Page 185 of In at the Deep End

Matt deepened the kiss, allowing himself to relax into it, and Owen responded with the same quiet hunger that had always been there between them.

Then Owen pulled back, not abruptly enough to make it feel like rejection, but a deliberate movement nonetheless. His hand slipped from Matt’s neck.

Matt opened his eyes.

Owen smiled at him. “That was nice.”

Nice.

The word shouldn’t have mattered.

Fuck, it did.

“Yeah,” Matt managed to get out.

“I need to make sure I’ve got everything ready for the housewarming.”

Matt stared at him for a second before forcing a smile. “Right.”

Owen pulled out his phone and began talking about the food he’d planned on serving. Matt answered when he was supposed to.

Something had shifted.

Owen had wanted the kiss. Matt knew that. He’d felt it in the way Owen had held him, in the way he’d kissed him back.

And yet Owen had been the one to decide when it ended.

Matt stared down at his hands. Maybe that was all this was. A little caution. A little space. Maybe Owen didn’t want them falling back into the intensity they’d had before the island.

Except that wasn’t what Matt wanted.

And he wasn’t convinced it was what Owen wanted either.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Matt had begun to notice another change.

Owen no longer asked when he was coming over.

It was such a small thing that Matt almost felt foolish for noticing it. There had been a time when Owen would send a message in the middle of the afternoon—Fancy a coffee? or You finished for the day?—and somehow a casual invitation would turn into several hours together. A coffee became a film. A film became dinner. Dinner became another drink, another conversation, another excuse not to leave yet.

Those invitations had stopped.

Owen still answered when Matt texted him. He still welcomed him when he arrived. If Matt suggested doing something, Owen never said no.

But he no longer made the first move.

On Saturday morning, Matt finished another section of his dissertation and found himself staring at his phone.

He could go to Owen’s.

The thought came so naturally that he almost acted on it before stopping himself.

He picked up his phone and opened Owen’s contact.

What are you doing today?

He stared at it, then deleted.