Page 49 of Just A Little Magic

After a beat, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. It was too important to let pass by because without an agreement, I worried we’d slip back to where we’d been.

“Owen, I meant what I said. Give me a month. Let me do more than show you for a couple of hours. I can prove it to you. Let me be the Da you need and the one I want to be.”

Owen chewed on his lip. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and let loose a weary sigh. “I’m just trying to protect you, Bear. You’ll get so tired of me when I’m in little mode. And what about the rest of it? You wanna, what? Date me? What would our friends think?”

“They’d think we finally got our heads out of our asses and saw what was right in front of us. Let me prove it to you, Owen.”

His hands were still in mine, and I forced myself to keep still.

“You’ll never last a month.”

“Bet. If I don’t, you’ll have the rest of our lives to remind me how wrong I was. Feel free to bring it up at any and all functions, appropriate or not. I mention a restaurant, and you have free rein to say,Remember that time you thought we should date, and it was a disaster? You shouldn’t pick the restaurant. Consider your power. You could rule the group chat.”

“Bear, you are going to regret this.”

“Babe, I won’t regret a damned thing.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

OWEN

“I’m going to make sure you don’t regret giving me a chance.”

Barrett’s gentle words washed over me. My regrets wouldn’t be from getting more time with him or having him be my Da. What I would regret, and I knew it as much as I knew my own name, was when he realized I’d been right all along. I was too much work for not enough reward. I knew I was a lot. He didn’t recognize it yet, but he would soon enough. Then he’d say he was sorry and be horribly sad, and I would laugh and sayI told you so. After that, I’d figure out how to spend the rest of my life desperately in love with a man who couldn’t love me back.

“Bear, it’s not you I’d ever regret.”

Also a true statement. I’d done everything I could to make myself into a little that took less effort, but it hadn’t worked yet. Maybe I could try again? Ugh. It was entirely too late to hash it out in my mind tonight. Plus, my sweet baby was waiting for me at home.

“I don’t want to end your night early, but Elizabeth is home by herself, and she’s just a baby.”

Barrett jumped into action with a look that said I wasn’t being silly, which I appreciated. He immediately stood up from the table, grasped my hand, and helped me out of the booth.

Barrett insisted on paying for dinner, a habit I hadn’t broken in him over the years. He hustled me outside, and we walked back to the club, where his car waited for us in the parking lot. The difference between this trip and the last was that his hand never left mine.

Warmth radiated up my arm and into my soul. It wasn’t often that I felt little. Obviously, when I was in a little headspace, that was one thing, but physically little? Next to never. The exception was when I was physically connected to Barrett.

A rational me would have asked more questions or not agreed to give him a month to prove me wrong. I wanted nothing more than to be mistaken, but I knew that wouldn’t happen. The only thing left was to take it for what it was worth. He’d figure out soon enough that he wasn’t nearly as okay with me as he thought when it was longer than a few hours.

Until he realized all that for himself, I would hold on for the ride. Then, when he’d moved on, and I somehow learned to live with him falling in love with someone else, my memories would be good enough. But even when he moved on, I knew my tears would need to be hidden. Losing him completely or making him feel like it was his fault wasn’t a price I was willing to pay.

I was so preoccupied that I didn’t realize we were home until he parked in my shared driveway. We’d been in this exact position hundreds of times before, but tonight felt different. The air between us crackled and anticipation thrummed through my veins.

Before this all went away, I would be able to touch Bear, taste him, and feel him inside me again. While I tried to figure out how to get Bear to make the first move, heraised his hand and brushed my hair back from my forehead. His fingers threaded through my hair and the soft smile that played on his lips was a personal favorite.

“Can I tell you something I’ve thought about since we met?”

His whispered voice was low and soothing. I sunk into a quicksand of want so quickly that it left me dizzy.

“You know you can say anything you want to me.”

My response was just as quiet. The front seat of a car had never been magical, but maybe that Meatloaf song was right. I might not find love with the dashboard lights, but lust was coming in hot.

“Your eyes have fascinated me since we met. You sat on the couch, ignoring me, and I was desperate to get you to look at me. And then you did, and I had never seen anything like it. I’d never seen anyone with gold eyes before.” He smoothed his thumb across my eyebrow as he spoke.

“They are technically called amber.”

“Gold.”

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