Page 56 of Love on the Waiver Wire

He doesn’t look convinced.

“Anyways, your mustache is coming off. You can’t go help them.”

He sighs, knowing I’m right. I want more than anything to watch Owen carry a giant pumpkin for a small child, but I also know that if anyone thinks it’s him it’ll probably be all over the local news and Leo will skin us alive.

When the family leaves, Leo goes over to it. “It’s perfect,” he tells me when I meet him there.

And it is. It’s ginormous. Perfect for a giant man. “Okay, we’ll get that one, and then I found another over there. I’ll pick that one.”

And just like that, we have a car full of apples and squash.

* * *

“What are you carving?” Owen asks as he puts the apple crumble in the oven.

The second we got back to the car, the fake mustache and hat were off. “That feels so much better,” he breathes as he runs his fingers through his light brown hair.

“You don’t like hats?”

He shakes his head. “I’m fine with hats usually, I just take them off every once in a while. We wear helmets for hours at a time, and sometimes even baseball hats feel suffocating.

It makes sense.

The ride home was silent but nice. A peaceful silence.

Owen dropped me off at the door to my building and I grabbed the apples, lugging them all the way to my place. Since he parked down the street, Owen wasn’t sure what to do with the pumpkins, opting to only bring one to my place, considering he took the back stairway to make sure he doesn’t bump into Leo.

He immediately went to work on some apple crisp, asking me where a couple of important tools were.

Watching him so at home in my kitchen makes something deep inside of me stir.

“I’m actually not quite sure,” I respond, looking at the pumpkin in front of me.

I started trying to carve a generic cat, but I’m not quite sure what it is anymore.

“It kind of looks like the Cobras logo,” he says, coming up behind me and pointing. It does, actually.

“Maybe I’ll do that,” I say, getting back to work.

About forty minutes later, I’m done. It’s as good as it’s going to get.

My art skills don’t exactly translate to pumpkin carving.

“That smells so amazing,” I say, taking a deep breath in, the smell of cinnamon and spice filling my kitchen.

“It’s almost done,” he says, checking it.

A minute later, it’s out cooling on my stovetop.

Pushing away from the counter, I hop down from my stool and round the island, reaching for a plate, but Owen has the same idea, coming up behind me, his chest right up against mine.

“I can get them,” he says quietly, grabbing two before closing the cabinet. He puts them on the counter but doesn’t back away.

I try to turn, and he gives me some room to do so before moving closer again.

“You okay?” he asks, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, unable to look away from his lips, just mere inches from mine.

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