The sound of Claire's belly laugh was filling the subway car, her right hand linked with Owen's, their fingers curled around each other's. His eyes were soft on her while she kept laughing, he took advantage of the moment and let his thumb gently caress the back of her hand and play with her knuckles.
She had been laughing for a few seconds and the sound of it was simply the most adorable he had ever heard. He had made a quick mental note to try make her laugh as much as he could, it was a good thing he thought of himself as someone humorous and that she found him to be actually funny.
"I'm pretty sure that's a foul." She managed to say between her laughter. She was resting her free hand on her stomach, and then reached over to brush some light tears from her eyes. She couldn't remember when was the last time she had laughed this hard.
"It's not!" He promised, "it's called the sneak attack tactic." He explained. They had been engaging in thumb-wresting for about fifteen minutes now, and for that last match Owen had used his pointer finger to take her over.
"And I'm sure you have the how-to-play manual with you to back this up." She nodded incredulously. Claire wasn't an expert on this little game, but she was positive that using any other finger but your thumb to try defeat the opponent had to be cheating.
"You are the kind who has to read the whole guide before playing, aren't you?" He teased her, "it must be a blast to play board games with you." He sarcastically pointed out, "according to page six section four, if you land on space twenty you get double points." He started with a mocking voice.
"There's not such thing as a 'sneak attack tactic'." She decided to ignore his observation since he was absolutely right about that aspect of her personality, and instead decided to bring the subject back on track.
"There is!" He insisted with a chuckle, "but okay, it's not valid. We are still three - two." He nodded in agreement, a smile on his face. Claire was beating him by one point so far. It was impressive how strong she was and also how determined. Each passing second he spent talking to her and just getting to know her, the more he knew she was the one.
The redhead licked her lips and nodded, she chuckled and took a deep breath trying to keep her laugher under control. "One, two, three, four, we declare a thumb war." She started this time, both of them following the little initiation.
"Five, six, seven, eight, with this hand I masturbate." Owen added as he kept moving his thumb from one side of hers to the other.
"Oh lord." Claire blushed and laughed some more, however she didn't fail on tightening her grip around his fingers. If what he wanted was to catch her off guard, then she was not going to let him have it. She fixed her green eyes on his hazel ones. It almost felt like they were having both a thumb war and a stare contest simultaneously.
She giggled and tilted her head while both their thumbs wrestled it out. She moved her eyes down to their hands and bit on her lips trying to concentrate. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her, and kept smiling to himself watching her wrinkle her nose and just focus on memorizing every little gesture she did.
Maybe that was the reason behind her triumph over him; he just kept getting distracted by her and it eventually ended with Claire being able to pin his thumb down for those three seconds.
She celebrated her victory until she brought her sight back and caught him staring. The redhead couldn't help fix her eyes on his and smile softly. They both were quiet for a second, just letting their eyes express how much they were enjoying this little moment. A second that made Owen wonder if this is how heaven felt like.
"So—" She cleared her throat and looked away after realizing how easy she was letting herself get lost in his expressive hazel eyes, "where did you learn to wrestle?" She went back to the casual conversation they were having before they started playing. Claire tried to get her hand back, but Owen pulled it closer to him and kept his fingers curled around hers just like they had been for a while.
"High school." He shrugged. His freehand slowly reached over and he allowed his finger pads gently brush the freckles on her forearm. She had taken off her blazer half way into their game and it was now between her and the subway wall on top her bag.
She chuckled and bit on the inside of her lips while her eyes watched his fingers explore each of her freckles. The feeling of his rough fingertips ignited tickles that she could feel traveling along her arm and explode in her belly.
"My dad said I had to pick a sport and I figured wrestling would get my mom so nervous and unease that she'd make my dad have me quit." He shared with a soft tone of voice. "But I ended up actually liking it." He finally looked up from her creamy arm up to her eyes and offered a cheeky smile, his hand still gently caressing her arm.
They were strangers and her mind was screaming this back at her, but her heart kept making her feel comfortable around him. She didn't mind that a man she had just met an hour ago was caressing her arm and keeping her fingers hostage around his. It felt good, actually. It gave her this fuzzy feeling in her stomach. The famous butterflies.
"And then the Navi." She nodded, she had been paying attention to everything he had shared with her about his life and she could tell he had done the same. Forty-five minutes of casual conversation had felt like the most honest one she had had in her life. She could only wonder what else there was to know about him and she was hoping to find out in the next half an hour of their subway trip to the city.
"Yes, babe." He smiled, his hand pulling back not wanting to overdo the affection it had been offering. Owen was a man of opportunity, calling her babe had been very much intentional. He had been studying the way her skin reacted to his touch, the way her lips curved into a smile at the feeling, and how she didn't flinch back. Now he was waiting for her reaction to such a pet name.
Claire pursed her lips lightly and narrowed her eyes gently at the sound of it. She was the kind of woman who would have demanded he didn't call her 'babe' or any other name of the sorts. However, she let it pass; enabling him to try get more intimate.
"What about you? What kind of power is the one you crave?" He had learned she was a political science major and was now working as a legislative assistant. He could only assume she was a woman who liked to be in control, he had noticed a couple of trades in her personality that corroborated this.
The redhead couldn't even deny she wanted power, was there truly a political science major out there who didn't? Why study laws and how to make them, bend them, break them if you weren't interested in creating your own? "I want to be able to create rules that will protect animals and bring awareness to their rights as living creatures." She simply stated.
It figured, a control freak who needed to read all the rules so she could then scratch them and create her own, "So you are a little rule breaker, aren't you?" He tried to put it nicely. "What is the wildest thing you've ever done? When it comes to breaking rules, I mean." He asked, very interested in that side of her. He was the same, and wanted to see if they were compatible in a way. Who was he kidding, really? He was already in love with her and didn't care about compatibility, he was just curious to see how wild she was.
"When I was in high school, my back then boyfriend and I broke into our school during summer break so we could use the pool." She laughed and looked down, letting her hair fall on her face to cover her warm red cheek. "That's lame now that I say it ten years later." She shook her head.
"No...no." He chuckled along. "It's cute." He nodded, his thumb slowly started to wrestle hers while their fingers were still curved around each other. He had their hands resting on his lap as they casually let their fingers play. "Have you ever played twenty questions?" He was finding an excuse to keep asking her things that would reveal to him more about who she was, and at the same time gather some intimate details about her.
"I'll go first." She immediately agreed to play along, he had just asked her something and she figured it was only fair if she asked next. "What childish thing do you still enjoy?" She smirked softly. He was calling her out for being someone who liked control, so she was letting him know she had taken noticed and it was evident he was still a child in many ways.
"I like peeing in snow." He answered bluntly with his hands in the air and a shrug, it was true. He could do that all day, just pull his pants down and draw with pee over the snow.
Claire laughed which made him smile brightly, "so you are the kind who signs their name in the snow." She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Yeah." He shrugged. "Okay my turn, what is the most embarrassing thing you own?" He asked her with a light smile and tilted his head, his eyes on her lips.
Claire smiled at his question and looked up for a moment, she really needed to think this one through. It probably had to be something from her teenage years, she was a teen in the late nineties so this one shouldn't be hard, "a copy of Savage Garden's Affirmation." She started laughing, "does that count?"
"Yes, specially if you still own it." He gave her a look, that was some garbage she listened to, the young man thought to himself.
"What about your t-shirt? Is that the kind of girl you like? Your type?" She teased him, making him look down at the sexy woman on a bike he had on it. It was the band's biker pin up T-shirt, it was a classic.
"Not at all." He shook his head, "I just really like the band." He looked up and smiled at her, "I'm more into women who like cheesy pop music." He teased her with a chuckle.
"I'm not into it anymore, so I guess we are no longer compatible." She shrugged and looked away but couldn't help grin to herself, her back on him. She had finally been able to get her hand back.
"You are a hundred percent a match." He assured her before licking his lips.
Claire slowly turned over to face him and smiled back, "What long shot have you taken that really paid off?"
Owen parted his lips ready to tell her, the answer was her. She was his long shot and he really wanted her to know that. But time was up, and the speakers were letting him know they were at his stop.
He gathered his things and let his eyes have a last glance at her, her eyes, and those freckles.
"I guess this is your stop, huh?" She frowned, she didn't want to say goodbye. Claire looked down to her hands after he nodded, but her eyes were soon drawn back to his. She too wanted to memorize the way he looked at her. She'd noticed how easy he got lost in her eyes and she liked the feeling.
"Get off with me." He asked once the subway came to a stop and the doors opened. They had a couple of minutes to get off.
"What?" She frowned.
"You asked me what was the longest shot I've ever taken, this is it. Asking you to get off on my stop and spend the day with me. That's my long shot, I know I'm just a stranger, but don't deny we share this electrifying connection." He's voice was breaking, afraid of rejection. He had learned it was just a fluke that she had been on that train because of a delay and he didn't know if he'd ever see her again.
Claire rubbed her arm and looked out the window. She had work, she had a full day planned out with things she had to do. She couldn't afford to get off the train with a stranger and on a stop that wasn't even hers, in a side of the city she wasn't familiar with. And spend the day with him? That was outrageous.
"Please." He begged her.
She once again found her green eyes lost in his hazel ones, at the moment looking so broken. They had had this spark in them all the ride over and she could see how it was shutting down, like a flame without oxygen. She could also feel that fuzzy feeling in her stomach dying down as the speaker kept insisting the train would start moving soon.
She reached out for her bag and her blazer and taking his hand, they both quickly moved towards the exit. The doors immediately shutting down behind them.
He smiled at her, his heart racing. The moment felt surreal, she had truly gotten off the subway and gifted him with not only an amazing ride to his stop, but with the opportunity to spend the whole day with her. Owen knew this was about to be the best day he could dream of, and some how he had a few hours to figure out how to turn it into the first day of the rest of his life.
