The Anniversary Toast Chapter 12
Owen and I had coffee every Saturday for two months before he kissed me.
It happened on a Sunday – the first time we’d broken our Saturday routine. He’d invited me to see a building he’d designed, a small library on the outskirts of the city. We walked through the empty reading room, sunlight streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows he’d spent months perfecting.
“I designed this space for people who need somewhere quiet to start over,” he said, running his hand along the wooden railing. “A place with no noise, no judgment. Just room to breathe.”
I looked at him, and he looked at me, and the distance between us closed like it had been waiting to.
The kiss was soft. Unhurried. Nothing like the performative passion I’d known with Grant. This was something gentler and more honest – a question, not a demand.
When we pulled apart, he searched my face. “Too soon?”
“No,” I said. “Right on time.”
I told Nora that evening. She was quiet for exactly five seconds – a personal record.
“Owen Price,” she said slowly.
“Owen Price.”
“Grant’s brother.”
“I’m aware of the family tree, Nora.”
She studied me with those sharp, protective eyes. Then her face softened. “Is he good to you?”
“He’s genuine. He’s kind. He shows up when he says he will and means what he says.”
“So, the opposite of Grant in every way.”
“In every way that matters.”
She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Then I’m happy for you. But if he hurts you, I’m burning down the entire Price family.”
“Noted.”
The news, predictably, traveled fast. Grant found out within weeks – through mutual friends, through the invisible network of gossip that connects everyone who’s ever shared a dinner table.
His reaction came via Owen’s phone. A single text: “My own brother. Unbelievable.”
Owen showed it to me, his expression unreadable. “Do you want me to respond?”
I thought about it. About Grant’s outrage – the hypocrisy of a man who’d slept with my sister for eighteen months now feeling betrayed because his brother took me to coffee.
“Tell him,” I said, “that karma has an excellent sense of irony.”
Owen typed the message and hit send.