“Yeah?” I acknowledge, pulling my plate in front of me and smelling the aroma steaming from it.
“He’s Santa,” Owen says, pushing his fork in and lifting up a hefty bite of pie. “Not like…the real Santa. I mean he plays Santa. Every year, at the hospital.”
I take a moment to admire the man he pointed out, watching closely as he laughs with his brothers, all of them large and weathered, but wearing smiles that are infectious. Santa looks like he’s picked up his mother’s duties, and at one point, he’s actually whistling as he peels a ringlet of skin away from an apple.
“Do you know them well?” I ask, stopping to take my first bite of pie. The second it hits my tongue, I concede, my eyes flipping to Owen’s while the flakiness of the crust disintegrates into a perfect buttery blend in my mouth, the caramel coating the crunch of the apple, and the tartness coming through at the end. “Holy shit!”
Owen laughs so hard he has to cover his mouth with his arm, his mouth still full from his bite, he’s coughing from almost choking. “I told you. It really is good pie,” he says, and I like the way his eyes look right now. This moment. This is the Owen Harper I like the very best. “And yeah, I know them pretty well. House’s mom is married to the cashier; his name’s Dale. And my dad…”
Owen stops there. He’s pretending to chew his bite while he looks out at the festival crowd, his thumb rubbing over the handle of his fork. After several long seconds, he brings his eyes back to mine, taps his fork a few times on his plate while his teeth hold the edge of his tongue, almost as if he’s deciding how much of himself is safe to reveal. “My dad used to help out at the hospital with him…on the holidays. I remember a little, but I was four or five, so it’s all sort of fuzzy, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know fuzzy,” I say, thinking about my youth, before my life became all about the piano and concertos and following in my father’s footsteps. Owen looks away again, and I can tell he’s trying to remember more, feel more—bring his past in line with the present. I study him while he’s not looking at me. His eyelashes are long and dark, and his jaw is squared, like a man’s. My last boyfriend, if you could call him that, had soft skin, a voice that wasn’t fully settled in and he watched cartoons in the afternoons. Jacob was privileged, and drove his father’s Infiniti to school every day. But looking at Owen now and holding him up against what I remember of Jacob, I realize just how far away from becoming a man he was.
“Why do people think you’re so much trouble?” I blurt out, and Owen laughs through his last bite, holding his hand over his mouth so he doesn’t lose it.
“Kens, I mean…all this?” he says, waving his hand from the top of his head down to his legs, all the while still chewing and mumbling through his words. “I’m pretty high maintenance.”
He reserves his serious face while I stare at him, and eventually I pick up the edge of my crust and throw it at him.
“Hey, that’s like a felony, you know—wasting perfectly good crust! Shame on you, pie privileges revoked,” he says, stealing my plate away.
“You can have it. Ugggg, I’m so full,” I say, hand rubbing my stomach.
Owen doesn’t even hesitate, shrugging and piling the remnants of my pie into his mouth in two bites—then carefully dragging his fork over the surface to make sure he’s captured every single crumb. It makes him seem like a little boy, and frankly, it melts my heart.
He stands when he’s done, carrying both of our plates to the trash, and I take advantage of this moment to admire his body, how tall he is, how broad his shoulders are, how warm everything about him looks. A part of me is aching to touch him.
“Seriously, what’s the story behind your story?” I ask again, trying to keep myself focused, hoping I’m not pushing too hard. Owen reaches behind his head, pulling his hood over his hat and zipping the front of his jacket closed while he stuffs his hands inside the pockets. He does this when he’s uncomfortable, and I’ve seen him do it before, but this time his smile doesn’t leave his face.
“Yo, Ryan,” he says, leading me over to the next table, where the rest of my friends are still finishing their slices. “So Kens wants to know why people think I’m an asshole.”
“Hey!” I shout, slapping my hand against his arm. “I did not say that!”
“No, not directly. But, let’s face it, Kens. People don’t call me trouble; they call me an asshole,” he says, his lips pressed together in a tight smile, his shoulders raised.