Chapter Two

Day Fourteen

She arrived at her apartment an hour later than she attended thanks to the hellacious woman that was her editor. Apparently, her article on the budget of the local school district just did not have enough pizazz to appeal to their readers. How she could make facts and figures that were droll even to the people who made them their living have pizazz she didn't know, but three rewrites later and she produced an article that was deemed acceptable by the woman.

Only, now she was late to the one thing that she had promised not to be late for. It was her mother's tenth anniversary dinner with Glenn in which Jake would be stopping by with his new girlfriend. However, unbeknownst to either of their parents, the new girlfriend wasn't really new at all since they had been dating for the last eight months and had plans to move in with each other.

Clare had met the women only a handful of times but she was less than shocked that their relationship was moving at a breakneck speed. They had the type of chemistry that made them utter perfection together, the type of perfection that caused single people like herself green with envy.

She stubbed her toe on her dresser—muttering a few choice words—as she made a mad dash to her closet to find something suitable to wear, something less wrinkled than the pencil skirt and tailored blouse that she was currently wearing. Ripping the nearest cocktail dress off of a hanger, she quickly divested herself of the office wear and threw it on. Shoving her feet into a pair of kitten heels, she grabbed a wrap to cover her bare arms along with the purse she had thrown on her bed and flew out the bedroom door.

Locking the door behind her and halfway to the stairs, she was waylaid by the sound of her cell phone alerting her to an incoming call. Clare cringed when she saw her mother's name on the screen. "Mom? I'm leaving now," she announced upon answering. "My editor didn't like my article and wouldn't let me leave until it was just right."

Her mother's chuckle on the other end comforted her in a way that nothing else could at that particular moment. "Oh, don't worry about it. Jake called earlier today and had to cancel because his girlfriend…Ella…Elizabeth…"

"Eliza, Mom, her name is Eliza."

"Right. Well, Eliza had to go into work at the last minute and Jake didn't feel up to coming without her. Did you know that she's a resident at Toronto General?"

"Yes, I actually did. So, what's happening with dinner tonight?"

"If you'd call me back like I ask you to when I leave messages, Clare, you'd know that Glenn and I decided to just have a quiet night in. We'll reschedule for some time next month," Helen Martin informed her daughter.

They shared their goodbyes, agreeing to meet for coffee when their schedules allowed for it. Clare slumped tiredly against a wall and closed her eyes. She didn't know why she was surprised that her mother had cancelled at the last minute. Since meeting Glenn, Helen had become almost as unreliable as a giddy schoolgirl with a crush.

"Hey," she heard a deep voice greet her.

She cracked open her eyes to see Owen trudging up the stairs, his jacket slung over his shoulder with one hand and his tie completely undone as well as the collar of his oxford shirt. "Hey, you just get home from work?"

Owen nodded. His gaze swept over her and lingered a moment longer than necessary on portion of her legs left bare by the length of her dress, causing Clare to shift a bit in her stance. "You got a hot date?"

"I was supposed to have dinner with my parents. It's their tenth anniversary."

His brow furrowed momentarily with confusion and she could tell the exact moment his memory kick started. "Your mom married Jake Martin's dad, right?"

"Right," Clare confirmed.

"So what happened?"

"Jake wanted them to meet his girlfriend tonight before they moved in together but she got called into work and he cancelled. Mom and Glenn decided that it'd be best to make a party of three into a party of two," she explained.

"What are your plans now?

Clare shrugged. "Change into a pair of sweatpants, heat up the leftover Chinese food sitting in my fridge and watch whatever is on the TV. I mean, going to dinner with the family was kind of my big plan for the night."

"Or you could let me take you out. I know a great bistro downtown. It's not as fancy as where your family was planning to take you but it'd be a chance to show off that great dress," Owen offered.

Would she choose to have dinner with a man that she was quickly beginning to call a friend or spend the night alone at home with leftover takeout that was a day away from being thrown out? "Sure, let's go out. But I'm paying."

His lips quirked in a smug grin that was all too reminiscent of the one she remembered from years before. "We'll see."

Day Thirty

A pounding on his door awoke Owen from a deep sleep. He had worked an almost twelve hour day and had planned to spend his night relaxing with the woman he had met in a coffee shop at the beginning of the week. But as soon as he got home, divested himself of his suit and stepped into a scalding shower, a wave of exhaustion blindsided him. When he lied down on the bed, he swore that all he needed was an hour—two tops—and he would be good to go.

Obviously, that hour had long since passed since the clock on his nightstand indicated he had slept half the night away. He listened as the pounding got more insistent and, grumbling, rolled out of bed. Stalking over to the door, he whipped it open and planned to deliver a barrage of verbal abuse to the person intruding on his sleep until he saw who it was.

Clare Edwards was standing before him in a pair of dark denim jeans and a low-cut shirt that left about as little to the imagination as the jeans. Her hair was loose around her face and her makeup was smudged from being left on too long. "Oh, thank God, you're home. I locked myself out of my apartment and since you have my extra key…"

"You need me to let you in." He reached up and grabbed the key ring from the hook beside the door. "I can't believe Responsible Clare forgot her key."

She followed him down the hall to where her apartment was located and leaned against the wall as he searched through the keys to find hers. "What can I say? I was in a rush."

"Let me guess. You had a hot date and couldn't figure out which shoes went with your outfit."

"No, I had to meet Alli at some bar. She just started dating the bartender and she wanted my honest opinion about him. But you are right about the shoes," Clare informed him.

He glanced down at the pair of red stilettos that adorned her feet. Their presence explained why she was currently standing only a couple of inches shorter than him. "So, did you approve?"

Clare shrugged. "It wouldn't matter if I did or not. She's going to date whoever she wants no matter what I say. Now, if I thought there was some kind of future with the guy, I might have said something about him flirting with the two blondes a few seats down from us."

Her words momentarily gave him pause. "You didn't tell her about him flirting with other women? I thought women were all about female empowerment and loyalty and unity and shit."

"Like I said, there is no future with the guy so why rock the boat? If I had thought that the bartender was going to be her husband one day then I definitely would have said something," Clare pointed out. "He's the Mr. Right Now that she needs to get over the last guy she thought was Mr. Right."

Owen shook his head, filled with disbelief at the logic that women had sometimes. There was no way that he would let one of his buddies date a girl who was flirting with other men, whether or not he deemed the relationship to be serious. Finding the key that she had given him the day after he had awoken in her bed—he had done the same because the last thing he wanted was to find his self in another situation like that one—he slipped into the lock and turned. He pushed the door open and stepped aside to allow Clare entry.

She smiled her thanks as she passed him but something still bothered him. "How do you know that this bartender is just a little fun for Alli? She could really care about the guy."

"I've known Alli since the fifth grade. She goes for the type of guy that she can fix. The bartender is smart, handsome, comes from a good family and is working his way through graduate school. He doesn't smoke, barely drinks and doesn't touch drugs. He's about as clean-cut as they come and the last guy that Alli is going to view as someone needing to be fixed," she explained. "You watch. Give it two or three months and I'll be meeting the next guy."

She had a hand on the door. "Thanks for getting me into my apartment. I'll see you around, Owen."

Day Eighty-two

Clare and Owen had been spending time together in more frequent intervals. Takeout when both had a late night at work, coffee on two separate Saturday afternoons, breakfast every Sunday at her apartment after he woke from his Saturday night bingers , and an awkward lunch when he had happened upon her shopping with her mother. They were starting to become more than mere acquaintances and Owen was beginning to regard her as one of his closest friends

Not that he had too many of those anymore. His days of being the big man on campus with more friends than he could count on his fingers had ended the day he graduated from college. Those same friends had moved on with their lives, become successful in their chosen fields and had begun to settle down to start families of their own. Burgeoning family men didn't have time for the low man on the totem pole who spent his weekends drinking and sleeping with random women, as Owen soon found out when every invitation he extended was rejected with hardly any explanation as to why.

He had kept in contact with a few of his college buddies were not yet ready for the next step in life like himself as well as a few friends that he made at his job. There was the confirmed bachelor, the guy who had been divorced twice and quickly on his way to a third, two college kids who were interns, and Eddie, who worked in the finance department of the insurance company that employed them all. They were all good drinking buddies and great wingmen but he wouldn't trust any of them with his life, let alone his innermost thoughts or knowledge of his newfound relationship with Clare.

With the exception of Eddie, he supposed, who unlike the rest of them had a serious girlfriend that he was devoted to and was the designated driver more times than not when they went out. Which was why, he figured, he was meeting the other man for drinks and an early dinner without the rest of their usual brigade. Despite how well it seemed he clicked with Clare, he still couldn't get over the niggling feeling that their friendship was progressing with too much ease given their history. And he needed someone who wasn't Clare to be a listening board to work out these current doubts he was having.

"Hey man, sorry I'm late." Eddie slid into the booth that Owen had procured. "One of our major clients called about an hour before I was ready to get out of there. Apparently, his oldest daughter crashed her Beemer today and last week she took their boat out for a joyride and totaled it. What's even better is that she crashed the Beemer into her twin's convertible. I'll never understand giving a sixteen-year-old a Beemer but I guess if you have the money."

"And how's the twin who got her car wrecked by her sister?"

"I imagine she's pissed. It was a '64 Mustang."

Owen mimed an ouch as the waitress came to their table and took their orders, Eddie oblivious to the woman's obvious flirting as Owen looked on with utter amazement. The woman was the epitome of show-stopping beauty but Eddie's interest in her only extended to whether she took their order correctly, letting Owen be certain that he had made the right decision in who to trust. Once it was understood that the man wanted nothing more than food and the woman departed from their table, Eddie turned his attention back to his friend. "So, why did you want to meet tonight without the others?"

"I need some advice."

Eddie chuckled. "On a woman, right?"

"How'd you guess?"

"If it was about anything else, there wouldn't be a need for secrecy. I mean, they're all great guys but not the kind I would want knowing anything about me that has any substance," Eddie said, shrugging his shoulders. "So, tell about the woman and how I can help?"

Owen took in a deep breath and began at the beginning, their days at Degrassi and how she only knew him as the bully who tormented anyone who was not the status quo. He went on to explain about graduation and how he had heard about the woman every so often from people that he would run into. And finally, he told him how they met again in their apartment building and the friendship that resulted from that meeting.

"Given our history, I can't believe she gave me the time of day. Now, I'm starting to consider her one of my closest friends. I guess it just bothers me how quickly she went from acquaintance to the status of best friend. I should be worried about that, right?" Owen finished.

The waitress returned with their orders and Eddie tucked into his burger, chewing the large bite thoughtfully as he mulled over what he had been told. "I don't know if worried is the right emotion. Personally, I'd just count my blessings that what was done as a kid didn't come back to bite you permanently in the ass."

"But the progression was fast, wasn't it?"

Eddie shrugged. "Who can really judge the speed in which a relationship should form? I mean, I met Hannah at my parents' anniversary, asked her out a week later and now, six months later, we're moving in together with plans of marriage. With any other girl, it would have taken years to get to this point."

"Well, I wouldn't say I plan to marry Clare."

"Give it time," Eddie muttered with a conspiratorial smirk. He cleared his throat. "Look, Owen, the only advice I can give to you is to enjoy it. Women like my Hannah and your Clare don't come around too often. So, she once hated your guts and now you're thick as thieves. Who cares?"

"I do. Her parents will. Her best friend definitely does. And don't get me started on what her stepbrother is going to say."

Eddie paused at that, pursing his lips together. "Well, look at it this way. At least you'll be a better man for knowing her."

To be continued…