneous and passionate as ever.
“In case we go out to dinner or something?” Owen was saying as he waved the coat through the air. “I mean, not that it’s likely, but you never know, and I like everyone to notice that you actually have someone on your arm after a decade plus of grumpy bachelorhood.”
“Oh, they notice, believe you me.” We got some looks on occasion. Mostly curiosity, and nothing a steady stare didn’t fix. Owen had warned me against prolific use of what he called my murder stare one night when we’d gotten jostled in a club, but in my opinion I used it judiciously. “Yeah, sure, bring it along.”
Owen folded the jacket and tucked it into the case, then zipped it afterward and dragged it behind him across the room. I caught him by the hips in passing and pulled him close, running a hand through his hair. It’d taken me a while to pick up on, but he loved small, affectionate touches, and since my romantic vocabulary still needed some fine-tuning, it was one thing I could give him in spades. “Need to stop by the store first and give Ru the key as backup.”
Owen nodded, skimming his nose along my collarbone, and then took my hand, tugging me along after him. “And you put the key out for Aiden, right?”
“Yep.” I let go of him to turn off the lights in the kitchen and double-check that Jez’s water bowl would carry her to nighttime when Aiden arrived to house-sit.
Aiden and I were a work in progress, still. Though I hadn’t outright accused him after the burglary, he’d read between the lines of all my missed calls, during which time he’d claimed he’d been “off the grid”—whatever the fuck that meant for him. We’d blown up at each other all over again, not speaking for a month until Owen intervened and begged us to play nice. I guess Aiden was as much of a sucker for him as I was, because it’d worked. Mostly.
After Owen finished cooing at Jez, I locked up, tossed his suitcase in the back seat of the truck, and we ran by the shop to leave the key with Ru, who we found going through boxes of inventory I’d brought over from the Gatlinburg store with Jennifer, the new hire. I was in the process of selling it to a buyer from Sevierville, and nothing about it had been as painful as I’d anticipated. There was too much else to focus on now to bother much with the past. The Nashville shop was all I needed, and I’d have said I should’ve let the other shops go long before, but then I might not have met Owen.
Life was strange that way: a jumble of parts seeming to move at random that could only be connected in retrospect.
“Um, Dan?” Owen glanced over at me as I cruised the truck onto I-24. “I thought this estate was in Missouri?”
I focused intently on the side mirror. “The Fletcher estate? Yeah, it is.”
Owen’s stare bored into my profile, and I fought back a grin.
“But we’re on 24east.”
“Oh shit, we sure are,” I said casually.
“Do we need to get your head checked?”
“Probably. Still not sure sometimes whether you’re a figment of my imagination or real.”
“I’m a real boy, Geppetto, I promise.” Owen cut me a salacious wink to go along with the quip.
“That got unexpectedly dirty fast.”