Lord, was he clueless. “Trust me,” Kellen said. “You need to go after her.”
Owen didn’t seem too keen on following her upstairs. Every interaction Kellen had had with Caitlyn, she’d come across as even-tempered and easy-going. He doubted she was planning to take off Owen’s head at the neck, but she was pissed. She probably just wanted him to put up a few barriers around himself when it came to Lindsey. Lindsey was obviously trying to court his favor, and she did have the added pull of a baby on the way. And now that Kellen was onboard with helping, Owen would likely get behind the idea of becoming a father even more.
Owen shrugged, but before he could go upstairs to get his deserved tongue lashing from Caitlyn, his phone rang. He looked visibly relieved when he answered it.
“Hey, Mom, we just fin—” His body stilled as he listened to whatever his mother was saying on the other end of the line.
His lips trembled when he asked, “What’s wrong?” Owen visibly paled. “I’ll be right there.”
Before Kellen could ask what had happened, Owen dashed out of the house at a full run, not even bothering to shut the front door.
Kellen took off after him, watching him race down the sidewalk toward his parents’ house. “Owen, what is it?” he called, but Owen didn’t miss a step.
A hand grabbed Kellen’s arm. “Where’s he going so fast?”
Kellen didn’t even bother to look at Lindsey when he said, “Something’s wrong.”
“Do you think it’s Joan?”
He didn’t even want to consider the possibility. The woman was a mother to him. Owen’s parents meant far more to Kellen than his own parents ever had. They’d given him the family he’d craved when his own had been worthless. As Kellen started up the sidewalk, his hurried steps hastened until he too was running. “Wait,” Lindsey hollered. “I can’t keep up with you.”
He wanted to race after Owen, but slowed to give Lindsey time to catch up and then took her hand, urging her to waddle as fast as she could.
When Owen yanked open the gate of his parents’ front yard, Kellen tried to get Lindsey to move faster. Owen didn’t slow down as he bounded up the porch steps and tore into the house. Kellen left Lindsey at the gate and raced after him. He stopped short in the foyer. Joan’s broken voice came from the living room, but he couldn’t understand her words. Kellen hurried in that direction and paused in the doorway. The sight of Joan crumpled on the floor, tears streaming down her face as she told Owen things that Kellen couldn’t comprehend, tore him to shreds. He didn’t go to her to offer comfort, knowing she’d rather lean on her real son, not the wannabe watching her fall apart from the doorway. The numbness in Kellen’s throat spread through his chest, down his arms, and all the way to his fingertips as what she was saying began to sink in.
Chad—Owen’s older brother, the older brother of Kellen’s heart—was finally coming back from war. He wasn’t returning in a coffin—by some miracle—but he’d been injured. Grievously injured. A loud buzz filled Kellen’s head. There was no air in the room. He couldn’t breathe. Choking on emotion, he turned from the sight of Owen trying to comfort his distraught mother and stumbled to the front porch. He gasped for breath, surprised there was no air outside either. James’s familiar car roared up the driveway and into the garage off the side of the house. Kellen closed his eyes, glad he wouldn’t have to see James’s face when he heard the news about his eldest son. Kellen bit his lip, fighting the pain that threatened to suffocate him.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there when he heard footsteps stop behind him.
He turned to find Owen, face white with shock, standing on the porch. His stunned expression blurred as the tears Kellen had been fighting flooded his eyes. He grabbed onto Owen, not sure if he was trying to comfort or be comforted, but he needed something to keep him standing. Emotions warred within him as he pulled Owen closer. And Kellen had no idea what possessed him when Owen tilted his head back to look up at him. Kellen leaned closer—wanting Owen to stop looking so sad, wanting him to smile again, wanting something . . . something more.
Kellen kissed him, wishing Owen resisted, wishing Owen didn’t feel so right against him, wishing—some part of him wishing—that Owen was his. The feelings Kellen felt as he deepened the kiss were even more confusing than the all-encompassing lust that slammed into his lower gut. Desire heated his blood, and the kiss, which had started as a way to comfort, burned through him so hot, he was completely out of his mind.
When he tugged away gently, the need to tell Owen what had been building inside him for years outweighed his need to continue kissing him. “I want you,” Kellen said. He wanted him in every capacity of that word. Not just physically, but on every level.
Owen blinked—awakening from his stupor. “You want me?”
God, yes, why had he been denying it so long? “I want you.”
Owen’s face crumpled with anguish, and Kellen was so shocked by his reaction that Owen slipped from his grasp. And then Owen was running. Running away. Not returning Kellen’s newly realized feelings. Running. Running so hard he crashed into the front gate and struggled to get it open before he stumbled onto the sidewalk and then jetted toward home.
“Owen,” Kellen called after him, tripping down the porch steps. He covered his mouth with one hand, the feel of Owen’s lips still on his own.
“What have I done?” he said into his hand.
That had actually happened. He hadn’t imagined it while tied up and on the verge of orgasm. Kellen had kissed Owen, and while their mouths had been pressed together and Owen had gone submissive in his arms, Kellen had convinced himself that what he’d done had been natural. That it had been right.
But there was nothing right about that kiss except the way it had made him feel at the time. But not the way he felt now. He’d taken advantage of Owen’s grief to take something from him.
“Owen,” he called again, though Owen was much too far away to hear him now.
“He wants you too,” Lindsey said from behind him. “I saw it in you both that night on the bus.”
Lindsey was the absolute last person Kellen wanted validation from. He didn’t say a word to her as he walked toward the gate. And then he was trotting, then jogging, then running as fast as his legs would carry him.
When he reached Owen’s front door, he tried to open it, but found it locked. He rang the doorbell, knocked, banged on the polished mahogany surface until his entire arm ached, but no one answered his summons.