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It sent a shiver through me, and it helped to assuage some of the guilt. It had been a long time ago. As distant as I’d been, neither of us had made overtures. Maybe that was something about being a pup, too. No thoughts but joy and pleasure, no thoughts about reality, and maybe…
Just maybe accepting that relaxing was okay.
I could let go of things for more than for a few minutes here and there. “I like it when you help me turn everything off in my head. I… When I was first looking at the stuff online, I really didn’t understand. I thought I did, but it was so confusing. When you…” I looked around to make sure we were relatively alone as we made our way through the deli section and up to the front of the store. Seeing no one was close by, I started again. “When you take control and I’m a pup, it’s like everything I’m worrying about stops and just fades away because you’re handling it and I don’t have to. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that.”
For a moment, he only watched me. Without so much as a glance around, he touched my cheek briefly, not nearly long enough. I wanted to take his hand and hold it against my skin.
“Guess we’re both learning a lot about ourselves lately,” he said.
As vague as that was, I felt another surge of pride. He was starting to trust me. I was an open book. I knew that. I didn’t want to be as easy to read as I was, but in a way, I was glad.
If I hadn’t been, this might not have ever started at all.
“But seeing as how you have no sense of adventure, we have to get home if I’m gonna get you back into that mood,” he added.
I gave him a look. “Do you have to do that?”
Owen blinked at me, and a flicker of uncertainty crossed his features. “I thought you wanted—”
“Not that,” I interrupted him. “Change the subject every time it starts getting too personal.”
“Can we have this conversation later, somewhere that’s not in Walmart?” Owen asked, but there was still that evasiveness. I was afraid if I let it go, he’d keep avoiding the topic.
Walmart wasn’t the place to discuss anything about our… relationship, or whatever we were going to call it, but I didn’t want to keep running from it.
“Promise? I-I want to get to know the real you more, and you said you didn’t want to stop. But when you do that, it feels like you’re running from me. And now I sound like some kind of teenage drama queen.” Sighing, I turned and tried to stop obsessing. He was probably right. This wasn’t the time or place for that talk.
Owen’s teeth slowly dragged along his bottom lip, but he finally nodded. I was disappointed. The mood had been so good, then thinking too fucking much — because if there was ever a time to curse, that was now — had ruined it.
But Owen leaned in, whispering into my ear, “I love you.”
Everything stopped. It was like some kind of stupid movie moment. The look on his face made it clear it wasn’t just brotherly love he was talking about…
Well, not the kind of brotherly love most people talked about.
“I love you, too.”
There were so many things running through my head, but that one sentence was all that really mattered. In the middle of Walmart, I fell in love.
Chapter 16 Owen
It felt like something from one of those romantic comedies I would never actually admit to watching. I should’ve been thinking about selling the rights to that story: our charming couple — well, charming in Adrian’s case — finally confesses their love to one another in the least likely of places!
Even the pineapple juice commentary could turn it into a rom-com, which made it a great potential pitch all around.
Just ignore the fact that we were brothers, and it would be positively adorable.
But the good thing about not giving a fuck about so many things — or at least pretending like I didn’t give a fuck about so many things and doing a damn good job at it — was that I wasn’t really bothered by that.
I should’ve been. I should’ve been freaked out and running, but all I could think of was kissing him again.
Well, that and finishing the best damn omelet I’d ever made in my life, even if I’d had to acquiesce to the dashing hero’s choice of bread and sausage.
I smirked, and he eyed me warily.
“Uh oh,” he remarked. “What are you thinking about?”
“Your sausage,” I replied promptly.
