by Krystle Rose
"Well, yeah."
Stunned, Nomi gawked at him in speechless wonder. Owen wrinkled his brow and pierced her with a deep gaze.
“You must know how I feel about you,” he said matter-of-factly.
Nomi searched his handsome face, awestruck, while he waited for her to answer. When she again didn’t, he hissed and rested his forehead against hers. Their mouths, nearly touching, the way their breaths met and mingled, a hot, eager spark sizzling between them, was oh so enticing, but they both resisted.
“You don’t know,” he guessed. With half a smile, he recalled, “I told you I’m bad at this.”
“At romance,” she clarified.
“Exactly.”
“I don't know what to say…"
"I won't ask you to forgive me. I can tell you're not ready to and that's okay. I hope to earn it in time." He raked his lower lip through his teeth and begged, “Just say you’ll stop ignoring me. It’s killing me.”
She could certainly do that, but Nomi wasn’t sure if it was the right decision to do that. Rightfully so, she was punishing him for what he had done that day, yet he seemed not to even understand what he had done to deserve it. Although Owen did apologize for whatever it was he did, Nomi wasn’t convinced that it wouldn’t happen again. Still, she found herself replying in a hushed tone.
“Okay.”
Owen grinned and she thought for sure he would kiss her, but he must have been smartening up already because he didn’t. Instead, he lifted his forehead from hers and sighed in relief.
“Good. I've got to go, but I’ll call you later,” he said as he started to back away. “You’re going to answer, right?”
Nomi simply bobbed her head and Owen smirked. Turning around, he jogged off toward the sidewalk once more and disappeared down the road before Nomi could even get her head to stop spinning.
Owen's name appeared on her phone just after eight p.m. Nomi's chest tightened and her fingers trembled when she picked it up to answer.
"H-hello?"
"Ah, thank God. You answered," he said on an exhale.
"Uh-huh," she murmured.
"Nomi," Owen demanded.
"Huh?"
"You alright?"
"Yeah, I just… you know… don't know what the hell I'm doing," she admitted nervously.
Nomi had been contemplating that ever since she’d gotten home. She’d been so distressed that she hadn’t even told her parents about her apartment yet. She supposed that would have to wait until tomorrow. All she could focus on for the time being was what was happening between her and Owen and what to do about it.
She had yet to come up with an answer to that very difficult question.
"Me, neither," Owen replied just as awkwardly.
"I don't even know what to say to you."
"Say anything. It's just nice to hear your voice."
Nomi expelled a deep breath and dispersed all the tension she'd been holding in her belly. He wasn't making this easy with his sweet words and soft voice.
"Tell me how to earn your forgiveness. I'll do whatever it takes."
The problem was, she didn't know how to answer that. Nomi wasn't sure how to go about trusting him again. She'd sworn to stay away from guys like him, and yet here she was, welcoming Owen back into her life.
This was why she had chosen to give up relationships for a year. Nomi needed to reset, to figure herself out, to decide what kind of man she wanted. Now, she was being faced with a circumstance she never thought would occur. The hottest dude she had ever known, the guy she'd had a childhood crush on -- her brother's best buddy -- was hitting on her. On her, the teapot, the girl he'd said was like a sister to him, the least likely candidate on Owen's list of potential girlfriends. Not only was she having a hard time wrapping her head around that, but she was still deciding if she was willing to see where that went.
Nomi had taken this vow seriously for eight months now. She'd been putting in some serious work into changing her ways -- changing her life -- and she didn't want to see things get derailed by any man, even if that man were dreamboat Owen Blankfield.
"Do you even know what you did wrong?"
"Probably everything. I'm real good at messing up with women."
"You treated me like them," she ground out.
"Like who?"
"Like every other girl you've had. Like I was just a notch on your bedpost. That screwing me would have been no different from any other chick before me."
"It's not like that," he argued.
"Isn't it, though? You took advantage of my weakness and sought to get what you wanted from me."
"No!"
"Sorry if I have a hard time forgiving you for that."
"Jesus," Owen rasped harshly. He paused for a moment, taking that all in. when he spoke again, he sounded forlorn. "I had no idea. I never meant to make you feel that way."
"But you did make me feel that way."
She would not cry, despite the tremble in her voice. She would not show him that he had the power to do that to her. Nomi held her chin high and resisted the tears that threatened to spill from her eyelids.
"If I made you feel like any of them, I'm sorry. You're not. You're so much more."
"Am I?"
"Yes," he snapped at her, passionately.
Maybe he was lying. Maybe he wasn’t. Either way, Nomi wanted to find out. She took another long inhale and exhale, then attempted to control the shaking in her tone as she spoke to Owen again.
"Then that's how you can earn my forgiveness," she told him, finally.
"How?"
"Prove it."
He was silent for a moment, then he quietly promised Nomi, "I can do that. I will do that."
Month 9
Her folks took the news much better than Nomi expected them to. In fact, they seemed pretty indifferent to it and she wasn’t sure what to make of that. At first, she thought maybe the news hadn’t hit them yet, that on moving day they’d have a good cry and hug her tightly to them, but that didn’t happen. There they were, loading her packed boxes onto the U-Haul as if it were a normal thing to do on a Saturday.
It was just her family helping her move. Seeing as Nomi didn’t have any friends in town and all of her parents’ friends were working, they didn’t have any assistance. Luckily, Nomi didn’t have much stuff, so it wouldn’t be an all-day sort of thing. That fact made her worried about what all she would need to buy once she got moved in, but she’d deal with that when she got there. At the moment, she needed to just focus on getting everything loaded so that she could move in one trip. It shouldn’t be too difficult, so long as she didn’t forget anything.
“I’m going to need an energy drink to get through the rest of this day,” Canaan commented.
“I’ll buy lunch and drinks when we get there,” she promised.
They had only brought down a few boxes, but it was relatively early and Canaan would usually be carb-loading right now, in anticipation for the gym, but instead, he was helping out. Nomi appreciated his assistance, especially since things between them had been so rocky. The two of them had been slowly recouping from their issues, but they weren’t back to normal quite yet. That also worried Nomi. Their squabble hadn’t even been a big one and, yet, they still hadn’t recovered. She had to wonder if that was how things were going to be now that she was finding her independence and freedom. Maybe Canaan didn’t like that change or maybe he was just giving her room to grow. She wasn’t sure, but it was another thing Nomi wasn’t ready to deal with, currently.
Focus on this, she reminded herself.
“I could go for some pizza and beer,” her father suggested as he walked a heavy box onto the truck.
“That’ll do,” Canaan agreed.
“Done,” Nomi agreed with a curt nod.
“Can I get in on that?”
Nomi closed her eyes and slowly turned around. When she opened them again, she saw exactly who she had expected. Owen was standing there, holding a plastic tub fill
ed with her desk stuff, giving her a lopsided smirk.
“Consider it payment for helping. God knows Nomi doesn’t have the funds to fork over for real movers,” her brother commented.
“Sounds fair to me.”
Nudging Owen as he passed by him, Canaan said to his friend, “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course.”
Her dad brushed past her and followed Canaan into the house to get more boxes, leaving Nomi behind to deal with Owen. He placed the tub on top of some others and came back to where she stood.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to see you yet.”
“You promised to stop ignoring me.”
“I’m not ignoring you. I’m avoiding you.”
It had been nearly a month since she had last faced him and looking at him now made her quiver all over. Both from raw, unavoidable lust, and a nervous discomfort that stemmed from the ever-increasing awkwardness of their relationship (whatever that was).
Within that time, Owen had called her, but Nomi didn’t answer. He texted her and she would reply briefly, carefully. He was lucky to even get that, honestly, because she was being candid when she had told him that she wasn’t sure that she was willing to forgive him yet. But, she had also promised Owen that she’d stop ignoring him and give him a shot at making things right between them, so Nomi hadn’t completely shut him out.
That didn’t mean that she was in a hurry to see him or speak to him again. It hurt to face him and sorting through the emotions surrounding that hurt would take more time. Obviously, Owen was struggling with that fact because he was there now, imposing himself on her once again.
He gave her a tired look and wiped his face with an agitated hand.
“Listen, I don’t want to make a scene. I just want to help. Will you let me?”
“Fine,” she relented. “But don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you did when you walked up,” Nomi explained. When Owen continued to look at her with confusion, she detailed, “Like you missed me.”
“I have missed you.”
“Missed me more than just as a friend,” she clarified.
Owen stepped closer.
“But I did.”
“Well, nobody else needs to know that,” Nomi growled and sashayed past him.
She could still feel his eyes burning into her as she went into the house to join the others before anyone noticed they were both still missing. Upstairs, her mother was delegating what should go next and who should carry what. She wasn’t much help physically, but she was doing what she could. That was appreciated.
Nomi looked around the room and smiled softly to herself. This was the last time she’d see her room like this. As hers. Once she left, Nomi was sure her parents would paint and repurpose it and it would never be the same. That fact gave her a sense of excitement that she was finally moving up in life, but also made her a little sad at the loss of that part of her history.
“I always hated that pink wall,” her mom said over Nomi’s shoulder.
The accent wall had been that shade of dark pink since she was about twelve. Back then, Nomi was still trying endlessly to get people to like her. Having brightly colored rooms with posters and accent furniture was all the craze and she thought that maybe if she had a cool enough room, someone might want to come over and hang out in it.
Her mother had let her paint only one wall and Nomi had to save all her babysitting money to get the orange plastic chair in the corner. She taped pages from magazines on the other walls and went to great lengths to make sure her room was tidy and presentable, just in case. However, it didn’t change anything. Nomi ended up spending her time and money on the dream of befriending the cool kids, which was never to be. Then again, Tess and Jenna had spent many a night in this room as teenagers, so maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.
“What?” she turned to face her mother. Wincing her face in confoundment, she pointed out, “You helped me paint it!”
“I did,” she confirmed, then shrugged. “Because you really wanted it and you were a good kid. How could I say ‘no’?”
“But you hated it?”
“Yep, but you loved it and that’s what mattered. Parents exist to see their children smile,” she told Nomi, cupping her face in her hands.
Nomi grinned and her mother squeezed her cheeks a little, then released. Her blue eyes sparkled in a way Nomi couldn’t explain. Maybe her mother was feeling emotional about her leaving, after all.
Over the next hour, they managed to completely empty her old bedroom, making that pink wall stand out even more than before. Nomi gave it one more longing look, then descended the stairs to join the others at the truck. The next time she entered that room, it would undoubtedly be stark white and filled with miscellaneous stuff their parents had been waiting to store for years. It would never be the same.
The truck was fully loaded and ready to hit the road. Her parents climbed into their Chevy Equinox and waited to follow her into Chico. They had been wary of her moving so far away, but they must have had an inkling that she was going to leave town, eventually. It was no secret that she was unhappy here. That didn’t negate the fact that they were sad she’d be an hour’s drive away. Just making the trip today was going to be daunting for them. Plus, they weren’t city people. They would probably start getting stressed the moment they pulled into city limits.
Nomi grabbed her purse and keys and headed out. Canaan hitched his chin toward the U-Haul and spoke to his sister.
“Let Owen and me take the truck. You ride with Mom and Dad.”
“What? Why?”
“Because it’s big and you’re not used to it. Owen has experience driving large trucks, he and I will take it into Chico for you.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I drove it here, I’ll be just fine driving it there.”
Canaan jutted out his hip and planted his fist onto it stubbornly. Nomi copied the stature and gave him a daring expression. Her brother growled and shook his head.
“I’m not letting you drive that thing that far by yourself.”
“Well, it’s rented under my name, so technically it’s my truck. I should be the one taking it to Chico,” she pointed out.
“Fine," he spat. Pointing in her face, he added, "You ride with Owen, but he drives.”
Nomi thought that over. Taking that option meant that she would be stuck in close quarters with Owen for at least an hour, alone. That made her guts wrench just to think about but she also knew that Canaan wasn’t going to give in on this one and if their parents got involved, her father would agree and her mother would side with him, as usual. She was outnumbered. So, it would either have to be her and Owen, or Canaan and Owen inside that truck and, as she had said, Nomi was the one whose name was on the contract, so she ought to at least be in that U-Haul, just in case something should happen. It looked like there was only one solution to that problem.
“Fine,” Nomi agreed.
Owen approached, wondering what was going on and Nomi tossed the keys at him. He fumbled to catch them, surprised by the act, then watched, wide-eyed, as she sauntered away toward the passenger side. She got inside and noticed Canaan shrug with indifference at his friend and walk away. Owen swallowed hard before moving toward the driver’s door.
He got behind the wheel without a word and started the vehicle. Nomi turned on the GPS directions on her phone and set it on the seat between them so that he could hear it. Putting the transmission into drive, Owen pulled out of the driveway and started down the road toward the highway. The Equinox wasn't far behind.
For ten full minutes, her pulse pounded in her ears and Nomi swore she was about to pass out. The tension building between them was palpable. She felt the urge to scream at him, to demand an explanation for everything. She also felt the urge to crawl into his lap and let her libido lead the way. As frustrated and confused as Nomi was when it came to Owen, one thing was for sure: she wanted him. Her whole body craved his tou
ch and kiss and attention. There was no question to the physical way Owen made her feel, but it was the deeper, more meaningful areas that required the most attention. Because, above all else, Nomi needed his love. And while she had no doubts as to his ability to fulfill her physical needs, Nomi knew that she couldn’t hold her breath hoping for Owen to change his ways and give her what she really needed -- what she truly deserved.
Still, when he finally did speak, Owen had Nomi’s full attention.
“I know you’re dying to tell me off again,” he conjectured. “So, go ahead, get it all out.”
She didn’t say anything. She just stared out the windshield.
“No?”
“I will say what I want, when I want, on my own terms, not yours.”
Owen appeared uncomfortable as he gripped the steering wheel tighter and continued looking ahead. After a brief silence, Nomi spoke again.
“I’ve been waiting for you, you know. To prove yourself, like you said you would.”
“That’s why I’m here,” he argued. “To show you that I’ll be there when you need me.”
"I didn't ask you to come."
"But did you need my help?"
“It’s been a month," she diverted, ignoring his question.
“Trust me, I know that."
“I don’t need your damn muscles, Owen."
“What do you need?” he questioned.
“I need more!” she shouted.
Owen pulled to a stop at a red light and closed his eyes, then took a deep breath. He turned his head to look at her and held Nomi’s eyes steadily.
“Tell me.”
“I need a different kind of strength,” she answered. “Emotional, not physical. I need someone to support me and encourage me and like me despite my flaws. I need a man who won’t use me or abuse me and if that’s too much to ask, then please just leave me be.”
Owen blinked at her and opened his mouth to reply, but a honk from behind them alerted him that the light had since turned green. He returned his eyes to the road and pressed on the accelerator.
“If all of this is just some grand gesture so that you can get into my pants, then just stop. I’ve had my fill of fleeting relationship and I’m finished with them.”
