Chapter Two

Owen

And then there was one.

I pop the top to my beer and sit at the kitchen table, looking around at my siblings, who’ve each been happily paired off. All I can think is suckers. Being stuck with the same person for the rest of your life? No fucking way. I’m a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy, though I always make sure to lay out my no-strings-attached ground rules from the start. I’m a player, not an asshole, and I love playing the game of getting new pussy almost every single day of the week. I don’t have to listen to anyone, get to do what I want to do, and have a damn good life.

Logan, my twin, puts his arm around his wife, smiling down at her before she takes a seat across from me. Maybe it would be nice to have someone like—nope.

It’s the single life for me.

I’m happy with how things are. I have three nieces and one pretty cool nephew, and I love being an uncle. I get the best of both worlds: spend time with my family and then give the kids back to their parents so I can go out for the night. Or stay in and play video games, watch TV, or do whatever the hell else I want.

“Can you hold Arya for me for a minute?” Quinn, my sister, asks. “I have to pee.”

“Sure,” I tell her and take the sleeping baby from her arms. Arya’s only a few months old but looks like a Dawson already, with dark hair and eyes a deep shade of blue that will no doubt fade to a soft green just like her mother’s.

“You look good with a baby in your arms.”

I look up to see Danielle smirking at me. Shaking my head, I roll my eyes. “Stop imagining me as Logan. It’s creepy.”

She holds up her hands. “Busted,” she laughs. “Though really. You do.”

“I look good no matter what.”

“Just not as good as me,” Logan quips. We’re identical twins and can fool just about everyone but our close family when we try to switch identities. It got us into—and out of—trouble more times than I can count when we were younger.

Macie, my mom’s newest rescue dog, barks and wakes up Arya. Her little eyes fly open and she looks up at me, realizes her mom isn’t holding her anymore, and scrunches up her face, getting ready to let out a cry. I stand up and gently rock her as I tell her it’s going to be okay.

Her eyes flutter closed, and she goes back to sleep. Crisis averted.

“You’re a natural,” Mom says, coming over to the table with a bottle of wine. Danielle reaches for it, filling up her glass and passing it to Kara, my other sister-in-law.

“Chicks dig me,” I retort with a cheeky grin.

Mom rolls her eyes and calls Dad to come out of his office. Always working, Dad grumbles something about going over a client file for the morning but joins us. Quinn comes back, taking a seat next to me and telling me I can keep holding Arya since she’s sound asleep in my arms.

“Archer is stuck in surgery,” Quinn tells us, making a face as her older daughter, Emma, squirms out of her chair and into her mom’s lap. So much for eating a meal in peace, right? “So let’s eat.”

We make it only a few minutes into our meal before the newest Dawson member, Violet, starts crying. My oldest brother, Weston, gives his wife a loving look and gets up to get their baby from the crib where she’d been napping.

See? Being single has its perks.

“One of my friends from Chicago is coming in this weekend,” Quinn says, not looking at me as she digs into her food. She doesn’t have to say it for me to know she’s trying to low-key hook me up with one of her friends. It’s not the first time and it certainly won’t be the last. Quinn is a bit of a schemer, always has been, always will be. Now that Logan is married, Quinn shifted all her attention to me. Weston’s wife Scarlet only encourages her. Throw in Danielle and my mother…

I reach for my beer.

“Let me guess. She’s single.”

Quinn moves her gaze to me, trying hard to keep her face neutral. “She is. Just got out of a relationship.”

“Ohhh, bad move, sis,” Logan says with a laugh.

“Why is that a bad move?”

Logan looks at Dean, who’s smirking, and shakes his head. “Rebound se—” He’s cut off, elbowed hard in the ribs by Danielle.

“Little ears,” she hisses, but tries not to laugh herself. “And it’s true.”

“Hey now,” I shoot back, trying to sound offended, but by now the whole table is joining in on it, much to Quinn’s chagrin.

“Well,” she presses. “You could at least meet her for drinks or something.”

Logan lets out a snort of laughter. “You know what drinks is code for, right, sis? Or have you been out of the game that long you’ve already forgotten?”

Quinn narrows her eyes. “It hasn’t been that long, but we all know I never played the same game you two dummies did.”

“When is she getting into town?” I ask just to humor Quinn.

“Tomorrow. She’s coming to Arya’s baptism and then is staying with us until Tuesday.”

“Send her to the bar.”

Quinn raises an eyebrow. “Just like that?”

I shrug. “It’s not like you’re going to go out drinking, right?”

Shaking her head, Quinn lets out a sigh and turns to Scarlet, whispering something that I don’t even care to hear. They’ve been trying to set me up with people for the last year and it’s never amounted to anything.

Because the truth is, there is only one woman in this whole damn world who could get me to change my ways and want to settle down. She’s amazing. Smart. Insanely gorgeous. She was mine once, and I fucked it all up.

So yeah…there is one woman out there for me. But she’s the one who got away, and I’m still trying to learn to live with that.