"She trusts me. She believes me when I tell her I'll never betray her." He might as well know the rest of the story. "And that's why she said yes when I asked her to marry me."
"I love him and he loves me." Claudia holds up her hand. "See? It's official. I'm going to marry him."
Owen shakes his head. "Do Mom and Dad know about this shit?"
"Mom knows we're in a relationship, but no one knows about our engagement, apart from you. It's only been a few hours since he proposed."
Owen closes his eyes and presses the back of his head against the wall. Saying nothing.
"O, can you please be happy for us?" Claudia's voice is pleading.
"Can you please understand that I'm in fucking shock here?" He looks at me and narrows his eyes. "You always spoiled her and gave her most of your attention."
"Because even then, I loved her. Not the way I do today, but it was still love."
"You're right. I knew something was there, but I never imagined it was anything like this. You were right to never tell me how you felt about her. I would have beaten your ass into the ground if I'd known you had anything like this going on in your mind."
"Don't turn this into something ugly," Claudia says.
He gets up and stands over us. "I'm gonna need time to think about this."
I kiss the side of her face and whisper, "I should talk to him alone."
I get up and walk Owen to the door so that I can have a private word with him. I should make another attempt at helping him understand. "Try not to let the way you found out about us ruin the way you see our relationship."
"You're twenty-three and I found my sev … eighteen-year-old sister naked in your bed. It's going to be hard not to let that sway my opinion of your relationship right now."
Owen hasn't reached that point in his life where he's ready for love. He has no desire to settle down with one person. He still wants to fuck and forget. "You don't understand what we have because you've not experienced it yet."
"I'm not okay with this right now. Maybe I will be one day, but it ain't gonna be today."
"I don't need you to be okay with this today. I just need you to be open-minded and hear what I'm saying to you: Claudia is my heart. My everything. I will never do anything to hurt her."
"You better be fucking sure of that before you marry her."
"I already am. There's not a bit of doubt in my mind. We belong together."
His brow wrinkles and the corner of his mouth pulls downward. "Sorry I beat your ass."
Is he joking? "You didn't beat my ass."
"Go look at your face if you think I didn't, motherfucker." Owen chuckles and I see a glimpse of my best friend-my best friend who is eventually going to be okay with Claudia and me being together.
I need to let him have this small victory. "Okay, you did. You beat my ass."
Owen lightly fists me in the shoulder. "Damn right, I did. And I'll do it again if the need arises. So be good to her."
A little bit more light is revealed at the end of the tunnel, and I'm certain this is eventually going to be okay. "No worries."
Claudia is sitting on the end of the bed chewing her thumbnail when I come into the bedroom. "That was horrible, Duke."
"That's not the first time Owen and I have ever duked it out. That's how I earned my nickname from you, remember?"
I chuckle when I recall a six-year-old Claudia standing in a chair on the patio watching Owen and I go at it on the ground over something mean he and River had done to her. Duke him, Bram. Duke him good. And that's how I became Duke.
That's the same day she earned her nickname from me. Little dove: peacekeeper extraordinaire-which she obviously was not since she was rooting me on to beat up her brother.
She grasps my chin and turns my face to the side so she can inspect me. "Baby, you're bleeding. Come with me so we can clean you up."
I follow her into the bathroom and sit on the lowered toilet seat so she can easily reach my face. I wince when she dabs a wet washcloth to my split lip. "I can't believe Owen did this to you. And you just let him."
"He needed to vent his anger. I was giving him that."
"Well, he could have accomplished that in a different manner without busting your handsome face."
She doesn't get it, and I don't expect her to. "Girls get mad and hold grudges. Say catty things to one another. That's how your gender argues. Not us. A fist to the face lets someone know you feel like you've been wronged and you're pissed off about it."