SafetyInNumbers-Final (20 page)

“That was perfect,” Owen whispered, completely stunned. For the first time in too many years, the voices that ridiculed him and banished him were silent. Chris wanted him, Owen Connor the outcast, to be his whole world. They were going to do the work and build a family together, because Chris saw him as his whole world. His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest and he wanted to say something sappy and romantic, but Chris still looked uncomfortable.

Owen knew that Chris’s life up until this point hadn’t included much in the way of tender moments. Chris was strong and decisive, and Owen needed to give a decisive response. There would be time to learn how to be sappy and romantic together because they were building their own world together. With his heart swelling in his chest, Owen borrowed some of that strength and admitted, “I think of us as a couple too. Can we add that to our decision? We focus on our future and do the work together because we’re a couple.”

“And we hold each other to it. If you see me getting lost
, I expect you to call me on it, just as I’ll do for you.  Deal?”
Chris was answering before he finished speaking and that enthusiasm was a great confidence booster.

“Deal.” It was the easiest deal Owen had ever made. The whole decision thing had felt like an impossible task until they added that qualifier. Getting that confirmation, and knowing that Chris had been as afraid as he was, was a game changer. Seeing that fear didn’t make him think of Chris as weak, so why had he always believed fear and weakness went together? “So, I’m not sure how to do this. Can you ask questions and I’ll promise to answer them?”

“If it makes it easier for you, sure.” Chris tugged him closer and kissed him quickly on the forehead. “Why are you afraid of the dark?”

His natural instinct was to deflect, but their decision—their promise to each other—enabled the words to flow freely. “I was pretty scrawny as a kid, but it was worse because Bull was always big. The other kids never missed an opportunity to point out the differences between us, you know? It was just petty shit until Bull saw this group of boys pushing me around and stepped in.”

“That’s what big brothers do,” Chris pointed out, and Owen knew he believed that wholeheartedly because he’d done exactly that for Liam.

“Except the next year my big brother was off to middle school and those tormentors were just biding their time until they could get me alone.” Just thinking about it made him shiver, and Chris tugged on his hand again until he was as close as the seatbelt and the console would allow. It was enough for him to continue. “A few days into the school year, they trapped me in the boy’s room, shut off all the lights, and beat the crap out of me. They called me weak and pathetic, and...other things. When it was over, one of them said that was my only warning and if I ever called my big brother on them again, it would be ten times worse.”

“I’m guessing it didn’t stop there.” It wasn’t a question and Owen realized that Chris knew what it felt like to be bullied. Again, it was poor word choices that had blinded Owen to how similar their pasts were. The physical and psychological abuse Chris suffered was bullying at its worst because David Ellis was supposed to be someone he could trust.

“The beatings did for the most part, but the constant ridicule and lack of acceptance lasted all through school. The few friends I thought I had were afraid to get picked on by association, so I was totally on my own. An outcast. The thing is, I never asked Bull for help that day and I blamed him for making me a target.” Owen banged his head on Chris’s shoulder. “It was wrong and so stupid, but I can’t tell him that. He’ll feel guilty now for not protecting me then, even though he didn’t know I still needed protection. How does that help us fix our relationship?”

“I don’t know, but you’re both working on it and maybe that’ll be enough. If it isn’t, we’ll talk to him together. Okay?” Chris asked. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did, he would need Chris at his side. “So how’d you wind up in prison?”

“The same way I stopped the bullying. In my junior year of high school, I stumbled upon the stoners getting high on the loading dock and it was like they forgot I was the outcast. It was totally the drugs talking, but they pulled me into their circle and passed me a joint like I belonged. One drag had me puking my guts up and they started bitching about needing better weed. I knew where to get it.” Owen grinned when Chris looked at him in shock. “There was a dealer that lived down the street who was screwing his wife’s sister every Saturday morning while the wife was at spin class. I told him what I needed and what I knew. We came to an agreement and just like that all the harassment stopped.”

“You blackmailed a drug dealer and stopped your tormentors by supplying them with his drugs?” Chris shook his head a little and said, “I’m not sure if that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard or the most ingenious.”

Owen always had the same conflict. On the one hand, he had found a way to solve his problem, at least for a few years. On the other, he resorted to criminal activity to do it. “Just weed and it was crazy ingenious right up until I got caught in a raid and the cops were pissed that I ruined months of their work. They told me that Jimmy—that was the dealer—set me up. They said that they found guns layered under the drugs in the crates they confiscated and that I was in deep shit unless I told them everything I knew. The cops, the DA, and a public defender made a deal where I would testify against Jimmy in exchange for a reduced sentence.”

“They sent you to prison with a target on your back.” The leather around the steering wheel creaked under Chris’s grip and his voice was the most menacing Owen had ever heard it. Instead of being afraid, he just wanted to get closer.

“It was actually a lot like being bullied in school, but when they lock you in the bathroom and shut off all the lights, it’s never just a warning. Billy saved my ass and took me under his protection, but we both knew they weren’t going to stop until I was dead.” Owen realized he was a few inches from climbing over the console and forced himself back. Last thing he wanted to do was cause them to get a ticket or worse. “They finally got me thrown in solitary and Jimmy came personally to finish the job. It’s fuzzy after that, just bits and pieces, but I was the only one who walked out of that room. I would still be in jail for it if the guard he paid off had known about the extra cameras the prison had installed.”

They drove in silence for a while, each in their own thoughts, and he knew Chris’s weren’t good from the way the leather kept creaking under his hand. Owen wasn’t sure if this was helping them or not, but he didn’t know how to move it forward or end it, so he just waited. Eventually, Chris sighed and pressed another kiss to his head. “I heard you tell Saul and Billy that you see yourself when you hit the bag, that you feel sick inside.”

“Do you realize that I could have stopped it all if I had been able to ask Bull or my father or the teachers at school for help? But as soon as I would open my mouth I’d remember that beat down, remember the hateful things they said and the constant threats. It became so big in my head that just the idea of asking for help makes me sick.” Even saying it out loud made him stomach roll dangerously. “I caused my family twenty years of pain, I became a drug dealer, and I killed a man because I was such a pathetic loser that I couldn’t admit that I needed help. When I think about the Owen that I want to be, he’s the guy you described—smart, kind, funny—and then I remember he’s really just an asshole and I hate him so much.”

The second wave of nausea had him lunging for his window and jamming the down button until he could fit his head out. Chris grabbed the back of his shirt to hold him steady and jerked the truck around to pull into a lot on the other side of the road. Horns blared and lights flashed in his eyes, before the truck lurched to a stop. “Open the door and put your head between your knees.”

He couldn’t believe he was about to ruin their trip before they even arrived at the hotel. Owen heard the driver’s door open and then Chris was next to him. “Okay, baby, let it out.”

“What?” The last thing he wanted to do was throw up in front of Chris again, much less on the side of the road with no place to clean up.

“Get all that shit out of your system because this is the last time. We’re purging all those demons right now. You trusted me with your secrets, now trust me when I tell you that the Owen I know and love is not an asshole. I’m actually pretty pissed that the other Owen even dared to say that to me. So we’re going to leave him right here on the side of the road.”

“Did you just say that you loved me?” Owen jerked back so he could see Chris’s face. Surely he misunderstood or those receptors in his brain were misfiring again and he actually had brain damage.

“Yep. Still want to throw up?” Chris gestured to the ground and declared, “Last chance.”

Oddly enough, he no longer felt the need to vomit. “You’re crazy.”

“Crazy ingenious. If I kiss you now, am I risking a really embarrassing situation for both of us?” Chris leaned down and covered his mouth, obviously uncaring of the answer. There had been little kisses before and each one had left him tingly. This was not a little kiss. With Chris’s tongue in his mouth and that big body shielding him from the world, Owen knew his brain was working just fine. He might not know his own name when it was over, but he would definitely know Chris loved him.

Five minutes or five hours later, Chris eased back and looked him over. “Are we clear?”

“Uh huh.” Owen meant to agree and he meant to tell Chris that he loved him too, but that was all that came out.

“Great.” Chris nudged him back into the seat, secured his belt, and closed the door. When Chris slid into the driver’s seat, his grin was so big it took up most of his face.

“I love you too,” Owen blurted out as Chris turned the truck back onto the road. They may never get a handle on sappy and romantic, but he meant the words with his whole heart.

Chris sobered a little and he pulled Owen’s hand up for a kiss. “Thank you.”

Owen didn’t know what Chris was thanking him for, but it was misplaced. “Don’t thank me, you and I made this decision together.”

That brought Chris’s big grin back instantly. “Yeah, we did and we’re going to make all the decisions together from now on.”

Owen didn’t have the same feelings about religion that his brother did, he actually didn’t give it much thought at all, but right now he was grateful for whatever higher power had been listening and finally decided to answer his prayers. “That’s the best decision we’ve ever made.”

Chris’s happy laugh made him feel he’d done something great and he only ever felt that way when he was building something. In a way, that was exactly what they were doing.

Chapter 17

Chris

“Do you know what vacation means?” Chris grabbed the pillow Owen hadn’t used and put it over his face to block out the sun. They arrived at the motel after midnight and had promptly passed out. He didn’t know what time it was now, but he was pretty sure it was too damn early for Owen to be up and working on his tablet. At least he hadn’t gotten out of bed.

“I do actually know the meaning of the word,” Owen teased as he yanked the pillow away. “It means we get to sleep late, which we did.”

“That doesn’t look like sleep.” Chris lifted his head to glare at the tablet in Owen’s hands. “That looks like work.”

“Well.” Owen eased down until his head was on Chris’s shoulder and held it up where they could both see it. “It’s not a project that I’m currently working on, but I woke up with it in my head and wanted to get it down.”

Chris scrubbed a hand over his eyes and reached for the tablet. It took his sleepy brain a second to realize Owen was drafting a house. “This is really good.”

“Yeah?” Owen caught his lower lip between his teeth and looked at the drawing. “I have these ideas sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I think we made the right business decision. With the remodels, it’s easier to manage a couple of jobs simultaneously. We have a solid group of guys that work with us and have regular temps we can contract with as needed. There’s very little dead time because the guys know if I don’t need them, Colin might and vice versa. We turn over jobs quicker that way, which make our clients and our bottom line happy.”

Chris didn’t know enough about the construction business in general or Owen’s partnership with Colin to comment, but he had long thought that the two of them liked to stretch themselves a little too thin. Neither of them seemed to like downtime at all and that was probably what made the partnership work. “So what do you do with these ideas you get?”

“I sell them to other builders or online through a blueprint site.”

“Huh. I didn’t know that was a thing.”

“Sure.” Owen shrugged as if it was no big deal, but Chris wasn’t buying it. How many Owen Connor custom homes were out there? “Not all builders are drafters, so they hire out. There’s some fancy software options available now that can simplify the process, but the builders that contract me want someone they can call if the plans need to be changed.”

“I’m impressed. Have you ever seen one of your designs brought to life?” When Owen didn’t answer, Chris nudged him. “Of course you have. If those builders want someone they can call to make spur of the moment changes, then they’d want someone local who could actually visit the job site. I want to see them.”