Soft Shock (16 page)

Chapter Twenty

The weatherman
was not on her side. Ronnie had left for New Jersey yesterday. She’d driven up,
and even though her family lived in the Trenton area, she gave Tyler a ride as
far north as Newark where he would catch the train into Manhattan to spend
Thanksgiving with some friends in the Village and then go for an audition
before heading home. Marci had booked a flight for Thanksgiving Day because the
flights were as empty as they were ever going to be for the holiday on that
day, and she had wanted to get some more work done before heading out.

Unfortunately,
the first snow of the season had decided to show up on Thanksgiving Day. And it
came on hard and fast. Ronnie had been right about that early winter coming.
Ronnie had been right about several things unfortunately. One of them being
that Marci should have ridden up with her and Tyler yesterday and just put in
some earplugs, tuned out their bad singing, and done her work in the back of
Ronnie’s car.

And not only
was it snow; it was a friggin’ blizzard. At least, to Marci’s West Coast, SoCal
sensibilities it was a blizzard. Her flight had been canceled before she even
got to the airport, but she refused to give up.
If there was
one flight going anywhere near the Newark airport, she planned to get on it.
Hell, one flight going anywhere. She refused to spend Thanksgiving in her
apartment alone.

Just getting to
the airport was a chore. First, she’d had to find a cabbie intrepid enough to
take her. In the Richmond, Virginia area, where people spazzed at the appearance
of a single snowflake, that was quite a feat. Then, when she found one crazy
enough to do it, of course he was too crazy. She spent the entire cab ride to
RIC fearing for her life. Once she got there, the news was even worse.

“What do you
mean all the planes are grounded?” Marci said, grilling the poor woman behind
the desk. The logical part of Marci knew it wasn’t the woman’s fault, but the
enraged part that didn’t want to be stuck in this place alone on Thanksgiving
eating a nuked frozen dinner didn’t care. And unfortunately, that enraged part
had taken over.

“Nothing’s
getting off that ground right now.” The woman gestured to the glass doors
behind Marci that led into the terminal. “I doubt that will change for the rest
of the day. It might not even change by tomorrow.”

Marci glanced
behind her to see too much white beyond the glass doors at the front of the
terminal. And the snowfall didn’t show any signs of slacking up any time soon. She
turned back to the desk. “You mean there’s no way I can—no standby or
anything?” Marci asked.

“Afraid not.”
The woman shook her head.

“You think
there’s a train? A bus? Anything.” Marci was getting desperate.

“You can check,
but I doubt it.”

So did Marci.
But she pulled out her phone to check anyway. She was about to pull up the web
browser and go to Amtrak’s website when her phone started ringing. She stared
down at it with a sigh. Owen. Why was he calling when he clearly knew she was
leaving town? Or supposed to be leaving anyway? This calling just to call nonsense
was too much like relationship stuff. Especially after what’d happened the
night before last.

She almost
ignored the call but decided at the last minute, what the heck? Hey, maybe he
could even give her a ride home. She sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere with
that cabbie who’d brought her to the airport again. In fact, she’d sent him
away as soon as she got out of his cab. Well, sent him away might be a little
mild for what she’d done. She’d screamed at him that she wanted his name and
any sort of ID number he might have because she planned on reporting him to
someone, suing him, something. Either way, he’d gotten the point.

She picked up
the call and put the phone to her ear. “Yes?”

“Happy Thanksgiving,”
Owen said.

“Happy
Thanksgiving.” She found herself fighting a smile. Why did she have to react to
him this way? Because the sex was really good, and hearing his voice made her
think of the sex. She wouldn’t even be putting up with this arrangement if the
sex
wasn’t
beyond anything she’d ever imagined two
bodies grinding together could be. And she was no novice in the area of two
bodies grinding together.

“It’s all over
the news about all the flights being canceled. I’m guessing you didn’t make it
out before they started shutting everything down. Or else you’d probably be on
a plane right now instead of answering your phone.”

“Nope. Didn’t
make it out. Still here.” She heaved a huge sigh. “At the airport.”

“You should
spend Thanksgiving with us.”

“That sounds
like a girlfriend thing,” Marci warned. The last night they’d spent together, Tuesday
night, had her paranoid. That night had been unlike any so far. What they’d
done…quite frankly, Marci didn’t even want to think about it. She wouldn’t be letting
anything similar happen again.

“Not
necessarily. Dante spent Thanksgiving with us last year because he had to stay
in town to work on something for one of his business ideas. Please don’t tell
me you think Dante and I have a thing.”

“Outside of the
obsession you share for Call of Duty and fantasy football? Nah.”

Owen laughed.
“It’ll be fine. You shouldn’t spend Thanksgiving alone holed up in your
apartment. Or worse.
At the airport.
At least let me
come get you from the airport.”

“How will you
do that?” Marci frowned at the snow swirling outside the terminal doors.

“I have a
jeep,” he said as if she’d asked what color the sky was.

“I’d really owe
you if you could come and get me.”

“Owe me enough
to spend Thanksgiving with me and my family?”

“Who all’s
going to be there?” Marci asked warily. The last thing she wanted—or
needed—was to walk into a den of wolves.
The Matthis
clan.
She’d have to suffer through all that vetting and other girlfriend
nonsense because there’d be no explaining
their
, um
situation, uh arrangement, over a nice Thanksgiving family dinner.

“Just my mom, Jeremy,
and me,” Owen said.
“Mom’s already complaining about how she
has no idea what she’s going to do with all the leftovers.”

Not even a dad?
Maybe his parents were divorced. Marci certainly knew all about that. Knew
enough not to pry and ask just in case that was the scenario, and he didn’t
want to talk about it. “Fine,” Marci said. “I guess I can’t argue with the fact
that a home-cooked meal is far superior to whatever is waiting in my freezer at
home for me to microwave it.”

“Great. Be
there in a sec.”

“Drive safely,”
she said immediately. What did he mean, a sec? The roads were icing over. Had
to be if all the planes were grounded. “Oh, and Owen?”

“Yeah?”

“You know you
don’t have to do any of this.”

“Of course I
know that.”

She paused for
a while. The word, so simple in theory, was stuck in her throat. What would he
make of this? What did she want him to make of it? What did
she
make of it? The other night had her
brain all twisted. It’d been a soft shock to her sharp side.

“You still
there?” he asked.

She finally
forced it off her tongue. “Thanks.”

It was his turn
to pause. After a moment that stretched on far too long, he said, “Any time.”
And he didn’t say it in that way people use the words reflexively, just as
something you say to a thank you instead of you’re welcome. He said it as if he
wanted her to know that he really was at her service any time she needed or
wanted him. And truth be told, he had been so far.

#

When he and
Marci climbed into his jeep after he tossed her bag into the back, she did the
strangest thing he’d ever witnessed her do. She leaned over, put her arms
around him, and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

When she pulled
back, his confusion must have shown in his eyes because she grinned and said,
“What?”

“What was
that?” he asked, at a loss for anything clever to say. Normally, she didn’t
bother with kissing unless she knew it was going to be shortly followed by sex.
And sex wasn’t in the immediate future what with them idling in front of the
departures area of the terminal soon to be followed by going to Owen’s mom’s
house to hang with Mom and the man-child.

She shrugged as
she buckled her seatbelt. “Just saying hello.”

“Well, you’ve
never said hello like that before.” He put the jeep into gear.

“I don’t have
to again if it bothers you.” Her lips toyed with a smile that he saw when he
glanced over at her. He pulled up behind a BMW SUV, waiting his turn to make it
out to Airport drive, which would take them to Interstate 295.

“It doesn’t
bother me at all. In fact, I kind of liked it.”

“Well, stop
making a big deal out of it, or it might not ever happen again.”

He didn’t have
to glance over this time. He could hear her full-blown smile in her voice. He
asked her about her day so far, and she told him he’d asked for it. She started
in with a hilarious story about an insane cab driver complete with wild hand
gestures.

Later, after he
shifted the jeep into a higher gear as he pulled onto the interstate, he put a
hand on her knee. Just taking a chance since she seemed so friendly today. And
after she’d sounded like she was in such a bad mood earlier when she answered
the phone. That was a quick switch. Might he be the reason for the switch?
Stranger things had happened. Probably.

She put a hand
over his and asked him about his day so far. Maybe she was in a good mood
because she’d been rescued from the airport.
And maybe, just
maybe.
Most hopefully?
Maybe there was more to
it.

#

When they got
to Owen’s house, he pulled her bag out of the jeep and brought it inside for
her. He introduced her to his mom, and she’d already met Jeremy of course. The
introduction as a friend was somehow a letdown, and that shocked her.
Friends was
all they were. At the absolute most they were
friends. She wanted it that way. Of course she did.

She offered to
help with dinner, but Owen’s mom insisted that she relax after the day she’d
had. She told Owen to get Marci a glass of wine.

“I warned you
she’s territorial in the kitchen,” Owen murmured to her before wandering off to
get the wine.

Owen’s mom
stood over an
aluminum mixing
bowl, whipping something
inside of it with a whisk. “Just go relax in the living room, hon,” she said as
if they’d known each other for years. “He’ll be in there in a minute.”

Marci slipped
into the living room and made her way over to a dusty bookshelf covered with frames
holding family photos. She recognized Jeremy and Owen of course. They were high
school age in most of the photos. There was a girl in the younger pictures of
the boys who seemed to be just a little older than them. She had the dark hair
and olive skin of Owen and Jeremy’s mother.
A sister, maybe?
Strangely, she was no longer in the pictures after the senior photos and high
school cap and gown series. There were only a couple recent pictures of Jeremy
and Owen even.

Marci’s gaze
locked on what she assumed was a family portrait. There were Jeremy and Owen
and the dark haired girl again. Behind them were the mom and a man who must
have been the dad. He was supermodel gorgeous.
If possible,
even more attractive than his sons.
If possible.
They were clearly his sons—Owen and Jeremy looked just like this man. The
dad resembled a younger Ralph Lauren a little. Maybe even better looking than
Ralph. And his sons could be Ralph Lauren models. Man, Owen and Jeremy would
only get better with age apparently.

Their mom was
pretty, but in a girl-next-door kind of way. The kind of pretty that could
easily go unnoticed. Dad’s looks would definitely never go unnoticed. Dad’s
hair was going silver at the temples. She was wondering how old he might be and
where he was when she heard feet padding over the carpet behind her. Owen’s
hand, holding a glass of wine, wound in front of her, his arm lightly touching
hers.

“Thanks.” She
looked up as she took the glass from him. Yeah, he would only get better with
age. No man could look that gorgeous and not be dangerous. Not even a seemingly
nice, unassuming one like Owen. And what was up with that anyway? He was way
too nice for his looks. Pretty boys were jerks way more often than not. And
what was to stop them? It’s not like they had to be nice so people would like
them. The first thing people say when describing a pretty boy is definitely
not,
oh he has a great personality.
Even
if he does.

“I see you
found the family photo collection.” Owen remained close even now that she had
her glass of wine in hand. He put his arms around her waist.

“What would
your mom think if she walked in here?” Marci sipped her wine. “You told her we’re
just friends.”

“That we’re
very friendly friends. Anyway, she’s not going to walk in here.”

Marci didn’t
push him away, but she didn’t lean against him or otherwise encourage him,
either. “Who are these extra people in the photos? I’m assuming the guy is your
dad. You and your brother look just like him.”

“Yeah.”
Something changed in Owen’s voice when he said that one, simple word. There was
obviously more to it, but he didn’t elaborate. “The girl’s my sister.”

“Where are
they?”

“Dead,” Owen
said.

Marci turned in
his arms. “Owen, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have asked
,
I wouldn’t have pried if I’d known.”