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I don’t get a response from Owen. He disappears into the house and I disappear into the pile of leaves, singing “suit yourself” to the song playing through my speaker. Each flap of my arms and legs buries me deeper and deeper until nothing but my head and part of my torso are visible. I’ve done a sufficient job destroying this pile. Gramps would be proud.
It wasn’t our family’s nature to rake leaves, fill garbage bags, and set them on the curb for disposal. Gramps made an event of it. He would rake piles for Kelsey and me, and after careful measurement to make sure they were both the same height and width, we’d jump in and see who could flap themselves to the bottom of the pile first. The winner always got extra marshmallows in their hot chocolate.
I stare at the sky, ignoring the scratch of dead foliage on the back of my neck, saddened that this could be my last fall in this yard. If the latest round of quotes doesn’t come in much lower than I expect, I’m going to have to make a serious decision. It might be the final time I get to rake these leaves. The last season to sit on the porch swing and get high in Gran’s honour. That’s why I’m going to make the most of this activity and will revel in every second.
I love the smell of fall. It’s a little bit crisp with the cold air, and a titch sweet with the remnants of rotting tree fruit from the early frost, and all around perfect for my outdoor chore. I’m enjoying a few deep breaths when foot falls crunch through my scattered mess. I open my eyes to Owen towering above me. I shield my eyes from the sun behind his figure so I can see more than a blackened silhouette against the bright blue sky. It doesn’t help much. Clad in his usual black on black, the only difference is the small patch of skin on his face that isn’t covered by his beard and his colourful arms. I tuck my chin to my chest to get a better view and discover that he’s holding my rake in a tight fist.
“Don’t leave the rake on the ground with the tines up.”
I should have known he wouldn’t be able to see the fun in this activity. He came here to point out another thing that I’m either doing wrong or am unqualified to attempt.
“When was the last time you had fun?” I ask.
I will not let him ruin my day.
“What?”
I think Owen may have missed out on childhood experiences like the one I’m recreating. Maybe that’s why he hangs out with Tommy. To relive his youth.
“Fun. You know, enjoyed yourself. Laughed. Relaxed. Forgot about the archaic rules of pink jobs and blue jobs.”
After today we can go back to our stalemate, but today is a day for injecting some joy into his life.
“Pink jobs and blue jobs?” His eyes widen like he’s never heard the term before.
“You know, girl jobs and boy jobs?”
“There aren’t any.”
“Coulda fooled me,” I mumble.
He doesn’t answer, just continues to look at me with his stoic face.
I let a slow breath go. I’m here for amusement and if he wants to stay, he’s going to have to have fun too. I thrash my arms and legs, trying to kick up a storm, but I’m in too deep to be effective. So, I attempt the next best thing. I grab a fistful of leaves and throw them at him. After a spectacular explosion six inches above my hands, they flutter slowly, settling discretely into the gigantic pile.
Still no reaction from him.
I pick up two more handfuls and try again. Lo-and-behold, I’m met with the same result. Not a flinch, not a blink. Does this guy not have facial muscles like normal humans?
“You’re making me pull out the big guns, Owen.”
I stand and pretend to fix my gloves by pulling on the cuffs, then I roll my shoulders making myself look all tough—or as tough as a girl in skinny jeans and a crochet toque can against the backdrop of the Incredible Tattooed Hulk. I do a deep knee bend, scoop as many leaves as I can between my arms, and get right in Owen’s personal space before launching the bundle directly at him.
When they fall past his chin and I can evaluate the result of my antics, I’m pleased that there’s something other than neutral ambivalence to his appearance. I wouldn’t call what he’s doing smiling, but he’s not grimacing, and that’s a win, I’d say. One more thrust of leaves could tip the scales all the way.
I crouch, legs wide in a deep squat, arms stretched out as far as they can go. I am about to scoop an entire tree’s worth of leaves when a gentle nudge presses against my forehead. It’s not a shove or a thrust; it’s literally the force of a single finger to the centre of my forehead. It hits me in the exact spot that prevents all hope in hell of staying on my feet. I tumble over and land on my ass with a hard thump.
I’m initially shocked, then proud of myself for breaking him out of his iron bonds, then slightly nervous when he throws the rake off to the side and successfully does what I failed to do—shove an armload in my face.
He doesn’t simply drop them on me so that they lightly flutter and tickle my nose. No. He launches them so that they come crashing on me in a giant heap. And while I’m struggling to dig myself out, he grabs another fistful and shoves them under my collar.
I stand corrected. He did this as a kid, and he knows how to play dirty.
I leave the crunchy, dead foliage in my shirt scratching against my skin to show him I’m not afraid of a little nature touching me. Sure, my chin twitches a few times when I deny myself the desire to scratch, but I won’t give in. This is war. He won’t catch me off guard again.
Getting close enough without letting him knock me down is the key, and the way to accomplish that is to attack from behind. From a safe distance, I scoop an armful of leaves, biding my time for a convenient moment to launch. When Owen bends to grab his own ammo, I slide to the side and jump on his back. Most fall at our feet, but I hold on to a handful and shove them into his shirt during the confusion of me climbing onto his back.
I laugh as he spins around and around while I pat his chest, crushing the leaves against his skin. The faster he spins, the tighter I pull myself to him to stay aloft. Soon, my face is pressed against his. The tips of his ears are cold and the hairs of his beard are softer than I expect. He smells freshly showered and I stop laughing to inhale his musky scent mingled with the fall air. My legs and arms tighten around him and I rub my cheek along his. Owen’s fingers grip my legs harder and he rubs my cheek back. The spinning slows to a stop and instead of the crunch of leaves underfoot, all I hear is my heart pounding in my ears.
What the fuck.
I push away and he lowers my legs to the ground quickly but gently.
I stumble back. Away from his large hands grasping my thighs. A step away from his pecs under my fingers. Another step away from wondering what he’d look like if his lips tipped at the corners, how handsome he’d be if he smiled. One more step away from my neglected desires, which lands my foot square in the middle of the rake.
The handle shoots up and clocks me on the side of the head. I see stars, or maybe it’s scattering leaves as Owen leaps at me. I fall over, more from shock than from the force. Before I have time to register fully what’s happened, Owen is hovering over me, ripping my toque off, checking for damage.
My eyes need a second to open, and when I do, he’s once again the dark, silhouetted figure. He shifts to examine my skull and blocks out the sun behind him, offering me a full view of his face. The almost smile is gone and he’s wearing the familiar set jaw and pursed lips. Along with those same glowing hazel eyes that I saw on the roof. Expressive. Concerned. Bloody sexy as hell.
I might have brain damage.
“Princess, talk to me.” His hands cradle my head, rough thumbs stroke outwards from the corners of my eyes.
Am I crying? Am I hurt? Am I fucking losing my mind that I’ve had two near-death experiences in a matter of days?
I grab his wrists, showing him and myself that I can still move and I’m not injured. Because surely that’s why he’s holding my head so firmly. Owen doesn’t do personal. He doesn’t do interaction. He doesn’t do compassion. He manages and problem solves. And, apparently, saves my bacon.
“Don’t call me Princess.”
“What?”
“I hate it when you call me that.” I move to sit, and he presses on my shoulders, cradling me in his lap. “Let me up,” I growl.
“Wait,” he says.
I glare at him. I try grinding my teeth, but it makes my head throb.
“Dammit, be calm for a minute and stay here.”
He lets go of my body when I stop struggling and I lay there, staring at his dark, concerned face, while he stares into what is surely my bewildered one. My heart pounds so hard he must be able to feel it in his legs. Definitely under his fingers that stroke from the corners of my eyes once again, gathering the remaining moisture with thick, gentle fingers. When my tears are dry, he smooths my hair back and ghosts his fingers over the small lump on my head.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, eyes locked on mine.
Only when I wonder what the fuck he’s doing.
“Not so much, but it probably will tomorrow.”
“Ice it.” He continues to play with my hair, smoothing it over my ear and back from my forehead.
“I will. Thanks,” I whisper with tight head nods, feeling shame that I snapped at him when he’s trying to be nice.
We stare at each other some more, listening to the wind rustle the leaves, smelling the moist foliage around us. Ignoring the static between us.
“I think I can sit now,” I say, my voice cracking.
“Careful.” We lock one hand like we’re about to arm wrestle and his other guides me from the back, providing a strangely familiar, secure feeling.
Once I’m seated, he spins so our feet point in opposite directions. He rests his folded forearms across the tops of his knees, grabbing above his elbows. We sit impossibly close to each other—the triangles that our legs form connect us from hip to ankle—and we stare at each other. For a long time, the only sound is the wind ruffling the dried leaves around us.
Another injury, another reason to ignore the roles we play and the rules we’ve devised to manage our interactions. What was illegal yesterday is perfectly legit today. Smiling, laughing, touching. I take it one step further to learning. I lower my eyes to the markings on his body, trying to make heads or tails of them. He doesn’t stop my gaze from roaming across his skin.
I’m drawn to the designs that I’ve previously seen and have contemplated from a distance. The rose bush, black but for the actual flowers that are a scarlet hue. A house that seems to float, a little like how Chagall painted. A blue-and-white Scottish flag—the only one that makes sense to me, given his name.
I don’t have to glance to his face to know he watches me with laser focus while I scan his body; the protective layer that he’s turned into an artist’s canvas. I sense him reading my reactions. My thoughts.
Nothing ties one image to another. Looking at the tattoos on the back of his arm that I’ve never seen before brings me no closer to solving the riddle. On his right arm is a stickman family: man, woman and child, all smiling and holding hands. It’s like one of those stickers I see on minivans advertising how many people are a part of the happy, little family. Oddly enough, there’s only one kid. Who’s missing—Owen or Tommy? It’s hard to picture Owen as part of a family. It’s hard to picture Owen as a happy child.
Above that tattoo, there’s a beautiful tableau of the Rocky Mountains. Snow-capped peaks with wildflowers at the base. This one’s in full colour and has a 3-D quality. I reach out and stroke the nail marks I left through those mountains from the rooftop nightmare the other day. I don’t ask for permission to touch him and he doesn’t deny my curiosity.
I expect his skin to have a chill to it to match his usually cold personality and am proven wrong when his warm, smooth, hard flesh registers under my fingers.
I trace a line connecting the four almost-healed wounds. Owen stays silent and unblinking. His bright hazel, lighthouse eyes beaming out from the dark. His breathing is uneven, tense, but he doesn’t stop me from dragging my fingers back and forth along the temporary marks that mar his permanent ones.
My path deviates and I stroke a line through several images. They’re all so different in their style, colour, and complexity, but strangely, they all feel the same. Like they all have the same roots. When Owen touches them, do they feel the same to him? Do they all bring out one emotion or do some make him happier than others?
I wish that by tracing lines over his body I could connect the dots between the ink and his thoughts.
I pull away and cross my arms across my knees to keep my hands and mind from wandering any farther. I’ve already taken too much liberty with my roaming fingers.
I point towards the rake. “It’s your fault, you know.”
I try to put more than physical space between us, except my voice is husky rather than the deadpan I was going for in my mind. This situation is making me uncomfortable and I’m sabotaging the first peaceful interaction we’ve had.
His eyes go wide, then narrow on me. “How was that my fault?”
“You put the rake there.”
He starts to argue, but the words don’t get past his mouth because I’m right.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine.” I imply he failed to ask, although he did when he dropped to the ground and cradled my head. “Fun and games, and all that.”
I wave off the last ten minutes with bitchiness. We’re better off as enemies.
“Fun and games until someone ends up with a brain bleed.” Owen stands with the grace of a pouncing feline and brushes the dried leaf crumbs off his pants before shaking the remnants from inside his shirt.
That got dark fast.
Without another word, he bends, snatches the rake off the ground and leans it against the fence, then he storms through the gate to his side of the property line.
So much for taking him back to his childhood.
***
KELSEY NUDGES MY BOWL of pasta towards me. “Eat something, Iz.”
I dig my fork into my plate and twirl it around in the sauced noodles. I spin the fork round and round until the ball of spaghetti is so big it won’t fit in my mouth, then I scrape the fork on the side of the dish, dumping the noodles back into the bowl and lay the fork down.
“I don’t know what to do, Kelse.” The strain of thinking all afternoon has produced a fierce headache behind my eyes. I push away from the table and head to the cupboard where Kelsey keeps her Advil. My cousin’s shoulders deflate, telling me she doesn’t have the answers either.
“Have you run the numbers?” she asks.
I thought I had done a thorough job of running the numbers before I got into this. Turns out, there’s way more beyond my control than I thought. If it were the mould in the attic from the leaking roof that Gran never took care of, and now the gaping hole from my near-death experience, I’d be able to handle it. If it were that plus the poplar tree in the backyard whose roots have grown into the pipes and threaten to cause raw sewage to gurgle through the drain in the mechanical room, I could make it work with a few minor sacrifices. But it’s more than those things. It’s all that plus the cracks in the foundation on top of the things I had planned for that have pushed me over the edge of insanity.
Over the past three weeks, I have watched the yellow brick road to my perfect future get bulldozed, one glowing bucketful at a time. Each time I see the name of a tradesperson flash across my phone’s screen, I have a mini heart attack wondering if this is the call that will sink my project altogether.
“I’m going to give up my putting my design office downstairs for now. I can’t afford to do all three levels of the house plus fix all the structural issues.” It’s that or sell to Owen.
I plunk myself in my seat and shove the pasta away.
“I’ll say it again: I will lend you the money. Fuck, at this point, I’ll give it to you. I hate seeing you this way.”
The offer is sweet and she would lend me the money without a thought, but I can’t accept it. I’ve already taken out a line of credit against the value of the home; I can’t afford any more debt. If I did, it would be years before I could repay it, and it would put a strain on our relationship. That’s more than I’m willing to risk.
“Asher will go through the quotes with me and give me his opinion.” I make it sound like he’ll fix my problems.
“Let me know when and I’ll come for moral support.”
I give her a weak smile. “He’s got broad shoulders to cry on. And he gives extraordinarily good hugs.”
“Going for the whole damsel in distress act?” she asks.
That’s like asking me if one closet on the main floor is enough storage. I don’t need to pretend around Asher—he knows the real me.
“Know what you should do?” she asks without getting an answer to her first question. “Fuck and get it over with already.”
I pull the nail from my mouth that I’m sawing away on.
“How will sleeping with Asher fix anything?” I shake my head so fast and tight that my vision goes blurry.
Kelse laughs at me. “Not Asher. You’ve been dancing around that idea for years I’ve come to accept that it’ll never happen. Owen. You need to bone Owen. Then you won’t be so angry with him and you’ll have one less thing to worry about. You’re so stressed right now.” She grips her jaw with flexed fingertips, telling me she can see it in my face. “You can’t say you require him for his contractor skills.”
The mention of his name makes my cheeks tingle with the memory of his beard rubbing up and down my skin as he spun me around on his back. I feel each rapid heartbeat in my skull after the rake hit me, and the stroke of his fingers gathering my tears. I’m not sure what’s more frightening: falling through the roof or being cradled in his lap.
Never mind. Trumping all that was how he let me touch his tattoos.
Kelsey pushes my bowl in front of me as another means of telling me to eat as she carries hers to the sink.
“You’re thinking about it,” she says.
I can tell there’s a smirk on her face, even with her back to me.
“You want me to do it so that you have the green light with Scott.”
“Cousin, you underestimate me.” Does that mean they’re already seeing each other? “I want you to do it because it’s been eons since you been laid and you’re both so tense the entire neighbourhood is bracing for a nuclear explosion. You two would have the hottest sex ever.”
“And then you could talk about how the whole neighbourhood felt that too,” I joke. “Where do you propose we have this smouldering sex? In my shell of a house, in his place that’s staged for sale, or in his other one that doesn’t have any flooring yet? Or, hey,” I clap my hands excitedly, “we could have sex here—on your couch or the kitchen table?”
“Tie a scarf on the door and I’ll come back later,” she says as if she’s already contemplated the occurrence.
I place my uneaten spaghetti in the compost bin, then rinse the bowl.
“Sorry to disappoint, but it ain’t gonna happen.”
Part of me is disappointed to say that out loud. It would be hot as hell if it were half as good as the uncontrolled nightly fantasies I have. Now that I grasp what Owen’s hands feel like on my body—strong and protective—and how warm his skin is, the late-night hallucinations have a vivid effect to them I don’t need.
“Well then, the way I see it, Asher is your only alternative.”
“Hey!” I fist my hands against my hips and grind my foot into the floor. “I’ll have other options.”
Someone else will come along who makes my heart flutter and who’s nice. I can have the best of both worlds.
Kelse pretends to faint. Back of the hand on the forehead, buckling knees, sighing and all. “Oh, the dramatics. You have two very fine specimens knocking on your door and you’re hellbent on making excuses why neither of them is good enough. Pretty soon, they’re going to stop knocking.”
Goes to show what she knows. Owen will keep knocking until I sign over the deed to the house.