Chapter Seven

Owen

“OWEN?” PAUL’S DEEP VOICE snapped him out of staring at the computer screen in front of him, his eyes slicing to his friend. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he lied and heard Paul grunt, obviously not believing him.

“You look like shit,” Paul gracefully pointed out, but he didn’t give a crap. He knew he didn’t look great. He looked how he felt. Like his world was crumbling around him.

“Thanks.”

“What’s going on?” Paul asked, as he sat his ass down on the chair across Owen’s desk.

“She left.” The words burned as he stared at the unanswered e-mails that stared back at him. He couldn’t get his mind to focus on anything but the silence that surrounded him.

“Like, forever?”

“Who the fuck knows,” Owen groaned, running his fingers through his hair. “She took the girls after school to the house in Santa Barbara yesterday.”

“They’re on summer vacation, right?” Paul dug deeper, and Owen frowned.

“How do you, the most single guy I know, know this?” he asked. He hadn’t even realized summer was around the corner, and he was the one who had kids.

“I have a niece, remember?” Paul pointed out. “In case you don’t remember, she goes to the same school as your girls.”

“Sorry,” he grunted, his head leaning back, resting against the back of his desk chair. “The house is too damn quiet,” he complained.

“It’s okay to miss them, Owen.”

“It doesn’t even matter. It’s over.” Speaking the words out loud made him sick to his stomach. His beautiful girl was gone and they were over.

How the hell is our marriage over?

“It’s not.” His friend chuckled; Owen wished he could be as positive.

“You didn’t see her.” He shook his head. “She wasn’t going to stay. No matter how much I asked her,” he shared as he ran his fingers through his hair again.

“Maybe a change of scenery is a good thing. What you guys need,” Paul suggested, breaking the silence that had started to fill the office.

“She called last night,” Owen shared, thinking if maybe he talked it out with Paul, he could get some kind of perspective of what the hell was going on in his life.

“Yeah?”

“Left me a damn voicemail.” He sighed. He had been in the shower when she’d called. His bag packed and ready to go first thing in the morning. “She wants us to think about what we want from life.”

“Okay…”

“She doesn’t want me to head up there for a week,” he went on, looking toward his friend. “A whole freaking week, Paul.”

“Okay, but—”

“A week, Paul,” he strained to point out. A whole fucking week.

“A week is nothing,” Paul dismissed, but Owen shook his head.

“We’ve never been apart that long. But now, she’s sleeping in the guest room and leaving to stay the summer at a rundown, fixer-upper instead of our home. She’s done with me, man.” His hands rested at the top of his head, his face in a scowl. “I fucked it all up. How the hell did I fuck up?” His throat felt tight and his eyes burned, but he didn’t cry. He felt like a man drowning.

“You didn’t fuck anything up, Owen. Women simply think differently than we do.“

“No shit,” he grumbled and heard the bastard laugh as he turned to look out the window.

“Look, I’m far from a fucking expert. Hell, I don’t think I could get tied down the way you are. But, and this is a huge but, if I ever did, and I had a woman like Nadia by my side, and I was as stupid as your ass—”

“Hey.” He turned to face the man he had called a friend since residency.

“Okay, sorry. I’m not sorry.” Paul grinned. “Where was I?”

“If you had a woman like Nadia and found yourself where I am—”

“I’d beg,” Paul stated, crossing his leg over the other, a smug smile on his face.

“Beg?” Owen asked, blinking once. Then twice.

“Yeah. Beg.” He simply nodded, further confusing Owen.

“You think begging will help?”

“I think begging would be a great place to start. Reminding her of the reasons she fell in love with you and how they still exist wouldn’t hurt either.”

“I don’t—”

“Look.” Paul cleared his throat. “I might not have found my own Nadia, but that doesn’t mean I never had a ‘what if’, alright?” Paul confided, and Owen squinted. “If I had a chance… a real chance like you do right now, I sure as fuck wouldn’t screw around with a thumb up my ass while I threw myself a pity party.”

“I’m not sitting with my—”

“I’d be there. I don’t care if she made me sleep on the floor, or the couch, or in my damn car. I would be there. I’d show her I’m the kind of man she wants in a partner. The kind of man who would stand next to her in the hard times—”

“That’s the funny part, Paul.” He sighed. “The financially hard times are behind us,” he exclaimed. Paul shook his head. Something about the way his friend’s dark eyes settled on his own made him shut up and listen.

“What do you think she wants from you, Owen?” Paul asked, his voice serious.

“I don’t—”

“Money?”

“No.”

“She wants you. Time with you. Your presence—”

“It’s not as simple as—”

“It is,” Paul gritted, and the fire in his eyes caught Owen’s attention. “Hell, man. I’m the first to tell you, women are the complicated sex out of the two. But here and now, with this thing between you and Nadia, it is just that simple.”

Silence filled the office as Owen thought about what Paul had said. “Remind her of why she fell in love with me?” he asked out loud. Has she forgotten? Was he even the same guy?

“And show her you’re still that man. Unless you’re not. Then hell, show her who you are now and pray to God she wants him, too. You and Nadia have too much of a past to let this just flounder away. What you don’t do, is this,”—Paul pointed toward him—“this boo-who-is-me crap. You guys have two kids; she doesn’t need a grown-ass man baby adding to her plate. She needs a grown man by her side.”

Owen let Paul’s words settle long after his buddy left his office.

Remind her of why she fell in love with him in the first place? Show her who I am now. He could do that. He could show her how good they could be again. He would change. Not because she was making him, but because he wanted to be the best version of himself for her. He had always wanted to give that to her. He thought he had been by providing and giving her nothing but the best. But he had dropped the ball; thinking materialistic things were enough, he had stopped being there for her.

Be present.

He could do that.

But what if she didn’t want the man he was now?