by Julie Olivia
I ignore him and continue, “Stressed?”
“You or me?” He chuckles again, and I shove his elbow.
“Work stress?” I push further.
His face falls, and I instantly regret bringing it up. I don’t know his life or work situation. Maybe he met me to get away from the day-to-day grind. This is supposed to be a lunch break, not a lunch vent session.
Good job, Fran.
“Uh, yeah,” Owen says. A hand through his hair. No surprise there. “Clients and such.”
He gazes off, settling back into his classic look of a portrait of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, crumpling up the leftover paper in my hands.
Owen pauses, opening his mouth then closing it, a line forming between his eyebrows in thought.
“No, not right now,” he says.
“Well, hang on, isn’t this the whole point of the HA thing?” I say. “I listen and help?”
He chuckles, absentmindedly twisting his watch over his wrist.
“Why, are you going to fix it?” he asks.
“I could.”
Owen’s smile is slow and lazy, his eyes growing soft and the hunch over his legs lessening as he leans back and stretches one arm up. “I believe it,” he murmurs.
I watch him for a moment too long, the muscles pulling his shirt and the hills and valleys of his shoulders outlined through the fabric.
“You know what always helps me?” I ask, forcing myself to look away from him.
“What?”
“Tea.”
Owen laughs. “Of course it does.”
“Why ‘of course’?” I cross my arms, but the threat of disapproval is nonexistent, and we both know it.
As if in slow motion, an audience in a movie theater, detatched from the moment, I see Owen’s large hand reach over and tap once…then twice on my knee. In real time, I’m sure the motion is casual, quick, easy breezy like two mates just hanging out. But, when his large hand lands, it encompasses the whole of my knee, and surprisingly, it’s more intimate than it has any right to be. Like an egg being cracked, I can feel the drip and ooze of the aftermath of his touch, even after it’s gone.
And it’s gone quite fast, faster and likely less intimate than it seemed. It was just a solid two pats then Owen rises from his sitting position, hands back on his own knees to give him lift.
He towers over me at full height with me still perched on the curb, feet tucked and his crotch at immediate eye level when he says, “Let’s get you a cuppa.”
I want to scoff. I want to tell him how deliriously unfunny he is. But, mostly, I want so badly to steal a glance at his zipper. The issue is just how obvious that would be. So, I go with the former option—the reliable one.
Insults.
“Well, now you’re just mocking me,” I say.
He holds out his hand. I slip mine in—so tiny compared to his—giving me the leverage I need to rise from my own sitting position.
“No, I’m not,” he says once I’m righted up. “Your last cup of tea was a bust.”
“Literally.”
And back to the coffee shop we go.
The walk back is still packed with people, as I don’t believe this city is capable of ever having small crowds, but we navigate by weaving through. There’s a small moment where Owen’s hand lands on my back for a beat when we almost get separated. But, like touching a stovetop with a live flame, he pulls back just as quickly, as if he knows he’ll get burned by even trying. The sting remains right in the middle of my back as well, warm and wanting more.
I wonder if he’ll do it again, if he’s getting bolder, wanting more, trying more, possibly edging toward more. And I want him to.
The bell above us dings once more as I walk past threshold. But, upon turning the corner and expecting to see the empty window seats rightfully reserved for our sitcom life, I’m startled to find them occupied by two women—one of which is the pixie princess herself.
“Emma,” I say simply. Owen’s chest bumps into my back as he halts behind me, likely not expecting our seats to be occupied either.
Emma beams. “Wow! What. Are. The. Odds!” Each word is stated like a question on its own. She sits exactly where we sat just thirty minutes ago, arms crossed, backpack leaned against the wall, and accompanied by a friend, one I recognize by the slight bit of stalking I did on Owen’s company. This is his other employee.
She does not look like she belongs to the fae kingdom like Emma, not as young and spritely. This woman has a looming, Grim Reaper vibe, arms crossed, eyeliner in perfect wings, mascara heavy, and lips the color of ashen red. Her vampiric image is topped by some of the most impressively lush black hair I’ve ever seen. They’re like night and day. While Emma seems happy to see us, this woman seems pleased. She stares right past me toward Owen with the most satisfied expression on her face—like she’s a lion that just cornered a zebra, or an employee who just caught her boss on a semi-date during working hours.
I turn to see Owen with his eyes widened, staring at the two of them like a mortified brother whose sisters just found his hidden stash, but the expression relaxes as quickly as it came. He tilts his head to the side, his mouth drawing into a single line, and he sighs.
“Yes, what are the odds,” he deadpans.
The Grim Reaper woman snorts and turns her expression to me. I can’t help but twist my head to the side in question. The unspoken dare makes her lips twitch into a small, lazy smile.
“What are you two doing here?” Emma asks, hands held out in a ‘goodness gracious great balls of fire what in tarnation’ kind of a way. It’s fake is what it is. There’s no way she didn’t know we would be here. But then again, this seems to be the only café this side of New York if I’m judging by the number of crazy-random run-ins alone.
“Just getting an afternoon drink,” Owen says with a slight shrug. “That’s all.”
“And you didn’t invite me?” Emma gawps, head jolted forward, dumbfounded.
Owen crosses his arms with a small shake of his head. “Should we have?”
Emma shrugs. “Could have been a fun meet-up lunch. I don’t know.” The question from Owen seems to be taken as more of an accusation, but the more I consider it, the more I lean toward her side of the discussion.
Why didn’t we invite Emma? She’s the link between us at the meet-up, isn’t she? I feel like I’ve gotten so caught up in Owen that I forgot about Emma completely, and that fact sends a shiver down my spine.
We’re silent for a moment before Owen clears his throat and points to the other woman, who hasn’t spoken since we got here.
“Sorry, Fran, this is Taylor. She also works with us.” It’s weird that I get slight tingles when he says that, even though it doesn’t pertain to me at all. Us. “Taylor, this is Fran.”
“Hello,” Taylor says, drawing her eyes over me from head to toe. Her drawl is haunting just like her image, surrounded by tattoos, sultry tones, and piercings.
“Pleasure to meet you.” I hold out my hand at the same time she extends hers so we can shake. The rings of her fingers nearly cut into me with her brusque grip.
“So, you decided not to make coffee in the office on the one day I’m out?” Owen asks them. They exchange a quick look, both women having some sort of telepathic conversation. Emma’s nose scrunches up as Taylor’s lopsided smirk deepens.
“We wanted to treat ourselves,” Taylor says with a shrug.
“Alright then, drinks on me,” Owen sighs, pulling off his bag and placing it beside Emma’s chair. “You guys want anything?”
“My usual,” Emma says.
He groans, and the noise is so deep a shiver rolls through me. “I can never remember that Frankenstein order.”
“White chocolate mocha with a dash of caramel and peppermint, please!”
My stomach churns, and not at the prompting of Owen for once. Not only is she a fairy on the outside, she must be m
ade of sugar as well with an order like that.
I tut to myself. Emma seems unaffected by the noise given how quick she is to smile bigger.
Owen points at Taylor, whose reaction mirrors his ‘typical Emma’ expression almost identically.
“Black coffee?” he asks her.
“Yes,” she says.
“What kind of tea?” His index finger now swivels to me.
“I’ll come with you,” I say. “I got mine.”
For once, Owen doesn’t argue with my insistence on paying my own way, instead just letting me follow. We fall in line together, leaving the two women behind to do whatever: gossip, stare, browse social media? Who knows. The last thing I see is Emma tilting her phone toward Taylor and a small, elegant laugh erupting from her.
“You guys seems close,” I say to Owen.
It’s hard not to enjoy their ease as Emma flicks through her phone and Taylor taps the screen, as if it’s nothing at all to be navigating her co-worker’s phone. When I look back to Owen, noticing a delay in his response, he’s not looking at the girlish scene before us. He’s only eyeing me.
“Yeah, they’re great,” he says, but the words are distant. His dark eyes trail over my cheeks, my lips, my chin, and back to my eyes. My chest grows hot under his gaze, the reds on my cheeks no doubt following suit, and I find myself wrapping my fingers around the strap of my purse, gripping the material and twiddling with the small buckle.
“Oy,” I say. “You have something you want to say?”
“I could, but I know better.” Owen’s tone is so deep, and the sentence so matter-of-fact it’s almost damning. I can feel my soul flitting down to hell to take whatever punishment I deserve, because I’m definitely going to the bad place considering the thoughts this man is sparking in me.
“Are you sure about that?” I ask.
“No.”
A loud giggle erupts from the corner, breaking us from the moment. Emma is feverishly typing something out on her phone, and Owen sighs as if he knows then digs in his pocket to pull out his mobile at the same time it buzzes.
I don’t see the text he reads, but his eyes dart to the women. Emma’s cheeks are full of air, ready to explode with another laugh. Taylor is slowly shaking her head and leaning back in the chair, hands held up as if detaching herself from whatever it is the three of them shared.
Owen sighs, peering down to me. I forget just how tall he is. I’m definitely not the shortest woman—I practically tower over Emma—but he’s still got a significant leap of measurement on me.
“I didn’t go to the office this morning,” he says. “And I haven’t checked my messages. I’m willing to bet I was ten minutes away from an ‘Are you dead?’ text.” He tilts his phone toward me to show me an image in their text thread. It’s a picture of some television show that looks familiar, but I don’t fully get the reference.
“I’ve never seen that show,” I comment.
He chuckles, pocketing his phone. “Yeah, me neither.”
This weird joined awareness that neither of us have lives makes us laugh. It’s calming, a rush of energy being released from the conversation, twirling to snap between us in a firm grip of alliance.
“She taunts me with references I don’t get all the time,” he says through small, lingering laughs.
“Because you haven’t seen shows?” I ask.
“Yeah, I just don’t have the time.”
“Do you work a lot?”
Owen pauses, his eyes twitching into a narrowed gaze before readjusting, as if thinking of what to say next. He doesn’t take too long to break the silence.
“Do you want an honest answer?”
“I imagine you’ll tell me anyway.”
“I work until I’m satisfied.”
It’s in that moment that I realize I haven’t found a cruddy man. This is not the picture-perfect wanker Natalie pushes toward me time and time again, a man without values or motivation. No, Elijah Owen knows hard work. He knows what it’s like to build yourself from the ground up, and he knows how to maintain it. Maybe I did find one of the good ones, but of course it’s my luck that he’s distracted and busy. The man runs a business—he works on projects even his co-workers, who practically seem to be his sisters, aren’t in on.
“And you’re not, are you? Satisfied?”
He inhales sharply, as if I just pulled him from a trance.
“No.”
I want his attention, but I’m not the only one, and with where he’s at in life, I’m not the one who needs it most. Me, the transplant from Britain who met him a few weeks ago? Yeah, I don’t hold priority, and I shouldn’t.
“I’m gonna pop back to my flat after this,” I say. “I think your team needs you.”
“Nah, they’re smart and capable,” Owen replies, waving his hand toward me. It looks so roughened. The dropped tea feels like forever ago. Was it only just an hour? “I promised you tea—we’ll get you tea.”
“Thanks, but really, I should get back to work. Plus, they sought you out.”
Owen scoffs, a lighthearted bark of a laugh exiting immediately after.
“I think they just wanted to see you,” he says.
“Have you mentioned me?” I ask.
Owen cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, who wouldn’t?”
“Wow, look, it’s you two.” The dull voice of the barista sounds, and we both look up. Her eyes rest between us. “Order?”
I blink once before saying, “Right. Yes. English breakfast, please.”
I pay for my drink and wait by the end of the counter as the other employee starts prepping my drink. I want to focus on that, pretend I’m more interested in the simple act of placing a tea bag in a cup instead of what I’m actually doing, which is staring at Owen as he gives the remainder of the orders.
I’m hopeless. I’m so hopeless. I came to New York with a mission: to not fall for a man. To escape men, more like it. And yet, here I am, in a very bad spot, indeed.
Oh lord, Natalie is going to love this.
Owen approaches, and my heartbeat picks up the pace once more. He stops at the end of the counter with me, a smug little smile on his face as we wait for the drinks. Neither of us exchange a single word, just a jumble of unspoken conversation. A head tilt from me, an eyebrow waggle from him, a single tap of my finger on the counter, two taps from him, an odd game of who can stay silent longest all while harnessing the pure, unadulterated energy that flows between us. The energy subtly pushes my hips closer to his, and Owen’s hand taps across the counter as if walking closer to mine.
“FRANCESCA AND OWEN!”
I jump, my hand slamming on the counter in surprise at the yell right next to my eardrums. The barista gives a meek, insincere “Oops” upon realizing she yelled unnecessarily and places the drinks in front of us. I grab mine and help Owen carry the rest back to the table.
“Yes!” Emma practically whimpers, snatching her cup from Owen to caress it between both palms. “The drink of champions!”
“You’re going to die of a heart attack one day, Emma,” Owen says.
“Not while I’m this young and my metabolism is this fast.”
Taylor takes her drink from me with a mouthed ‘Thank you’ and looks pointedly at Emma. “That’s not what determines a heart attack.”
“Hush it,” she responds with a point of her finger. “You’re just mad because Veganville isn’t all it’s cut out to be.”
“When did you go vegan?” Owen asks.
“Kate decided yesterday,” Taylor drawls with a long blow over the top of her coffee cup.
“See what you miss in a morning?” Emma says before taking the straw in her mouth and slurping.
It’s funny watching the three of them interact, quick and instant like they just know what each other is going to say before it even comes out of their mouth. Owen stands in the space between the two of them, like Tommy Lee Jones with his polar opposite angel and devil in Batman Forever, except these women seem less th
an inclined to do his bidding as sexy lackeys and more like they’re hard-asses just waiting to put him in his place.
The quick conversation, the friendly jabs…it reminds me of Natalie back in our pub-hopping days, before David was the last straw that broke my heart and before I hopped jobs and the ocean to a city I’d never even visited.
I did this for a reason—to have no strings. To not involve another person in my mess of a personality, at least not for a while. To get away from people, not fall into a New York primetime slot.
And the question remains: what is Owen’s goal? He’s too busy to want a relationship or a family. But, do I want that either? And does it even matter if I trust his intentions? Do intentions matter in a no-strings-attached relationship? Who needs trust when you have no strings?
I fiddle with my purse, the universal signal of leaving. “Hey, this was fun, but I have to head back.”
There’s a twin chorus of confusion the moment the words leave my mouth.
“Oh?” Taylor and Emma say in harmony.
“Don’t mind me,” I say, forcing a smile. I do hate to leave, but this isn’t my place. This isn’t my sitcom. I’m a minor guest appearance. “Work and all, you know.”
Owen chuckles, picking a spot on the ground to bounce his amusement off of. He doesn’t seem surprised by my departure, and whether that’s just understanding the need to work or not really caring is beyond me. Maybe I shouldn’t have to know. Maybe it’s not important.
“It was nice to meet you,” Taylor says. Her eyebrows pinch in, as if sorry I can’t stay longer—or maybe that’s just what I hope they’re saying.
“Absolutely,” I say, gripping my tea, twirling the hanging tag around my pinky. “You as well.”
“Next time we’ll hang out longer,” Emma chimes.
“Yeah, let’s get actual lunch,” Taylor throws in.
“As opposed to what?” Owen says with a laugh. “Fake lunch?”
“Hey, we like new friends too,” Emma says. Taylor nods indignantly.
I jokingly cringe and take a step back, eliciting a small laugh from Owen.
“It was nice to meet you all,” I echo again, continuing to step back from my position and raising a hand in a wave, prompting the end to the conversation.
