Always Never Yours(37)

I force myself upright. I can’t look at Will’s DVD right now. I can’t be reminded of how tonight could have gone, and how fractured we left things. I shove Shakespeare in Love into a drawer and out of my mind.



* * *





Owen’s on my doorstep the next morning.

When I woke up after three hours of fitful sleep, I threw on the first things I found in my room. Now I’ve parked myself on the couch in the living room once more, and I’m reading the same scene of Romeo and Juliet I was last night. It still sounds ridiculous, and while I’m finally beginning to memorize the lines, it’s not helping me to picture myself saying them on stage at Ashland.

I open the door to find Owen wearing a dark blue button-down with his hair neatly combed, and for a moment I regret my old jeans and hole-ridden The Clash T-shirt.

He holds up a crisp white paper bag, beaming. “I brought coffee and bagels.”

“Oh. Wow, thanks,” I say, stepping aside to let him in. We’d planned a couple days ago that he’d come over this morning for our second play/Will-information session. What we hadn’t planned on was him bringing me breakfast.

He turns to give me a knowing smile. “I figure you probably had a late night.”

He means Will. “Something like that,” I say.

I grab a couple of plates from the kitchen and set them out in the living room. But when I look up at Owen, I see his eyes flit into the kitchen, and a strange combination of expressions crosses his face. “Does a baby live here?” he asks abruptly.

I follow his gaze to Erin’s high chair, which, I realize, Will probably didn’t even notice. “Oh, yeah. But she’s at my aunt’s.”

Owen looks pale. “Whose . . . baby is it?” he ventures gently.

“Oh my god,” I explode. “You do not think I had Tyler Dunning’s love-baby.” It’s too ridiculous for me to be offended, honestly.

He looks briefly relieved, until he winces in obvious mortification. “I’m— I didn’t—” he stutters.

I have to laugh. “Erin’s my half sister,” I explain. “My dad and my stepmom’s kid.”

He nods understandingly. “I have a ten-year-old brother. You can hardly go five feet in my house without stepping on a LEGO.” He winces again.

“I was in your house.” I take a sip of the still-too-hot coffee. “There wasn’t a LEGO in sight.”

“Yeah, because I cleaned for two hours before you got there.”

He says it casually, like it’s something he’d do for anyone. And who knows? He might. Still, it’s sweet. I almost tell him that, and then I remember it didn’t exactly go over well last time I called him sweet. “Hey, I’d trade LEGO for applesauce in my hair any day,” I say instead.

His eyes widen. “It was applesauce!”

I nod grimly.

Owen sets the bagels down on the coffee table in the living room. I reach in and grab a cinnamon raisin. He takes the other and drops into the armchair next to the couch. “You probably don’t need my help, what with last night,” he preempts me, crossing a foot onto his knee. He’s dashed lines of familiar blue ink on the white rubber edges of his Converse. “Will told me when you invited him over yesterday.”

I don’t reply right away, spreading cream cheese on my bagel. “He didn’t text you afterward, I guess.”

Owen’s eyebrows go up. “Guys don’t really do that, Megan.”

“Do what? Text?”

“No . . .” he says slowly, looking a little amused. “Text about . . . certain topics.”

“My mistake.” I return a faint smile. “Well, I kind of hoped he’d texted you. Things ended . . . weird.”

Owen frowns, concern creasing his forehead. “Weird like he didn’t want to?”

“Owen. Please.”

He goes red. “I— Of course, he wanted to,” he stutters.

Wait, what? Was that Owen calling me hot? Or hook-up-with-able, or whatever? Part of me wants to press him on the subject further, but I’m not sure if Owen’s the type to handle my flirtatiousness. He might think I’m genuinely coming onto him. “He did want to,” I say, “and we did, or started to. Then when we . . . didn’t, he seemed kind of pissed, and I don’t know where we stand now.”

Owen’s blush hasn’t entirely faded, but his voice is even when he tells me, “Will’s not pissed. He’s a better guy than that. What happened?” He clears his throat, and the blush comes raging back. “I mean, why didn’t you guys do it?”

“I got a text from my dad.” The words come out before I’ve even thought about how I’m bringing up my family. But once they’re out there, I realize how much I do want to talk about it with someone. Before I know it, I’m telling him more. About the hookup, about the photos from my dad. About New York.

“You’re moving?” Owen sounds startled.

“They are,” I quickly reply, “when I graduate. Rose, my stepmom, is pregnant again and wants to raise her kids in New York.”

He nods, considering for a long second. For someone who’s only really known me a few weeks, he looks unexpectedly relieved to hear I’m not going anywhere. “I can see why that would kill the mood,” he finally says.