My Boys: Beneath the Surface– Chapter 6
Owen watched a few feet away from him as Amelia frowned with the cell phone on her ear. The sound coming from the TV prevented him for hearing what she was saying, but Owen wasn't all that worried about listening. Instead, he would much rather to be looking.
His wife distractedly paced back and forth in the hallway while talking back to whoever she was having a conversation with over the phone, and the healthy glow on her face after spending the entire day outside in the sun didn't escape Owen's eyes. The colorful pajama shorts exposed her toned, shapely legs and bare feet. The gray tank top she was wearing provided him with a vision of her adorable cleavage, her chest going up and down with every breath as she excitedly spoke. Owen's eyes lingered on her round, petite shoulders and the way her entire body moved as she now laughed at something the person on the line had said.
The trauma surgeon completely gave up on the news reporter who now talked incessantly on the TV, watching his wife with a delighted smile on his face. Even though over the years Amelia had turned into a responsible adult, mom of five and head of department, to him she would always be that lively, smiley young woman who liked to give tight hugs and devoted herself completely to everything that was important to her.
"Owen, you won't believe this, I have the best news ever," Amelia came in his direction with an excited look on her face, "Addie is going to make it to the wedding this weekend! Isn't that amazing?"
He agreed with a head nod, genuinely happy that they would see Addison Montgomery.
"Is Jake coming too? I haven't seen him in a while."
"No, he is not," Amelia said with a somber voice. She knew that as Owen had gotten to know Jake, the two guys shared an affinity. "But at least we'll have good company there!"
Amelia's insult to her family caught his attention and when he noticed the mischievous smile on her face, Owen couldn't help himself any longer. Closing his hand around her fist, he swiftly pulled her into his lap, holding her captive in his arms.
"I thought your friend William was already good enough company?"
Amelia noticed the spark in Owen's eyes as he tried to hide the contempt in his voice, but the way his jaw was tense was a telltale of his absolute antagonism towards the situation.
"Oh, boy, this took long enough to come up," Amelia chuckled with joy, seeing the undeniable signs of jealousy in her husband's eyes and voice. Two days had passed since Liz had showed up and Amelia had used the situation to make peace with Owen, but they hadn't yet talked about the previous Sunday night dinner at Nancy's house and the person who had been introduced to her husband.
"What has?" Owen asked with a serious, ill-tempered voice, unable to hide his discontentment.
"The William talk," Amelia straightforwardly answered, feeling her husband's arms possessively tightening his grip around her. Seeing Owen so worked up was absolutely endearing, because he never admitted to jealousy. Bending over, Amelia surrounded his neck with one arm and looked deeply into his eyes, being charming on purpose. "I'll tell you all about him if you admit you're jealous."
"I'm not jealous," Owen promptly agreed, for the first time feeling annoyed at his wife's adorable dimpled smile.
"Owen," Amelia insisted with stubborn determination, having more fun than she imagined. After seeing his refusal to voice he was jealous, Amelia splayed one of her hands on the curve of his jaw, seductively forcing eye contact with him. "You are so jealous."
"I am not," He insisted, fighting the urge to trap her underneath him on the couch and wipe that silly smug smile off her face with his lips. "I just find it interesting that you like to brag about how you share absolutely everything with me, how you often say it to my face to make me talk to you even when I don't want to, but when it comes to your family you never give me any explanations when I ask you. Not one."
Owen watched as the impact of his words was slowly processed by his wife. He wasn't going to admit to anything because he was sure that once he knew who that silly looking neurologist was, the guy would soon after fall into indifference for him. But since Amelia was pestering him so much, he couldn't help annoying her back, knowing how she avoided the subject like the plague. Preparing himself to hear a ton of accusations and to be stared at with the scorn of icy blue eyes, Owen looked his wife into her eyes expecting to receive a deadly glare back.
"Oh my God, you're such a jerk," Amelia burst out laughing, completely surprising him. Her good mood was contaminating and before he could notice, Owen was genuinely smiling at her. "You are such a pain in the ass, Owen, did you hear what you just said?"
Her laughter was infectious and Owen heard himself laughing too.
"Oh, so when you attack me it's a fair play but when I throw some truths at your face, I'm being an ass?" He raised one eyebrow at her, curious to see how she would deny doing that.
"That's exactly how it works," Amelia surprised him once again, being cute on purpose. She leaned over and kissed his lips with a smile before adding, "I knew you had potential somewhere in you."
"You are unbelievable…" Owen rolled his eyes, feeling her lips playfully kissing him as her muffled laughter echoed in the room.
Silence slowly replaced their words as between Amelia's kisses, Owen sneakily captured her lips with his own, kissing her with erotic intensity. She didn't protest it when his hands firmly grabbed her thighs, shifting her so that Amelia would be straddling his hips. His strong arms pulled her closer, making her chest collide with his as his hand dug through her mass of dark curls.
"See how jealous you are?" Amelia pestered him when Owen finally broke apart, having more fun than before. "That wasn't your I love you kiss, that was your I need to show you you're mine kiss," She reasoned, loving to annoy him.
He looked at her with the impatience of who was trying his best not to lose control.
"Kissing you isn't at all what I do when I am trying to show you you're mine," Owen warned her. "Wanna see?" He asked her with contained fury.
Amelia noticed the vein pulsating in his neck as his entire face got rigid. He was getting worked up and she knew it.
"I'm waiting for your admission," Amelia musically spoke, aware of the reactions that could follow.
"Why does it matter to you to me hear me say I am jealous?" Owen kicked the ball to her corner.
Amelia frowned, caught by surprise. She didn't have a witty, quick response to that. Her teasing face gently transformed into a frustrated expression.
"Because," She sighed, knowing she was giving him all the power, "I hate it how I always tell you I'm jealous of those women who are always on your back at work, trying to get your attention, and yet you never ever admit to me that you're jealous. How do you think that makes me feel?"
Owen starred at her face, seeing the honesty behind her amazing blue eyes. Amelia was just too generous and affectionate. She was good and modest enough to make a sweet, selfless declaration, while he felt like a heartless bastard. Her loving confession broke all of his defenses.
Amelia was taken aback when Owen's lips touched her in a sweet caress. His hands went from her legs to her face and dug in her dark locks, driving him crazy with her inebriating wonderful smell.
"This is my I love you kiss," He shared with a tender smile, wrapping one arm around her back gently. "I love you and finding out about that guy really bothered me. I don't like the way he looks at you," Owen added, rolling his eyes at the admission. Amelia smiled and bit her lower lip playfully, reveling in the closest thing she would get to a confession from him.
"I know," She smiled lively, leaning over to rest her head on his shoulder. They stayed in comfortable silence for a few seconds while she relaxed against his chest, feeling Owen's hands idly running up and down against her back.
"I want to punch every guy who ever looks at you like that, but I can't, because we don't live in the jungle," Owen confessed after a while, making his wife crack up at his words. "Of course I am jealous of you, Amelia. How can you think I am not?" He added, thinking about her adorable figure and how it perfectly matched her amazing personality.
"You did punch my ex fiancé," She brought her head up to look into his eyes, smiling widely at the memory. Amelia was pregnant with Megan at the time James had briefly moved to Seattle and after he'd inadvertently hurt Amelia's fist by holding her, Owen had gotten a bit too physical with him during a basketball game with the guys from the hospital.
"He is lucky I didn't break his entire face," Owen's jaw got harder when he was clearly assaulted by the same memory as his wife. "I still can't believe he dared to touch, let alone hurt you."
"You're cute when you're jealous," Amelia smiled mischievously.
Owen squeezed her hips in response to her insistence, mesmerized by the happiness stamped in her eyes.
"You're annoying."
"I know."
He let out a chuckle and kissed her temple, feeling his wife nestling closer to him. Soon after, Owen's attention shifted to the reporter on the TV and he stayed quietly laying against the couch with Amelia propped on his lap, relaxing against his chest as his hand idly caressed her hair.
"Why do news reporters in Connecticut always talk like they're the Queen of England?" Amelia complained at their grammar propriety, more focused on their accents than on the news. "They're so preppy…"
"Maybe because they're journalists," Owen replied back, laughing at her indisposition. "Reading and writing is basically their jobs."
"And to think I almost moved out here once," She shook her head in disapproval.
"You did?" Owen raised his eyebrows. That was news to him.
"Yes," Amelia replied with simplicity. "When I almost married William."
"When what?"
Amelia let out a chuckle, finally getting to the subject she knew they would eventually have to talk about.
"The house Will lives in right now?" She bit her lower lip in question, seeing Owen give her an assertive nod in response. "Well, he kinda bought it for us to live in."
"Kind of?" Owen didn't think he could be more shocked. Owen tried to organize his thoughts and process the information, but he was so surprised that he just couldn't. "Amelia, were you engaged to him?"
Owen thought he knew about all the important relationships Amelia had had in her life. She had told him all about Ryan and then James, and how she had once committed herself to the trauma physician back in Los Angeles. And Owen had told her about his ex girlfriends, including Beth and his ex wife. But he couldn't process the idea that Amelia had missed out on telling him about someone so important. Someone he hadn't even heard about up until recently.
"We weren't officially engaged, but it was kind of expected of us to get married…" Amelia started out, seeing she wasn't helping her case at all. "Okay, I know you're confused," She said, smiling at how eagerly Owen agreed with a head nod. "I'll just tell you everything from the start."
"Okay," Owen decided, unsure about how he felt in face of the whole situation.
"Okay, so I grew up in Queens, New York, alright? You know that," Amelia sat up and slid over to Owen's side on the couch, keeping her legs on his lap. "Will was one of the kids in the neighborhood. He and his brother went to the same school as we did. Even though my brother and sisters were much older than me, Will was only three years older, so we kind of bonded when I was a teenager." Amelia took a pause to make sure Owen was following up. "We sort of dated when I was in high school and…Well, not really dated. I was only fifteen. We were each other's firsts," Amelia confessed. "He knows about my drug problem," She clarified, seeing in Owen's face he had wondered but was too polite to ask. "In fact I very often used to lash out at him whenever I was having a particularly bad day, poor guy was like a punching bag… "She paused to breathe, feeling deeply regretful about that. "So, at eighteen, I overdosed, nearly killed myself, went to rehab and he was already in Harvard Med. When I got out, I tried for a clean start and decided to give us a chance at a real relationship. You know? I wanted a clean slate, wanted to do the right thing and leave all those awful experiences behind me." She sheepishly admitted. "That's when the whole plans thing started out. Will made a lot of plans," Amelia explained, purposefully hiding the fact that while she had always nurtured fraternal affection towards William, he had always been helplessly in love with her from the day she had broken into his room and had sex with him for the first time when she'd been only fifteen years old just because her friends had talked about sex like it was a big thing and Amelia wanted to prove them wrong. "Of course it didn't work out that well. Not for me, anyway. He was not what I wanted and I was really nasty to him at times…"
"Oh, really?" Owen asked with amused sarcasm, making Amelia playfully slap his arm in response.
"He always did believe we stood a chance though, and when I graduated Harvard, he was already a resident in Mas Gen… I chose to go to Hopkins instead but he never gave up pursuing me. So at the end of my residency, he got the house next to Nancy's the same month he opened his practice. The plan was very simple," Amelia said with a shadow of sadness behind her eyes. "We would get married, live in a rich city in Connecticut, maybe commute to New York for work and have a bunch of kids. All exactly like my brother and sisters did." Amelia confessed, letting out a breath through her nose. "It just felt like the ideal plan, the plan everyone had followed, you know?" She sheepishly asked, looking for Owen's sympathy. Back then, she had been desperately looking to give her family reasons to feel proud of her, something Amelia had felt she never had, that in William's plan, she saw an opportunity to redeem herself for all the sorrow and disappointment she had caused. "So I said yes. I agree to the whole thing and Will was so happy, I don't think I have ever seen him so…" Amelia's voice trailed off as she looked up from her legs to Owen's eyes. "My sisters were too, everyone was thrilled, supporting it and telling me it was the right choice and I believed them," Amelia broke eye contact with her husband, feeling embarrassed. "But then the whole thing just started to feel suffocating, you know? I would wake up in the morning and listen to my mom making wedding plans and I knew, I just knew that wasn't me. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't be happy. So I took off." Amelia confessed, torn between pride and shame. "I accepted a fellow position at Dr. Ginsberg's team and I left."
She looked up to her husband, looking for traces of judgment in his eyes, but found none. Amelia knew she had run many times over in her life, including the day of her wedding. But somehow, from all the people she had ever run from, Owen was the only one she had always come back to.
"So you just broke up with him?" Owen frowned, suddenly feeling sorry for the guy as he tried to process the whole chain of events his wife had told him.
"I called Will and explained. Of course he was heartbroken and I felt really guilty… Then he tried talking me into coming back home a few times and so did my sisters and my mother. At the time, Derek was already in Seattle," She explained.
"So, basically, you did to him the same thing you did to James when you moved from LA to Seattle?" Owen realized, frowning heavily. "Oh, God, Amelia, was there a time in your life when you didn't pull runaway bride?"
"I didn't do it with you!" She complained, offended.
"You did!"
"But I came back," Amelia argued, like that was a winning argument. "So it doesn't count."
Owen stared at her in confusion and the whole absurdity of the situation caught up with him.
"Wait a bit, let me get this straight." He shook his head in confusion. "Did you just say you lost your virginity to that guy?"
When Amelia icily stared at him in return, Owen realized he'd asked the wrong question.
"Of all the things I told you, this is what you absorbed?" She glared at him, nodding her head in disapproval. "Unbelievable, Owen…"
"What?" He scoffed defensively, finding her lovelier than ever. "You just said you wanted me to show more jealousy. I am."
Amelia accusingly squinted at him, showing she did not agree.
"I just said it bothers me that you had sex with him," He confessed. "I don't like it that he's seen you naked, I don't like it that he was your first, I don't want to imagine it because it bothers me to think of you with anyone else. I can't… I can't imagine it," Owen vexingly admitted. "There, I said it. Are you happy now?"
He kept on staring Amelia in the eyes, searching for traces of smugness, anger or even amusement. But when his wife's face was taken over by a sudden expression of panic as she quickly got up from the couch, Owen was left alarmed as Amelia fled the TV room like it was on fire. He heard the loud cry of one of the kids and the whole thing startled him.
"Oh my God, I am being attacked!"
Owen only had time to turn his neck around when he saw Amelia run while an enormous moth flapped its wings aimlessly in her direction, while Danny and Robbie quickly worked their way to catch the insect, visibly distressed.
"What the hell, Danny?" Amelia took her hand to her racing heart, stepping away from the enormous winged bug her sons seem so relieved to have captured. "What are you doing with that gruesome monster inside the house? Where did it come from?"
"It's mine," Danny defensively said, looking like he was on the verge of tears. "I saved her."
Amelia rolled her eyes with impatience and stopped at a safe distance, trying to take a closer look at what was going on. She noticed as Owen came serenely walking from the TV room and crouched down by the boys' height, trying to assess the situation.
"What's going on, guys?" He calmly asked, looking from Danny's red puffy eyes to Robbie, while the oldest twin regained control of the big insect.
"Dan found the Moth by the pool today," Robbie informed. "We called her Domino."
"Because of the round spots on the wings?" Owen asked thinking it was clever. But as he stared at the insect, he noticed one of its wings was severely crooked, which could explain the lousy flight route the moth had taken.
"Because of the pizza," Danny explained with a sniff, obviously still emotionally shaken. "Dad, she had her wing nearly cut off, I think a bird tried to eat her," He explained, horrified, looking from the bug to his father. Owen noticed how his lower lip was trembling when his son added, "so we rescued her and brought her up to our room and fixed her."
"You fixed her?" Owen questioned, looking from the moth's crooked wing to the twins and the finally to Amelia's expression of full aversion as she kept her distance. "How?" He patiently asked.
"We used glue," Robbie said like it was obvious. "Paper worked."
Owen fought the urge to laugh when he looked from Robbie to the moth and then at Danny, who nodded assertively like the two brothers had just executed the most brilliant plan in history. Inspecting the bug more carefully, Owen noticed how the crooked wing could be justified by the craftsmanship of two not very delicate eight year olds.
"You gluedit?" Amelia's shocked expression was evident when she looked from the twins to Owen, receiving his reprimand for not controlling herself in return. "They glued it!" She justified herself, still unable to believe it.
Owen censored her again with his eyes, not at all surprised. Amelia was a big city girl and absolutely dreaded the idea of anything remotely close to spending time outdoors, such as camping, trails and especially bugs.
"Did you try letting it back outside?" Owen gently asked, knowing how sensitive Danny visibly was. "You can't keep her inside the house, Dan. She belongs out there in the yard."
"Yes," The boy replied with a broken voice. "We waited a full round of Mario Kart so the glue would dry and opened the window to let her free."
"But instead of flying outside, she flew down here, towards mom, just falling like that," Robbie explained, looking proud enough for the two of them. "I don't think Domino can fly very well." The boy added with a stern, disappointed face.
Owen breathed out through his nose at the same time he ran a hand through his hair, looking up at Amelia for support. She understood quickly and immediately sympathized. He didn't have the courage to tell his eight year old sons that in their best intention to help the insect, theyhad probably damaged it forever.
"Look, how about we put it back outside by the pool?" Owen suggested, feeling cruel for he knew the animal would probably find an unpleasant fate that evening. But he'd rather feel like he was the monster and let his children go to bed in peace instead of letting the duo realize that the moth wouldn't be able to fly again. "Maybe Domino shouldsleep where she is used to so she can recover faster. If you keep her in a jar, it won't do her any good," He bargained, hoping the boys would accept it.
"But can we put her somewhere really deep into a tree so the birds can't reach her?"
"Of course," Owe sighed, happy that the boys had promptly accepted the suggestion.
Amelia watched from distance, relieved to see the gigantic flying bug gone. She smiled as she saw Owen having to climb a tree outside, in the dark, just to make sure their kids felt good for the kind action they'd taken. There were certain lengths that only parents would go to see their children smile and Amelia knew this was one of those occasions.
Afterwards, she kept busy putting the boys to bed while Owen showered, complaining about the several wood chips and leaves that had gotten stuck in his hair as he'd climbed on the tree. When Amelia finally made her way back to their room, after checking on the other kids, she found him fresh out of the shower, finishing putting on his pajama pants.
"That was an interesting ending to the evening," Amelia smiled, lying on her back and crossing her ankles on the mattress. "Poor Danny was so worried about that monster that he took nearly an hour to fall asleep," She shared, watching as her husband got in bed beside her.
"The poor moth would probably have been better off if the bird had finished eating it."
"Owen!" Amelia protested with incredulity. "That's horrible."
"It's nature," He reasoned, turning on his side and propping his head on an elbow. "Birds eat moths, it's how it goes."
"Yeah, but the boys were so upset at the idea, let them be naïve and kind hearted for as long as they can… The world is already too vicious as it is."
"Why do you think I went through the trouble of climbing up a tree at ten pm on a Wednesday?" Owen gave her an impatient sideways glance.
Amelia laughed and pulled his head down for a quick kiss, feeling his hand circling around her waist.
"So, where were we?" She teased as they pulled apart, ready to resume their conversation. "You were saying…?"
Owen rolled his eyes at her, suggestively squeezing the curve of her waist to make her quit the bantering.
"Did you really lose your virginity when you were fifteen?" Owen relaxed beside her, idly running his hand from her sides to her stomach beneath her top. "I'm not judging, it just feels really young for a teenager to be having sex."
"Yeah, I did," Amelia confessed, not looking too proud of it. "I was an idiot. My friends in school were always daydreaming about boyfriends and Prince Charmings and I wanted to prove to them that sex didn't have to be such a big deal. It was stupid and it didn't mean anything," Amelia added. "I mean, I'm glad it ended up being with someone I actually knew but I was so impulsive back then that if it hadn't been Will, it would have been a random guy, and that would have been much worse."
"Was it that bad?" Owen asked, frowning.
"It was ridiculous. We barely knew what to do and he was so nervous that I had to take the lead," Amelia confessed and it didn't surprise Owen. "It lasted thirty seconds." Owen couldn't control a fit of laughter and just as he was recovering his wife asked, "How weird is it that we never talked about this?" She furrowed an eyebrow adorably, "Oh, wait, you told me about that nasty girlfriend you had once… What was it again? The one who dumped you for a college guy?"
"Grace," Owen let out a sigh. "Isn't that ironic? She was far from being graceful," He joked, smiling at his own predicament. "We were both eighteen, in the end of our senior year. She was the first girlfriend I've ever had and two hours after we'd had sex for the first time, she dumped me."
"Maybe it's because you were lousy in bed," Amelia provoked, watching him scowl at her in response. "But did you lose your virginity with her?" She asked, clearly having fun.
"Yes," Owen admitted with a smile. "But it was probably better than yours though," He maliciously stared at her. "Mine lasted a whole forty seconds."
Amelia's loud laughter echoed in the room and she wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing him closer for another kiss, wiping the remaining droplets of water from his blonde locks with the tip of her fingers.
"I'm glad it wasn't such a horrible experience for you," Owen confessed, enjoying the touch of her hand on his face, "mine was pretty heartbreaking… And here I thought that it is usually better for guys than it is for girls."
"What do you mean?" Amelia asked with curiosity, smiling when her eyes caught sight of his blonde eyelashes.
"Well…" Owen hesitated, unsure of how to phrase it. "I may sound sexist but I have always imagined that teenage guys care more about the physical part of sex while for girls, especially younger girls, the experience is usually more impacting. You know?" He brought up his head and looked her in the eyes. "I am speaking from personal experience… The older, mature women I've been with seemed more comfortable having one night stands but when I was younger, the girls usually wanted some sort of emotional connection before having sex."
Amelia pondered about it for a few seconds and her heart constricted a bit. It was true. Back when she was a teenager, she was so rebellious and hurt that in a very typical way, she'd desperately looked to prove her own points and make up her own mind. It wasn't until years later that she realized how much she'd hurt other people and even herself in the process. But her childhood hadn't exactly been the easiest one and her struggles as a teenager had been a part of her search for her own identity. Amelia had acted out a lot as a teenager, rebellingin retaliation for always feeling like being herself had never been enough to her family.
Where sex was concerned, even though she liked Will a lot, it had never had a deep meaning because she had never been in love with him. Later on, she'd had sex with other guys, but never really got emotionally involved with anyone. It had been fairly easy to keep her sex life and her feelings two complete separate things. And it wasn't until she had conceived a child and made plans to start a family that it all started to change. After losing her first son, sex had changed its meaning for Amelia and at the time, she had even wondered if she would ever get satisfaction from it ever again.
But it wasn't until she'd met Owen that she really found out how amazing sex really was and how wonderful it could be when she was connected with her partner. While most women started their sex lives with girly dreams and after bad experiences some became more open and emotionally detached when it came to being with someone, Amelia had done the complete opposite. Owen had introduced her to a whole new concept of making love and she had found out it was far much better than having sex.
While still capable of sweeping off her feet, Owen had his own special way of alternating dirty words with love confessions and it drove her delirious with desire. Sometimes, he would look at her with so much lust in his eyes that Amelia felt like the most seductive woman on the planet, but then he would lovingly stare at her and sweetly kiss her lips, making her melt with adoration for him. They had amazing chemistry in bed and she couldn't even consider the idea of being with someone when Owen was the only one she wanted and loved. Amelia trusted him completely and because of that, she was able to give all of herself when they were together. And only after meeting her husband she had found out how deeply meaningful sex could be.
"So…" Amelia started and when she bit her bottom lip, Owen knew he was in for another round of teasing. Whenever she got too emotional, it was an automatic reaction to resort to bantering to avoid feeling that vulnerable. "Are you saying you have the heart of a young girl?"
"No," Owen touched his forehead to hers and smiled mischievously. "I'm saying you don't."
"Ohhh…." Amelia playfully pretended to be offended, welcoming him as her husband moved to her top. "And are you going to do something about it?" She teased, wondering if Owen knew just how much better he was than any girly dream she could ever have had about marrying the perfect guy.
"Close your eyes and you'll find out," He replied with a dirty grin before turning off the lamp on the nightstand and finally capturing her lips with his.
It was true what Owen had said about being unable to imagine Amelia with other guys. He loved her too much and truth was, he was jealous. Amelia wasn't his because there was a piece of paper with their signature on it stating that they married; she was his because she chose to be every day. She was also his most certain choice. And it really didn't matter that they'd had other partners in the past. Because Owen knew they were each other's choice in the present, and that wouldn't change throughout their entire future.
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