CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tabby
My life had returned to the routine normalcy I’d left behind when I’d accepted Owen’s invitation to New Orleans, but there was one glaring difference now. I still woke up, had my tea and toast, took a shower, brushed my teeth and hair, got dressed, ran around doing gigs, chatted with Heather, took a call or two from my mother, came home, sifted through the day’s photographs, watched some TV over dinner, read a chapter in my latest book, and went to bed.
But he was there.
Owen was everywhere. Not physically, obviously, though that would’ve been wonderful, but in every other way. Every morning started with a text from him, sometimes naughty and always sweet. We sent back and forth snippets of our dreams while I drank my morning tea. I hopped in the shower and relived the mornings of bliss I’d spent in his shower. He messaged me a barrage of things he wanted to be doing to me at that very moment while I bathed, all of which I read while I groomed myself post-cleansing. I took ridiculous pictures of my outfit for the day laid out on my bed, or sometimes pictures of myself wearing whatever clothes I’d chosen, and he made comments about how I looked — or how he’d take it all off again. All my breaks between shoots were spent telling him what I’d been photographing or what the client was like, and he told me about how many obnoxious phone calls and emails he’d avoided so far. My calls with Heather were consistently interrupted with a light chiming in my ear of incoming texts. Watching TV while I ate dinner had turned into texting Owen while I ate dinner and idly listened to the show in the background. My book lay forgotten on my nightstand, and the last thing I did before falling asleep was hear his masculine, confident voice and sometimes see him smirking at me through my laptop.
Heather was a mixture of jealous and irritated by my sudden distance. She stormed up to my apartment one day around dinnertime and banged on the door until I answered.
“Where have you been?” she snapped. She didn’t wait to be invited in before stomping past me and whirling around with her hands on her hips.
Stunned, I waved a hand at my apartment. “Uh… here?”
“I used to see you all the time. All the time.” She threw her purse on the floor and flung herself onto my couch, crossing her arms over her respectable chest. “Now, I hardly hear from you. What gives, sister? Haven’t you ever heard of bros before hos?”
I closed the door and traipsed over to the living area, settling onto the opposite end of the sofa. “I’ve heard of it, but I try to pretend I haven’t because I’m not sixteen anymore,” I joked.
Heather wasn’t amused. She glared at my phone as it lit up, the screen reading “1 new message,” and jabbed an offended finger in its direction. “That’s where you’ve been, isn’t it? La La I’ve-Got-A-Man Land?”
“And working,” I added defensively.
“Yeah, working on getting his dick again,” she grumbled.
I ran my fingers through my hair. I was itching to read the text, but Heather had a right to be upset with me for blowing her off so much because I was occupied with Owen, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful by interrupting her rant with his digital presence. “I know, I know,” I admitted, feeling somewhat ashamed for my behavior. “It’s just… I haven’t seen him in over a week, and I feel like I’m going crazy. I want to talk to him constantly, like I can’t get sick of him. Actually, the more I talk to him, the more I want to keep talking to him. Obsessive, right? It’s sick. I know that’s not an excuse for being a crappy friend lately, but I guess I don’t know how to handle this as well as I thought I did.”
She stared at me. I waited for a response, either an admonishment for trying to justify my absence or an empathetic consolation for my predicament, but nothing came. She just looked at me. When the silence stretched too long and I couldn’t look away anymore without feeling stupid, I asked, “What?”
She sighed. “God, he must be good in bed.”
It was my turn to stare at her. “Huh?”
“He’s got you all twisted up,” she explained, scooting toward me and clasping her hands in her lap. The resentment still lingered in her eyes, but the excitable Heather was at the forefront. “You don’t get gaga over guys, Tab, no matter how good of a catch they are. There’s only one explanation. He can make you come like a dog on a leash, and now you’ve caught feelings.”
As comical as she sounded, I was a little affronted. “You’re not really suggesting I’m only into him for sex, are you?”
“No, I’m suggesting the sex was so good it hooked you in. It’s the other crap, the funny and the smart and the handsome, that keeps you staying on the hook.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong about the sex being good, but I still wasn’t keen on the idea that Owen’s prowess was what started our relationship. Of course, thinking back, it might have been, but it still wasn’t as romantic as I would’ve liked it to sound.
“I really am sorry, Heather,” I apologized again. “You’re my best friend, and I shouldn’t shove you aside for any man.”
She met my eyes, leaning forward, elbows on her knees. “Forget about that. I’m mad you haven’t been keeping me up on what’s going on between you and Hunky NOLA.”
“Okay, let me make it up to you.” I gave her a guilty grin. “I’ll give you every little detail you want to know if you let me answer this text really quick.”
She beamed. “Deal.”
***
My friendship was rescued over the next few hours, in which we indulged in a shared bottle of wine and a number of bedroom tales. By the time Heather left, her irritation at me was gone. I closed the door behind her and looked at the clock, surprised to see it was about the time I usually went to bed. I’d told Owen I had a friend over and would be out of touch for a while, but I was still a tad unhappy to see no missed calls on my phone. The giddy schoolgirl side of my infatuation had hoped he’d missed me too much to heed my “won’t be able to talk for a little bit” warning.
I grabbed my cell, headed to my bedroom area, and changed into an oversized t-shirt and miniature flannel shorts for bed. Then, I slithered between the sheets and dialed Owen.
“I missed you.”
The purr was so sexy, yet so romantic, that a shiver instantly rocketed up my back. “Did you?” I asked, my voice a little higher than usual. He had a way of turning me into an adolescent again.
“You have no idea,” he replied, his voice like silk. “Did your friend leave?”
“Yeah. She was mad at me because I was spending all my time talking to you,” I confessed. “At least, that’s what I thought. And I guess that was part of it. But she was more upset that I wasn’t telling her everything about my relationship with you.”
“Is this friend in love with you?” he quizzed.
I didn’t know if he was kidding, but I treated the question as if he was. “Oh, yes. You have major competition for my affections, buster.”
“Jesus, you used the word buster,” he groaned. “What I would do to you right now…”
“For using the word ‘buster?’”
“It’s a relic of a word. The breadth of your vocabulary is sexy as hell.” He definitely wasn’t kidding this time.
Three raps rang out through the apartment so loudly they sounded like they were right next to my ear. I paused, staring at the door. “I think Heather’s back. Hold on,” I told Owen. I kept the phone between the side of my face and my shoulder as I crossed to the door and peered through the peephole. I’d never felt unsafe in my apartment before, but I wasn’t naïve and there was a measure of comfort knowing someone was in direct contact in case of emergency.
Nobody was there, or at least visible through the peephole. That meant one of two things. Either the person had already left, or they were standing off to the side out of viewing range.
“This is weird,” I whispered into the mouthpiece.
“Hmm?” Owen asked.
“I don’t see anyone,” I said softly. I swiveled my head from side to side in hopes of spotting an arm or a shoulder, but all I saw was worn carpeting and bad wallpaper and my across-the-hall neighbor’s door.
He didn’t respond, and I wondered if I’d spoken too quietly for him to hear me. Deciding to take the chance, I undid the deadbolt and unlocked the door. I swung it open to reveal nobody. And then I looked around the corner.
There he was. Tall, dark-haired, and hungry-eyed.