Page 81 of In at the Deep End

Matt glanced up. “Already?”

Owen laughed. “When you volunteered to go to the reunion, didn’t you think to ask when it was?” Before Matt could confess he didn’t have a clue, Owen continued, “It’s next week.”

He blinked. “But… Dad only got the email last week. Surely they give you more notice than that.”

Owen drank from his bottle before answering. “That was possibly the third reminder. I suspect your dad had been putting it off because of your granddad. And if I’m honest, I’d almost decided not to attend until you offered to go in their place.”

Matt stared at him. “Then what changed your mind?”

Owen smiled. “Do you really think I was going to let you walk into a room full of people you’ve never met on your own?” He shrugged. “Coming with you seemed the obvious thing to do.”

Matt wasn’t sure why those words pleased him as much as they did.

Owen pointed towards the wheelbarrow. “Back to work.”

He gave a mock salute. “Right away… boss.”

Owen rolled his eyes, but there was the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Matt bent to lift another paving slab. As he straightened, he caught Owen looking, just for a second.

Owen’s eyes flicked away almost immediately, and Matt felt an absurd little spark of satisfaction.

Mr Cool, Calm and Collected wasn’t quite as impossible to fluster as he’d first appeared.

Matt still didn’t know what any of it meant, but he was beginning to enjoy finding out.

Chapter Sixteen

Matt fed another photograph into the scanner and watched the progress bar creep across the screen. This one showed a barbecue. Three men were caught mid-laughter, and someone in leather pulled a face at the camera.

The photographs had become strangely addictive. Every evening he’d promised himself he’d scan “just another dozen.”

Every evening it had turned into another hundred.

He clicked Save, slid the next photograph into place, and pressed the button again. The scanner hummed.

Matt’s thoughts wandered.

Owen had said casual worked for him. On paper, Matt could see the appeal. He’d watched enough relationships implode at university to know they weren’t always the fairy tales people pretended they were. Friends who’d spent months analysing text messages. Others who’d lurched from one relationship to the next, every breakup somehow louder than the last. People wondering where they stood, hoping the other person wanted the same thing. And each relationship comprised more guessing than actual talking.

Owen seemed to have stripped all that away. No games, no guesswork, just two adults deciding what they wanted.

Maybe that’s why casual works. If everyone understands the rules, why wouldn’t it?

If neither of them lied, if nobody expected forever, if no one got hurt…

The scanner finished, and Matt removed the photograph. He stared at it.

But that isn’t the whole story, is it?

The casual relationships weren’t what had shaped Owen. Ben had done that.

Everything else had come afterwards.

Matt rested the photograph on the pile. It suddenly seemed obvious.

Owen hadn’t stopped believing in love. He’d loved once so completely that he no longer expected lightning to strike twice.