Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 65437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 327(@200wpm)___ 262(@250wpm)___ 218(@300wpm)
He dropped his head back and slowly turned his gaze to Owen.
Such a relief, to see a familiar face. A face that knew the real deal. Someone with whom he didn’t have to worry about his accent slipping . . . Bliss. Even if it was only temporary. Even if tonight’s conversation didn’t yield the results for which he’d spent the day workshopping.
Jason smiled lazily, and Owen, still in uniform and as neatly pressed as this morning—and by some mysterious feat still smelling amazing—started the engine.
“We need to make a stop on the way home.” Jason pointed down the street, fingers flashing in front of Owen’s face.
Owen side-eyed him with a flicker of long lashes. “Hello to you too.”
Jason grinned.
An arm around the back of Jason’s seat, Owen backed swiftly out of the parking spot. His gaze dropped to Jason’s attire—his own attire—like he’d forgotten he’d lent it out. Or maybe he saw a splosh of grease on it from that earlier incident with a mince pie?
“I’ll wash this tonight and get it back to you tomorrow.”
Owen turned his attention toward the street. “No rush. Where are we headed?”
“Alex’s.”
“Alex’s?” Owen nearly stalled the car.
“Your nephew’s, yes.”
“Why?”
“He mentioned his mum was working a night shift, so I invited him to dinner. At your place.”
Owen rubbed his jaw. “Let me get this right. Sometime in the eight hours since I last saw you, you’ve befriended my nephew and invited him to be picked up and driven to my place—a place you’ve never set foot in yourself, I might add—where you are planning on making dinner?”
All a bit presumptuous, put that way. “I was thinking he’d feel more comfortable at yours? But if you promise not to snoop around Carl’s, we can all do dinner there.”
“I wasn’t aware we’d be doing dinner at all.”
Jason simply hadn’t imagined the evening without them eating together. He had fretted over the particulars all day, sure. But it’d still made sense that it would happen this way. “You live alone. I live alone. You want to continue our chat. And . . .”
A brow quirked.
“I’m sick of dinner for one.”
Owen glanced at him.
Jason shook off the silly shiver that came at that flash of . . . pity? He laughed. “I’m even making dessert.”
Owen slowed, letting an elderly woman weave around puddles on her way across the road. “Dessert. You’re not trying to butter me up, are you?”
There was an intriguing idea. “Would that work?”
“No.”
“Then I absolutely won’t try it.”
A bark had Jason catapulting in his seat, jerking against the belt and the arm Owen had instinctively thrown out.
Jason twisted to Mary Puppins in the back seat. “My intentions are good, you know.”
Mary cocked her head. Jason prodded Owen eagerly on the shoulder. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“Nothing. Not so much as a squeak, so you have to believe I won’t be trouble.”
Owen pulled over, tooted his horn, and shook his head. “Oh, you’re trouble all right.”
Ten minutes later, Jason, Alex, Owen, and Mary were filing through Owen’s front door. Owen and Alex had each taken a bag off Jason, leaving him strangely empty-handed and feeling like a guest, which was odd, considering he’d initiated this whole thing. But a tingly-pleasant kind of odd. It made him want to laugh.
Alex dropped the groceries in a beautiful exposed-wood farm-house kitchen while Owen hesitated in the hall with his bag of Jason’s rain-smelling clothes.
Oh, right. Jason stepped back into the hall and peeled off the hoodie, his T-shirt coming with it.
Paper rustled and the bag Owen had been holding thunked to the runner.
Jason dropped to his knees to collect the tangle of clothes spilling out of the bag. “I can be clumsy like that, too.” He smiled up at Owen. A shaft of light fell over his blond hair and blazer and stopped at his belt. That massive belt. Quite hefty on his hips, surely. “How about we both get out of these clothes?”
When he didn’t get a reply, Jason travelled his gaze up to Owen’s face and found him scrubbing his jaw, eyes fixed on him. “I’m not quite sure what to do with you.”
Jason’s chest jumped. They were here already. The chat. He’d wanted to have this later, after dinner, after Alex had left, after Owen had seen Jason was harmless, really. The future of this ruse—the decision whether or not Owen would keep this to himself—was in Owen’s hands. If he was willing, it could be safely ignored and forgotten. He’d even try hard to stay out of Owen’s way. Plausible deniability and all.
Jason abandoned the bag and clasped his fingers together. His panicky voice got husky. “Do whatever you want to me, but keep this a secret, please. I’m begging you.”
Owen’s eyes flashed and he reached a hand to the top of Jason’s head. Calming fingers in his hair. A stroke. A pet. Like he might do with Mary if she were anxious, or barking too loud.