Page 10 of Chasing Love: The Owens
“Hey,” he said, as if we hadn’t just shared forty-five minutes of class together.
I turned, startled to find a nervousness in his eyes that he’d never had before.
“The football game tonight… you going?” he asked.
“Um…”
He hesitated, as though he didn’t want to scare me off, before adding, “You should. We could go. Together, I mean… if you want.”
A hush settled over me until I realized he was asking me out. Or was he?
“Like a date?” I blurted.
He gave the smallest shrug. “Yeah.”
And that’s when I knew.
Bennett Owens would be my first love, whether or not I ever became his.
“Okay.” I nodded.
His grin spread wide enough to send sparks ricocheting through me. “Great.”
I was terrified. The jumping-off-the-edge-of-a-cliff kind of terrified, but I realized fear is often the first sign that something truly matters.
After that football game, Bennett and I were inseparable.
* * *
Delaney
Chapter Six
Bennett
“Daddy, there you are.” Wren stands at the opening of the tree-lined path with Poppy at her side. “Why were you in there?” She leans around me, and I sidestep to make sure she won’t see Delaney if she’s still visible.
“Just had to look for something I thought I dropped.” I pat her shoulder to get her to turn around and head back to the party.
“What was it?”
“Just something for the party. You need to go have fun.”
Poppy eyes me over Wren’s head. I have a million questions for her—but I have a feeling she’ll give me the cold shoulder and tell me, as she always does, that if I want answers about Delaney, I need to ask Delaney herself. But Poppy doesn’t know our full story. No one does.
“Emmett said he’d dance with me.” Wren runs off, and I watch her approach Emmett, who’s standing with Briar and their baby, Colter.
“I’ll answer one question,” Poppy says, both of us looking straight ahead at Wren.
“Why is Delaney back here?”
I’m not sure it’s the right question, but I can’t wrap my head around why she’d return home.
“You’ve heard the rumors. Her husband.”
“Yeah, but?—”
She steps ahead of me and turns around, walking backward with a knowing smile. “That was your one question.”
