Page 260 of The Hopelessly Bromantic Duet

Owen smiles softly, but doesn’t put his glasses back on.

I shake my head, trying to let loose the pinpricks of feelings racing through me.

Want, love, need.

All these things I’m seeking, too, as I look for Mister Right.

“I’d like that,” Owen says, in a quiet but certain tone.

“Is that what you’re looking for most in a relationship?” I ask, pressing on. “I mean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.”

Oh dear. The innuendo opportunities there.

The things I could say.

The things he could say.

But I choose silence instead, waiting for him.

He nods, then looks at me again as the music shifts to The National’s cover of “Never Tear Us Apart.” Owen swallows visibly, parts his lips, and I stall for a few seconds—my gaze caught on his full lips—before I jerk my attention back to the road.

“What I want most in a relationship...” he starts, but doesn’t finish right away as he stares out the passenger window, then draws a breath before turning back to me. “I want to be good to someone. I want someone who wants me to be good to him. Who’d want what I have to give.”

I nearly swerve into the next lane as a rush of warmth spreads across my skin.

I grip the wheel tighter, focusing on the road.

Just the road.

Not those swoony, sweet, and powerful words.

But they play on repeat in my head, his voice echoing, and I am so screwed.

Something stronger than temptation is taking hold.

Something clutching my heart.

I don’t know what the hell to do with it.

I just nod, letting the music fill the void. “I bet you have a lot to give,” I say in the understatement of my life.

“I do,” Owen says, and his tone is different. There’s a vulnerability in it that feels almost personal. Possibly suggestive, but it’s not sexual; it’s just intimate. “River?”

My breath catches, but I swallow it quickly. “Yes?”

“You never answered my question. Did you dislike Ezra all along?”

My mind cycles back to those days when Owen dated Ezra. When they swung by The Lazy Hammock. When they went to coffee together and I sometimes, maybe, caught a few minutes with my friend. When they went to concerts at night, and all I got was a morning-after report on the band.

Did I dislike him all along?

Maybe I did.

From day one.

Since he took Owen from me.

“Yes,” I say, but I don’t elaborate. Don’t want to say why, especially since I’m just now starting to put two and two together. I cast about for a new topic, one that doesn’t tug on my heart unexpectedly.