Page 100 of The Big Fix

Owen was laughing. “Come on, Jared. You with the shoulders and the chest. You sat down beside me, and I could barely get a word out with my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth.”

“Could you just—”

“You have no idea,” he murmured, staring at me longingly. “And then when you told me I was getting out but I had to go to college right away, and you took care of me graduating and getting me into MIT, which was my dream school, where I had applied to go…I thought it was all too good to be true.”

“But you learned pretty quickly it was not.”

“Yeah. You had me under some pretty heavy surveillance, both in person and online. I could barely do anything if it wasn’t related to my coursework.”

“You had people following him at school?” Jing sounded horrified.

“Yes,” I replied adamantly. “And I had friends at the NSA monitoring him for me and didn’t stop until his second year at MIT.”

“Those guys still watch me, by the way,” Owen declared. “All the time.”

“But they don’t do it for me anymore. They do it because you’re on their watch list.”

He shrugged. “Things happen.”

They did. But most importantly, Owen had straightened out his life after starting college. He found a wonderful therapist, made friends like Maggie, opened himself up to people and experiences and was no longer a loner, no longer a man without human connection. Along with his own hard work, through giving him a second chance and getting him in school, I’d helped make him whole again, and that was all I ever wanted.

“What about your grandparents? Do you still see them?” Jing asked him.

“I used to spend all my holidays from school with them, and that was good for them—seeing me grounded and doing well.”

Jing nodded.

“My grandfather passed away the year I got my master’s, and my grandmother went to live with my aunt Kate, her oldest daughter. I saw her a few months ago, and she’s great.”

“Oh,” Jing said with a happy sigh. “I love this story.”

“The beginning was horrible,” Arden remarked, “but the ending makes up for it.”

It certainly did.

We all cleaned up except Dante, since he’d cooked, and he watched us all, then passed out on the couch.

Arden was watching a movie, and Jing walked the grounds to make sure everything was secure. Owen had to Skype with Maggie because she wanted an update. He couldn’t tell her everything, but he could explain about being kidnapped and me finding him. That, he said, was the important part anyway.

I fell asleep outside and only woke when I felt fingers in my hair. Opening my eyes, I found Owen smiling at me.

“Done already?” I murmured.

He nodded. “Long time ago. You’ve been asleep for a couple of hours.”

“Crap,” I grumbled. “Now you’re gonna think I’m an old man who can’t even—”

He scoffed. “I don’t think you’re old, and I fall asleep after a great meal or an emotional story as well. Everything coming out, lots of epiphanies and memories. We all need rest after that. It has nothing to do with age.”

I nodded.

“I want to sleep in your bed,” he said flatly. “Let me.”

“Yes,” I said hoarsely.

Getting up, I waited a moment and then did what I wanted and took his hand, lacing my fingers into his, tugging gently to get him to walk with me.

“I love this,” he said, grinning.