Page 7 of Tides Of Your Love (Riviera Shores #3)

Owen bit the side of his lower lip and looked like he regretted opening a conversation with me.

“So, you like it here in the U.S.?” I asked, not expecting an answer any more than I figured he expected of his question.

“Sure, Grandpa,” he replied with a smirk. Then, honestly, he added, “It’s okay. I grew up here until I was eight. Then seven years there, then back here. So I spent more years here.”

I’d overheard him telling my brother and mom that his mother wanted to take him back to England and that his parents said he could choose when he graduated high school, which would be next year.

“Do you miss your friends there?”

“I have better friends here. But I miss football. Soccer, whatever.”

“There’s soccer here, too.”

“For younger kids mostly. No guy in our school plays it now. It’s nice to play with girls and be beat by girls, don’t get me wrong,”—Owen smiled—“but of all the countries in the world, my parents couldn’t have landed me in a worse place for professional soccer.

I mean, it doesn’t even get to be called what it is—a game that is literally played with the foot. ”

“You wanna be a professional?”

“I was in Chelsea’s youth team. It’s a big deal over there—like playing for a top high school football team here. This is where teams recruit their future pros.”

“So that’s the dream?”

“Yeah.” He straightened up, no longer leaning back on his palms.

I watched his broad back from my leaning position.

“You’re pretty good at football ... I mean our football, too. Simon says you’re better than most.”

“That’s because I’m not allowed to not excel in whatever I do.”

“What do you mean?” I straightened up, too.

“Nothing. I’m kidding. I just love to excel. I can’t fail.” He looked away after that.

I did, too. Was my stuttering a failure in the eyes of someone like that?

“What’s your dream?” Owen looked back at me after a moment.

To speak without thinking. I didn’t say that. “I don’t know. I don’t have big dreams. I ... love arts and crafts.” I felt silly and childish and aimless next to a guy who knew what he wanted from life, and from the looks of it—was going to achieve it.

“If you love it, you’ll be good at it,” he said, and there it was—that smile again. It melted my insides. Like a ball of cotton wool growing from my throat to my heart to my belly.

“My middle name is Gertrude,” I blurted. “That’s not a great start.” I had to take my mind off that softness if I didn’t want to drown in it.

Owen laughed. “Cry me a river. Mine’s Walter.”

“Now I’m sorry for you!” I laughed. I couldn’t have known that one day I’d be living with his namesake.

Laughing, we both leaned into each other, the sides of our damp bodies touching from our shoulders to our hips.

“Your first name is after a song. That’s amazing.”

“Amazing? Who does that to their kids?”

“Your mom.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, she felt that if her favorite band wrote a song about a river she lives close to, it meant something.”

“I can’t imagine you with any other name. Not a regular name, anyway. You’re Rio. Must be fun to have a name that makes people sing in their hearts.”

“People do that?” I looked at him, hardly able to contain my surprise.

“Maybe only I do.”

He chuckled, but silence fell between us soon after. I blushed up to my ears.

“Can I ask you something seriously?” Owen asked after a long moment of feet dangling inside the pool.

“You can try.”

“When did you start stuttering?”

“You mean you don’t gossip about me with Simon?”

“No.” He let out a dry half-chuckle.

“From the very beginning. I was born with it. No trauma or anything, just something that happens to some kids. Most recover spontaneously, but in my case, it didn’t go away. That happens to—”

“About one percent of the population. And girls are only one in five of those who don’t recover,” Owen said softly, not cutting me off but picking up the thought like we shared it.

I tilted my head sideways, looking at him in surprise and appreciation. “Yes, that’s right.”

“I was just ... it was just interesting to learn more about.”

I nodded, slowly, unsure what to make of it.

“I also read that it eases when people whisper or sing.”

“I always wished life was a musical and it’d be totally normal to suddenly burst out singing.”

Owen laughed again, bumping his shoulder against mine, sharing in my sarcasm .

I couldn’t wait to tell Ruby about all of this. Me, speaking so openly with Owen Wheaton! She’d hate missing that.

“Hey, are you two coming?” Simon’s voice broke the cozy solitude we had been wrapped in.

Owen and I looked at each other like we were sharing the same disappointment over this interruption.

“What do you mean are we coming? We were here waiting for you ,” Owen replied, pivoting his torso to look back at Simon.

We rose to our feet and wrapped ourselves in towels.

“Does Owen have a girlfriend?” I asked Simon after we dropped off Nicole and Owen at their homes.

“What’s it to you?”

“Just asking.”

“You’re not just asking.” Simon looked at me through the rear-view mirror. “Ri, when you’re older, I’ll set you up with any of my friends, except Owen.”

“Who said anything about setting up with any of your lame friends?” I pitifully defended myself.

Simon snickered.

“I was just curious. But now I’m curious about what you said,” I managed to say in a more dignified tone.

“As much as he’s my best friend and all, he’s not for you. And he doesn’t plan on staying here. So don’t get any ideas into your head.”

“I don’t have ideas in my head, Simon.” It was mostly true. I was interested in Owen like any red-blooded girl would be, but I knew he was out of my league, out of my reach, and off-limits.

“Good,” Simon sealed.

IRONICALLY, NONE OF those other friends of my brother’s had stuck around. The only one who did was Owen. Despite the canyons of differences between them.