Thick As Thieves: A Romantic Comedy

by Julie Olivia

  “Just some security thing,” I mutter. “I’m calling him Stuart.”

  “A rat?”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  He laughs. “That persistent, huh?”

  “Impressively so.”

  I twist my lips to the side before tilting my head. I don’t want to talk about work anymore. I want to talk about Owen.

  “Tell me some of yours,” I say.

  “My what?” Owen asks.

  “Your baggage.” I take another large sip from the glass. “It’s best you start with the worst, so I know what type of person I’m drinking with. I can take it. Start with your family.”

  “Not divorced. Very happy.”

  “Well now you’re just boasting,” I say. He smiles, and it’s one of his classic youthful smiles, like he knows he’s being funny. “Tell me something less boring, like…how you got into tech.”

  Owen’s chin dips downward as if contemplating an answer before he sets his drink down and steeples his fingers in front of him. I notice the tiniest of discolorations on the very tip of his ring finger—a battle wound from the mug I broke last week. My hero.

  “I taught myself,” he says. “That’s about it. No big story. My friend Ryan was a computer science major. I was an animal science major. I saw what he could do and thought it was awesome. It was a skill, and I craved it. So, I read all about it, as I did everything back then, and figured it out.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” I murmur.

  “It definitely wasn’t,” Owen says. “But, you know that. You taught yourself.” I smile at the fact that he remembers that detail—that he was listening. “But it was fun. I cheated on tests in college.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “Ooh, bad boy?”

  “No,” he says through a laugh. “They started introducing online assessments, and my friend and I figured out how to game them.”

  “I think that just means you passed,” I say.

  “Maybe. I mostly did consulting work for my friend while I was still learning how to code. I could think through the problems and Ryan executed. I didn’t do much of the real dirty work.”

  “But there was dirty work?” I ask. For some reason, hearing him say the word ‘dirty’ out loud is doing all kinds of things to me and the area between my legs.

  Owen, though curling his lip up a bit in amusement, also narrows his eyes as if suspicious of my questions. “Maybe,” he says slowly, the syllables trailing behind like loose ideas being abandoned to the wind.

  “And how long ago was that?” I ask.

  He turns his head slightly, squinting one eye and leaning away from me in his chair. I hadn’t realized just how close we’d gotten.

  “What are you, a cop?” Owen asks with a chuckle.

  I shrug. “I was for Halloween once. I can also pick locks. Do cops do that?”

  Chair forgotten, Owen leans forward again. Intoxicating, alluring, and oh so irresistible. I can’t help but arch back, letting myself gain composure against the chair.

  Am I purposefully pushing my chest out? Why, yes, yes I am.

  “Maybe,” he croons, the tone deep and almost vibrating. “Tell me more about this costume, though.”

  God, do I want to.

  But then his mobile buzzes in his pants pocket. Ol’ reliable ruining good moments. It keeps rumbling over and over.

  “Is your mobile ringing, or is there something else in your pants I need to know about?” I ask.

  A laugh breaks out of him, exasperated and breathy as he reaches into his pocket and silences the phone again.

  “No, not at all,” he answers. “Not important in the slightest.”

  All of it: the carelessness toward anything not concerning this moment here and now, the way he didn’t break eye contact with me during the whole thing, and particularly how tight his jawline looks ticking back and forth—though that’s just another part of my body talking—makes me want to believe him. It isn’t important. Nothing else is except me for tonight.

  God, I want to kiss him again. So badly.

  I look outside. When did the sun set? The streetlamps are already on.

  “It’s dark,” I say, more out of surprise than anything else.

  “Do you need to leave?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, almost too quickly.

  Owen laughs. “Are you walking home again?”

  “No, I was planning on taking the subway before it gets too late.”

  Well, that was the original plan before I succumbed to every flame inside me begging to be stoked by the breath of Owen. I should have just settled in and watched yet another sea documentary. But, no, I had to see Owen. Another week would have been torture. Well, maybe if we could learn to text like adults, but I’m cutting us some slack. Clearly we’ve both got baggage—at least I know I do.

  “It’s never too late,” he says.

  “What?”

  “The subway,” he says, a breathy note of laughter following once he realizes he stole me from thought. “If you need to take it, it’s running all the time. It just comes less frequently later in the night.”

  “And do I really want to be stuck in the subway by myself at two a.m.?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m arguing against leaving. Stupid old habits! Remember, you like this man?!

  Owen chuckles. “What makes you think we’ll be out until two o’clock?”

  I’m gobsmacked by the question. What did I think we’d be doing? Walking the streets again? Getting silly together and snogging in the hotel lobby? Possibly. Because, the fact of the matter is, when I look at Owen—his lips, his tousled hair, his dark malt eyes—it’s easy to remember just how good that kiss was.

  “I suppose nothing,” I say. “I mean, what do you do at two in the morning?”

  “Not ride subways, that’s for sure.”

  “Oh good, one less stranger to worry about when I’m in the tube,” I say with a laugh.

  Owen tilts his head with a lopsided smile, kind and gentle…gentler than any erotic thought about him that’s currently running through my head, anyway.

  “Am I a stranger to you?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “No, not really.”

  Owen is a friend…a friend I’d very much like to kiss again. A friend I’d like to kiss in many places—very inappropriate places.

  “In fact,” I start, my breath catching for a small moment. “I could use a non-stranger as company.”

  Owen’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. “Are you asking me to join you for another adventure?”

  “Are you up for it?”

  My dare hangs between us, just enough time to exchange a look of understanding, but it doesn’t stay quiet for long.

  “Of course.” Owen rises from his chair, scooting it back to its resting place under the bar. “And it’s been a while.”

  My heart soars, high like an eagle, racing among the clouds. I can only hope I won’t look back on this like Icarus, flying too close to the sun.

  “Been a while for the subway?” I ask, hopping down from my high-top chair with as much grace as I can manage then tucking it back in.

  “Yeah, I don’t like going underground much.”

  Each of us drop a couple bills in the tip vase and walk side by side through the lobby.

  “Why?” I ask.

  We stop before the revolving front door. I sidestep into one of the sections, and he slides in beside me. I almost forget just how tall Owen is, but with him pressed so close beside me, I can take all of him in. The softness of his flannel against the back of my hand, the light breath of air exhaled, a hint of the whiskey’s oaky tones, and just how large his biceps are, pulled taut as his arm stretches to place a palm on the glass enclosure around us. My heart races as we speed-walk to keep up with the doors, letting ourselves out once it rotates and empties us onto the street.

  “I like the city,” he says, gesturing to the buildings in front of us, rows upon rows of skyscrapers, streetlamps, and blurs of cars. “It’s hard to
see when you’re not on the streets.”

  The lights are bright, brighter than anywhere I’ve ever lived—even more so than London—and it only adds to the odd ethereal glow the city has, like the energy from the never-ending beam of lights is a transport to another realm, especially at night. It is undeniably beautiful.

  “Fair,” I say. I follow his lead down to the end of the block where a staircase leads underground. “But I like how fast the trains are. Like a tiny rollercoaster when they speed up and slow down.” We descend, the sounds of the footsteps on the sidewalk falling behind to make way for the echoes of our own against the concrete walls of the train underground. “And I like the mystery of popping up again and being somewhere new.”

  “That’s horrifying to me,” he says. “I prefer to see where I’m going at all times. None of this underground stuff. No offense.”

  I roll my eyes, scanning my card and making my way through the turnstiles. “You’d be a terrible meerkat.”

  Owen mock gasps, scanning his card and passing through as well. “How dare you.”

  “Sometimes we have to know our callings, and yours is not the digging life.”

  We descend more stairs, my boots reverberating like music with every step I take. When we turn the corner for the final stairwell, I hear the distant screeching of wheels on a track, an almost ghostly taunting sound that reminds me of when I used to cup my hands over my mouth during scary stories around the campfire, but it’s not a campfire—it’s the train shooting out of the tunnel and coming to a harshly slowing halt.

  “Bet you can’t beat me there,” Owen says, taking the stairs two at a time. “It’ll be at least twenty minutes until the next one!”

  We rush down, shimmying through the exiting crowd that just exploded from the open train doors, saying quick ‘pardons’ and ‘sorrys’ before sprinting across the last bit of tiled floor and barreling in, boots sliding in the aisle.

  I’m embarrassingly out of breath when I melt into one of the window seats. Owen still stands, hand gripping a silver pole; Natalie always lovingly deemed them ‘oh shit’ poles in the tube. With another arm raised to balance the rest of him on the railing over my head, he looks so domineering, so powerful I can practically hear my nipples harden to diamonds.

  I fight back an audible gulp and stand up with him, having to grip the center pole as fast as possible once the train jerks back into motion, just narrowly missing the accidental hit of my head against it. Owen’s arm wraps around my waist to catch me.

  “Close one,” he says with a waggle of his eyebrows.

  I playfully scowl at him, fighting the smile that wants to break through instead. Once the train gains enough momentum, clutching the lifeline of the pole doesn’t seem as necessary. I loosen my grip and look around. He lets go of my waist.

  “Empty car,” I observe, not having noticed until now that that’s the case. “Is that normal?”

  “Sure, it can be,” Owen responds with a shrug.

  “You say that a lot.”

  “What?”

  “You say ‘sure’ as if everything is just…A-OK with you.” I make the okay hand gesture with my thumb and index fingers, and he laughs—his great chest laugh that reveals his straight white teeth and cinches his jawline taut, accentuating its sharp edges.

  “Maybe everything is A-OK. Ever considered that? Maybe I’m just an A-OK kinda guy.”

  I let out an exasperated ‘psht’ noise, and he smirks.

  “You’re alright,” I mutter.

  Alright is the biggest understatement for this man.

  Owen looks so casual in this small subway train, the embodiment of ‘Sure.’ His arm is raised above his head, gripping the railing above the seats, causing his knuckles to whiten at the crests and the tension in his exposed wrists to shine through the visible veins and tendons sticking out like invitations, just waiting to be touched. The sleeves of his flannel shirt tug at every muscle in his arms, across his chest, and along his sides. His thick, boxy glasses frame his eyes, lids heavy as they glance over at me, just the tiniest raise of one thick black eyebrow in a pointed gesture, barely shadowed by wisps of his black tousled hair.

  I grip the pole harder as my heartbeat races faster in my chest, the heat from my fingertips causing the cool metal to fog.

  “Come here,” I say, and Owen obliges.

  He takes a few steps forward. Both of his hands find my collar, my neck, and finally my chin. He grips it between his forefinger and thumb, tipping my head back and lowering his mouth to my lips.

  The fire—it’s instantaneous once more, engulfing us both in its licking embers, trailing down from our lips to our hearts. I want to taste every part of him. I want to never exist without his touch, the hard curve in his pants pressed against me as it is now—my waist gripped in his hand, like pieces fitting together in a puzzle.

  Our mouths move in unison, our tongues meeting like long-lost friends, vying for the other’s attention. I’m desperate for more of him. His finger that was once on my chin is now tracing a line down to the neckline of my shirt. I can feel the shiver roll through me as his hand dips underneath, rising with the curve of my breasts. He cups one, a thumb rubbing over my raised peak, like a little pebble begging to be touched. I let out an involuntary whimper, my back arching against the train’s pole, supporting the weight of me as I go slightly limp under his touch.

  My own hand is busy having a mind of its own as well, sneaking under the hemline of his flannel, spreading my palm flat across his abs, daring to use my fingernails to scrape my way down toward the waist of his jeans. He lets out a guttural groan. I can feel his bulge against my stomach, pressing into me.

  The kiss continues for too long given where we are, too noticeable, but too irresistible to stop. It’s an empty train, so who cares, right?

  It seems my prep-school-prude self does.

  “Not here,” I mutter against his mouth, releasing each word between kisses I didn’t realize were wiping me clean of any breath left.

  He takes his hand out from under my top. “Sure, I’d like to do this somewhere you deserve to be taken. A bed or…” He bends down, planting a small kiss right at the peak of my breast, a quick flick of his tongue eliciting another shameful moan from me. “Or anywhere but on a train.”

  He adjusts my shifted bra and top, placing them back in their original position. His hand reaches around me, smacking my arse lightly. “I didn’t peg you for an exhibitionist.” His whispered voice is scratchy. It’s so sexy it hurts.

  I can feel the curve of his hardness through his jeans, long and pressing. I’m sure I would fall were his weight not holding me in place against the pole. My knees are surely too weak to keep me righted.

  “Maybe I’m feeling daring,” I say.

  “Or reckless,” he grunts, brushing his nose to the curve of my cheek, planting a kiss right on my throat. My stomach coils in hunger.

  “Is there a difference?” I ask. I release my grip on his shirt to slide my palm down, closer to the start of his waistband.

  Owen pulls away from me quickly with a sharp intake of air, biting his lip. He looks away, as if pained by the touch. I follow his gaze out the train window to observe the varying shades of darkness flashing by outside. He looks back to me with a deep inhalation and an even more exhausted breath out.

  The spell is broken by a small, shaky voice making a sound that’s a mix between a ‘yay’ and a ‘woo’ that we realize far too slowly does not belong to either of us. I jerk my head around, looking for the source until we both finally spot a scraggly old man sequestered in the corner seat on the far end of the subway, a very gangly thumbs-up pointed in our direction.

  How did I miss that old kook?

  “Keep going,” he coaxes with a toothy grin and cracked voice. Owen and I groan simultaneously and step apart.

  Fortunately, or unfortunately, the sudden jolt of the car slowing down forces us back together. I grip the pole behind me. Owen’s hand whips out to clutch it as
well, gripping just a few inches above my head. The quickness of it all draws me back to the memory of the kiss just a minute ago, the lust and urge of it all. I need it again. When the train finally comes to a full, jerking stop and the voice over the intercom announces the name of the exit, Owen releases the pole and steps back, finding a seat and plopping down in it.

  I sit in the seat next to him before the crowd can pile onto the train and force me elsewhere. His hand goes immediately to my knee, dragging a thumb over the crest and slope of my calf.

  I dig into my purse, pulling out my own phone to shoot a quick text to Natalie.

  Fran: Bringing a man home to my flat. News later.

  The train’s doors slide shut, the engine picks back up, and my phone buzzes only seconds before all the bars of service on my phone disappear when we shoot back underground.

  Natalie: Francesca Louise Evans.

  The full name means I’m in trouble.

  Oh, but she doesn’t know the half of it.

  15 Owen

  We sit side by side on the train, my hand stroking every inch of her long legs I can manage without seeming too handsy, and I try to maintain a clear head, at least as clear as it can be.

  I roll my fingers up her thigh to tease the edge of her skirt, running the backs of my knuckles across her arm as we exit, placing light touches on the small of her back.

  “Now what?” I ask her.

  “We go to my flat,” she says. “I have to get home.”

  Nowhere else I’d rather be.

  We leave the train. It’s dark at her stop, the underground lights flickering as we step out of the station. In the half dark, she reaches out to grab my hand, but she misses the intended target and instead grips the area next to my thigh, a mere inch away from my erect cock. More blood rushes down, if it’s even possible, and I inhale sharply.

  “Everything okay?” she asks.

  “Sweetheart, you have no idea.”

  We walk on, hands entwined like teenagers sneaking out of the house right under the nose of their parents, but there’s nothing innocuous about it all.