Page 41 of Single Girl in the City
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you fishing for information from my coworkers?”
“I thought about it, and while I was tempted, I decided I’d rather learn about you from you.”
She looked up at him. His eyes were assessing, his lashes spiked with rain, and his damp shirt stuck to his impressive chest. It was wet and cold and yet he’d come to find her. “What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you’re willing to share.”
She wasn’t sure what she wanted to share but she wanted it to be real.
She’d never met anyone like Owen. Abi’s life had always been on other people’s terms. Starting with her family and the way she was moved back and forth like some kind of timeshare kid.
With older kids of her own, her stepmom didn’t have much interest in stepmom-ing a younger child, so on the days Abi was at her dad’s she was responsible for herself. She started walking to school in kindergarten, making her lunches by first grade, and sweet-talking other kids’ parents for rides to school when it rained before she was tall enough to see over the counter at the grog shop where she’d buy her dad’s cigarettes.
Because of the constant inconsistency in her life, Abi didn’t have the chance until high school to be a part of the thousand-and-one extracurricular activities Dotti and her brother had access to. But by that time all the other kids already formed their “activity” cliques, so Abi found herself once again struggling to be a part of something important.
The more frequent the handoffs, the more Abi got lost in the shuffle, the louder she became until it was just background noise. She was just background noise. Then there were the men of boyfriends past, who were drawn to Abi’s larger than life personality, only to say she was atoo much too soonkind of gal. Which made her nervous about showing Owen all her cards.
She didn’t want to be too much to handle but she also didn’t want to be glossed over. She’d like to think that with age she’d learned that she didn’t need to be the center of attention, she just wanted to be the center of one person’s world.
“I’m nervous about opening this.” She held up the letter. “And I’m tempted to call Ms. S back and lie that I can’t do it today. Or tomorrow. Or any of the days.” Man, that was hard to admit. She looked up at the sky and groaned. “I swear that I didn’t use to be a coward.”
“I don’t think you’re a coward,” he said softly.
She met his gaze. “You don’t?” Because she did.
“You’ve had a rough few months. No one would fault you for wanting a little easy in your life. Especially me.”
“You don’t take the easy way out.”
The resignation in his eyes broke her heart. “I can’t. Family. You understand.”
But she didn’t—not really. Her family was more of a make your own path sort than a tight-knit unit. Every family had their issues, but when it came to Abi and her parents, their relationship was fractured. She was different from her siblings, a product of an affair. Her mom and stepdad worked through it, putting the betrayal in the past, but Abi was a reminder of that painful time. Her parents had never said that, but Abi always felt the tension follow her. After graduation, Abi went her own way. Her parents called it moxie.
Abi called it self-preservation.
“You could take the easy way out,” she said quietly. “But you choose not to. For your family. I like that about you.”
“I like a lot about you.” He took her hand and placed the gentlest of kisses on her palm, then laced their fingers.
“This ‘just friends’ thing is going to be hard.”
“Everything about this makes me hard,” he teased, and she laughed. She realized that was his intention when his lips quirked. “You can still change your mind about the job.”
“And choose the easy way out? What’s the fun in that?”
She didn’t know how he did it, but one minute she was near tears and the next she was laughing. Even taking the hard way with him was fun.
“Fair enough. Then how about you tell me what our good deed is for the day.”
“Our?As in some superhero team that saves the world one good deed at a time?” The thought made her heart skip a beat.
“As long as I get to wear the cape and you wear those tight pants, I’m game.”
Chapter Fifteen
Happy Things:
Knowing that if plan A fails,
