XOXO: A Bundle of Cozy Novellas

Owen

OWEN

Owen hadn’t actually meant his words as a come-on. He’d meant, like, food first, or did Edmund play card games? That kind of thing. But as soon as the words were out of his mouth the tension between them heightened, and pink washed across Edmund’s cheeks. Something unfamiliar responded in Owen, a slippery emotion that he didn’t entirely recognize. He scrabbled around for something else to say, for a direction to go that wasn’t accidentally sexual, and the shiny TV mounted on the wall caught his attention.

“How about we see what movies they have? I bet there’s no cable here, but probably the owner has a stash of DVDs somewhere. I can look while you heat up the pasta water. What kind of movies do you like?” He was babbling but didn’t care.

Edmund smiled. Again, Owen was caught by the change in him when he smiled—like the sun emerging from behind a cloud—and this time, it was Owen whose face heated.

“Oh, movies, I like them all,” Edmund said airily, oblivious to Owen’s gawking. “Although I try to stay away from the ones where the sole purpose seems to be to leave you a gutted puddle by the end.”

“Okay, so no tearjerkers. Good, I’m not a fan either.”

He crossed to the fireplace, where he’d seen the remote control sitting on the mantelpiece. Turning in a slow circle, he looked for where the DVDs were stashed. Weekend places like this one always had a collection somewhere. Ah, a short bookshelf next to the sliding door had two shelves of movies and a few well-worn paperback books tucked in around them. On his way over, he slid the glass door shut. Thankfully the smoke had mostly dissipated.

“I can’t believe I forgot to open the flue,” he muttered.

“It’s no big deal, and now the siren’s quit screaming I can function again.”

Owen crouched in front of the bookshelf to examine the movie selection. He heard Edmund turn on the water faucet and then the sound of a pot being filled. His stomach rumbled; they hadn’t eaten since the burger place several hours ago.

“Well, there’s quite a lot of James Bond,” Owen announced, “two Star Wars —not the good ones, though. Ooh, The Bounty Hunter —that’s a horrible movie and I absolutely loved it— The Kids Are All Right ; seems to be mostly rom-coms. Hmm, there’s also Get Him to the Greek and a copy of The Goonies .”

The sound of the running faucet stopped, and Owen heard Edmund’s footfalls from behind him as he came to look at the bookshelf.

“Bond, huh? Which ones? Daniel Craig is a sexy arsehole. I’m not a fan of some of the others.”

They were indeed the Daniel Craig installments. Owen grabbed Casino Royale off the shelf and stood, coming face-to-face with Edmund; he’d completely misjudged how close together they were—or maybe he was dizzy from standing up too fast. He didn’t think so. He gave himself a mental shake, but it didn’t clear his head. Owen abruptly awoke to the fact that he could easily drown in the deep blue of Edmund’s eyes; they were guileless and open, limitless possibilities were hinted at, and Owen wanted everything they offered. Edmund was genuine and real, not like other men he’d been with who were all about their looks or where they wanted to be seen, and with whom.

“Uh, so, uh, movie time, then?” Owen managed to force out.

Anything to draw Edmund’s attention away from Owen’s dazed expression.

Edmund was a successful businessman. He’d made a bundle with his travel app and was on his way to creating another one, which would no doubt also be successful. Owen was still paying off the student loans he’d incurred when he was determined to get a degree in graphic arts; he’d had all sorts of grand ideas about moving to New York and making bank. Instead, here he was six years later in Skagit, a semester or so short of his arts degree and working as a PA for a complete asshole in order to help pay for Pearl’s care.

He owed Pearl so much; she had literally been there for him all his life. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, but sometimes he resented the situation just a little bit, resented being stuck in Skagit at a shit job. Then there was the boyfriend issue. He knew there was nothing wrong with him—or he didn’t think so. It was easy to fall in bed with someone; it was much harder to deal with the clingy morning after, when whomever he’d picked up realized Owen had no plan for a future with them. In fact, he usually left immediately afterward to avoid the inevitable conversation. Maybe he was a lot more like his father than he’d realized, and that was depressing.

“You okay?” Edmund asked.

Owen nodded and chuckled at nothing to take the edge off.

“I’ll get the movie going, then I’m taking my shoes off and hogging the couch—with my wine.”

Edmund grinned back, and Owen knew his secret crush was well on its way to getting a little more complicated, a little more tangled up inside his chest. Not worthy, not worthy—not fucking worthy. It wouldn’t be fair to lead Edmund on. Owen liked Edmund; he wasn’t going to lead him on with false promises. If he’d hadn’t managed a relationship by age thirty, it was never gonna happen.

Quickly, Owen powered up the TV and the DVD player. The movie disc slid inside with ease, and the menu appeared on the screen. He pressed Play and went to sit on the couch so he could take his boots off.

“This feels good.” He wiggled his toes. “Why is it after sitting in a car all day it always feels good to get out of the car and sit again?”

Edmund chuckled. “I have no idea. Here.”

He brought Owen’s wineglass from the island, which Owen accepted gratefully before slumping against the back of the couch. He really was tired from the drive and probably the stress too. He took another sip of wine, enjoying the intense flavor as it sat on his tongue for a moment before he swallowed the dark liquid. He had a love for Washington-produced wines, but it was a habit he couldn’t afford.

The movie started to play, but Owen wasn’t really paying attention to what was on the screen, he was watching Edmund work in the kitchen as he stirred the pasta and found a bowl for the salad. The room had finally warmed up enough that Owen took off his coat, hanging it over the back of the couch. Thankfully, the heavy odor of smoke had disappeared, replaced by a more pleasant scent and the cheerful crackling of the wood fire.

“I’m going to check the rest of this place out,” he announced as he heaved himself up off the couch. He felt the pleasant heat of the alcohol coursing through his veins, helping him relax.

Down the single short hallway near the front door, Owen discovered a smallish bathroom on one side with just a shower, toilet, and sink. Everything looked new and clean, though. On the other side was a small bedroom with a nicely made double bed and a colorful comforter folded along the foot of it. There were what looked to be hand-colored photographs of the area hanging on two walls. Each was a season: colorful fall leaves, a snowy winter, spring buds, and the sun reflected in Lake Wenatchee during the summer.

He padded back out into the living room. There were some fairly narrow stairs across the room from the kitchen area, leading up to an open loft. Owen climbed the stairs and was pleasantly surprised by the master bedroom taking up the entire upstairs. The owners had managed to wrangle a king-sized bed set, and a knotty pine frame to hold it off the floor, up the stairs. There were skylights, currently covered with snow. The ceiling was bare pine, and a single window at the head of the bed looked out into the dark. The bed itself looked amazing. Owen wanted to test it out, but instead he went back downstairs to where Edmund was now sitting on the couch.

“It’s really cool up there,” he commented on his way back down. “Like a tree house or something.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely. You should check it out. We could flip a coin for it,” he teased.

Edmund took a sip of his wine and patted the couch cushion beside him. “Maybe later. Come have some more wine, and we can watch Daniel Craig take on the baddies while the noodles boil.”

So Owen did. He plopped himself back down onto the couch next to Edmund—a little closer than he’d intended, but the warmth of Edmund’s body was pleasant against his own, and from where he was sitting he could watch the movie on TV and the snow as it fell onto the back deck. The snow-covered patio furniture looked like funny-shaped marshmallows.

They finished their first glasses of wine, and by the time the middle of the movie rolled around, the entire bottle was gone. They’d paused Daniel Craig as he was flying through the air so Edmund could drain the pasta and pour the sauce over it; everything smelled delicious.

“I normally don’t use this jarred stuff for pasta. Next time we get stranded in the snow, I’ll make certain to have the right ingredients at hand. Bolognese is the only thing I know how to cook, but I’m good at it.”

“Okay, I’m holding you to it.”

“More wine?”

“Heck yeah.”

Edmund served up the pasta in cute bowls decorated with cowboys riding bucking broncos. Owen cleared a spot for their dishes on the coffee table and— why not— opened a second bottle of wine. He was feeling the effects of the alcohol, and now that the cabin had warmed up he was definitely relaxed. Glancing from the TV screen to the glass slider, he watched the snow swirl a minitornado in the glow of the security light off the back of the cabin. He hadn’t seen it snow like this since he was a little boy.

He didn’t want to say anything to Edmund, but if the snow kept up like it was, he doubted the highway crew would be out tomorrow working to remove the trees—and he doubted the avalanche danger was over, either. He hadn’t heard any of the reverberating booms indicating the DOT was using explosives to move the snow. The highway would mostly likely be closed tomorrow as well. And he was fucked. He pushed the thought away; there was nothing he could do tonight.

“Mmm,” Owen said as he gathered his last bite of pasta onto his fork, trying to get as much sauce loaded on the noodles as he could. “The pasta was amazing. Thank you.”

“You have nothing to thank me for. I tossed a jar of store sauce in with some linguine.”

“Well, then,” Owen said, sitting back against the couch again and rubbing his full stomach, “it must be the company.”

“Mmph,” Edmund replied around a bite.

On the screen, Daniel Craig continued to put criminals down like rabid dogs. The food, wine, and warmth of the room continued to relax Owen until he felt like a puddle—if puddles had feelings. Maybe he’d been even more wound up than he realized? Between feeling like a failure in his job and life in general, worrying about Pearl—even before she fell and hurt herself—and other tiny things that kept adding to the weight Owen bore, it felt like he carried around a mountain on his shoulders.

The credits started to roll; James Bond had successfully put most of the population of some European city in the hospital. Without asking, Owen stood and slid the next available Bond DVD into the player, then sat back down.

Edmund chose that moment to scooch around on the couch trying to get more comfortable. It was too bad there weren’t two couches so they could both lie down. On impulse, Owen patted the top of his thighs. “Stretch out, put your feet here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just put your damn feet here. I know you want to relax.”

Edmund turned around so he was stretched out, his head cushioned by a throw pillow against the arm of the couch. It was late, at least midnight, Owen thought, but he didn’t feel like craning his neck to look at the kitchen clock. Edmund made an mmf sound that Owen thought meant he was comfortable. Good, that’s what Owen wanted; he gently laid his hands across Edmund’s sock feet.

Instead of Daniel Craig’s athletics, Owen watched Edmund’s eyes drift shut. The thought drifted into his head that if he did get fired, it might be completely worth it. Edmund Lake was perhaps the most amazing man he’d ever known, kind and funny in that understated British way. He knew Edmund was attracted to him, but it didn’t feel skeevy and weird. Edmund hadn’t made any creepy innuendos. He was older than Owen, at least ten years, maybe more, and he wouldn’t be on the cover of GQ with his crooked teeth and slightly pocked skin… and none of that mattered to Owen.

The men Owen knew would have hinted that they needed to get their money’s worth out of the beds—“after all, I paid for them.” They wouldn’t have cared that Owen was tired and hungry, that he was worried about his elderly aunt and his job. He understood a lot of that attitude was his own fault, giving in when he had physical cravings for contact, for something more… something he hadn’t found. Yet. A very quiet little voice in the depths of his brain whispered, Maybe you have. Owen shushed it and went back to watching Daniel Craig take names and kick ass.

The next thing Owen was aware of, the room was bright and he was chilly, or at least his nose was cold. He lay on his side, pressed into the back of the couch, with a warm body keeping him in place. His heart raced for about a half second before his sleepy brain remembered the evening before and he calmed down. The body was Edmund’s, of course; Owen searched his memory trying to recall how he’d ended up in this position. The last thing that came to mind was watching Edmund fall asleep, his feet in Owen’s lap, while James Bond tortured someone.

“You awake then, sleepyhead?” Edmund’s chest rumbled underneath Owen’s ear.

He struggled to sit up, immediately missing Edmund’s heat as it became clear the fire had died out and the room was about forty degrees.

“Unfortunately. The inside of my mouth feels like I ate a lint ball.” His eyes met Edmund’s clear blue ones. “Sorry for falling asleep on you—literally.”

“I knocked off before you did. I was knackered.” Edmund swung his feet to the floor and sat up. “Slept pretty well, considering. Holy shite, look outside.”

Owen followed Edmund’s gaze out the glass doors. The snow had more than doubled overnight. The patio furniture didn’t look like oddly shaped marshmallows anymore, it was completely buried.

“There’s no way the highway is going to be open today, even if there weren’t trees down,” Owen muttered. Ugh, the reality was, Jude wasn’t a patient employer, and Owen couldn’t afford to lose his job. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

He stood from the couch, not really having a purpose. What was he going to do? Hike over the pass like some kind of modern-day gay Sound of Music character? He couldn’t even carry a tune. He was trapped here, and there was nothing he could do about it. Mother Nature was determined to do her very worst. Last night it had seemed simple not to worry about… everything.

“Oi, Jude is not going to fire you.” Edmund moved closer to him and laid a calming hand on Owen’s shoulder. “We’ll call him and let him know what happened. I should’ve called last night, but it just slipped my mind. Let’s get some caffeine so we can focus, then we can call our people so they don’t worry about us. Chance likes to check on me, and I don’t want him to think I’ve gone on a walkabout.”

Coffee, right. He needed that.

“Okay. Um, yeah, that sounds like a plan. Then I’ll get the fire going again.”

Owen shuffled to the kitchen area and began to search for some form of caffeine. There was a Krups coffee maker near the sink and a teakettle on the stove. Buried in the back of one cabinets he found several herbal teas and, voilà, English Breakfast. He snickered. Next to the tea was a half-empty bag of ground French roast coffee beans. Sniffing them, he decided they still smelled like coffee so likely weren’t that old.

Edmund spoke. “Look, we might as well make the best of it. This Brit’s never been stranded in the snow before. It doesn’t seem likely the owner will be tossing us out anytime soon—if they had someone else coming, they probably can’t get here.”

“Right. I know you’re right.”

Owen filled the teakettle with water and put it back on the burner, then he filled the coffee maker with water, poured the ground coffee into the filter, and pressed the button so it could do its magic. The familiar actions calmed him; Edmund was correct, there was nowhere to go. They were safe; they had shelter and food and two more bottles of wine. The little store was only about a mile away.

Edmund fiddled with his smartphone. “I can’t find a signal.”

“Let me check mine.”

Owen found his messenger bag where he’d dropped it by the door and dug out his phone. He took one look at it and groaned. “My battery’s dead.”

Dumping everything out of his bag and onto the wood floor, he searched frantically, but no charger cable was to be found.

“I must have left my charger cable at work, god fucking dammit.”

He was furious with himself, rigid with anger, his fingers clenching around his dead phone. He knew Edmund was watching him, and all he wanted to do was throw the phone across the room. Edmund’s gaze caught his. Edmund hesitated, then slid his phone into his pocket before crossing the room to where Owen glowered. Gently he pried the traitorous phone from Owen’s grasp and tucked it into his own pocket; after the barest hesitation he reached up and grazed Owen’s cheek with his index finger. “It will be okay, I promise.”

Owen wanted so badly to believe in magic. He wanted to lean into Edmund’s glancing touch and soak it into his skin. He did, just for the slightest of moments. Then, taking a deep breath, he forced himself to snap out of it. There was nothing he could do about the snow or the trees, or any of it, right now.