Page 71 of The Thought of You

“Same.” He chuckles.

“The food is definitely different.”

“Trying new and different things is fun.” Again, it seems he’s speaking in code. That maybe I should try new things—like him.

He would be new and different for me, for sure, and I can’t confidently say I’d hate it. The small taste I’ve gotten of Owen screams that I’d love it.

“You are here alone, right?” He leans back, the gleam in his eye dulling.

“I am. What about you?” I glance behind him as if a third someone will pop out to join us.

“I just finished having dinner with my sister and her baby boy.”

“You’re an uncle?”

“The best around.”

“If he’s still a baby, he has several years before he admits to that,” I tease and sip from my drink. The mix of sweet and minty works well together, and it complements my mood just fine too.

“He will, though. I’m going to teach him everything he needs to know.”

“Bless his heart.” I lick my lips, happily lapping up the excess drops of my drink when something very important occurs to me. “Wait. Do you come here to Savannah a lot to see them?”

He nods. “I help Whitney with babysitting and lending a hand around her duplex if her dishwasher’s leaking or if the beam in her closet falls. My family’s rallied around her to do everything possible so she’s able to finish college.”

The server arrives with Owen’s drink, and he clinks it to mine.

I follow his bobbing Adam’s apple with unnecessary interest, and my cheeks flame as my thoughts wander into fantasy land. I clear my throat again. “What about her baby’s father? How does he fit in?”

“I’d like to think he’d be there every step of the way if Whitney had gotten his phone number or learned his real name. But instead, she came home from that summer vacation with far more than a tan and a hangover.”

“Is that what’s kept you so busy lately? Why you’ve missed things around school?”

He gives me a tight-lipped smile.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You never asked.”

My mouth dries. “Well, then, that makes us both assholes.”

“Two assholes sitting in a tree,” he sings. “You know what comes next, Lockhart. And you know exactly how to get it. Just say the magic words,” he goads, and the cloud of lust in his eyes thickens.

A blush burns through my cheeks.

It would be so easy to give in—and it would feel oh-so good to be bad.

chapter

twenty-two

OWEN

Her eyes sparkle, and it’s not just because of the candlelight reflecting in them.

She’s enjoying herself. Addie Lockhart is having fun with me, and the more I get to know this side of her, the harder I fall.

I’m royally fucked when it comes to her, in ways I never saw coming, and I have no doubt she has feelings for me too, even if she won’t admit it.

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