Safer This Way

Chapter 30

Look! I did the update thing, only a week since the last one, can you believe it? Can you tell I'm proud of myself? Just a little :) Anyways, Happy New Year everyone! Thanks for sticking by me through my spastic update schedule, I promise to try my best for every other week updates (if not every week).

Enough of that, enjoy some Owen time...Happy Reading!!!

*Owen*

    "...I'm sure it's fine, Gabe." Now please get off the phone so I can finish these reports, I think wearily to myself.

    "Oh well if you're sure it's fine." Now I've gone and done it. "I don't want Sang's bedroom to just be fine, it has to be fucking perfect. I called you, because the rest of these uncultured swine don't have any fucking taste and I was hoping you could provide an opinion worth a shit that wasn't 'whatever' or 'I don't know' so I don't rip my fucking hair out!"

    I can hear him working himself up, and sigh deeply before attempting to placate him. "You're right, I apologize. However, Phil believes in your eye for design and you know Sang's tastes far better than any of us, so you don't need my opinion. I will provide one if you are stuck, but none of this questioning your skill, she will love whatever you choose."

    He doesn't speak for a moment, perhaps mulling over what I have said, and when he finally responds his voice is quiet, earnest. "This is her first real home, Owen. I don't want to fuck it up."

    Of course. "And you won't."

    "But–"

    "–How old were you when you redid Pam's salon?"

    "...11, but I don't know what the fuck that has to do with th–"

    "How old when the Academy reached out to you to design the Charleston annual gala downtown?"

    "...14, look fuckhead, you better stop interrupting me, this is serious."

    "And Kevin's wedding last fall? Mindy still talks about how amazing you did..."

    There's a pause, and I can nearly hear the click in his brain that my point has been made. "...you think you're real fuckin' smart, don't you?"

    I smirk at the put out tone in his voice, but at least the panicky, unsure edge has gone. "Gabriel?"

    "Yeah?"

    "Get back to work."

    I hang up to the sounds of a colorful, half-hearted insult, something about me being a smug motherfucker that I ignore.

    All of that over what color toothbrush Sang would want, I laugh remembering his original question, despite the fear having sat deeper that bathroom commodities.

    Any distraction now gone, I return to the drafted reports on the computer screen in front of me, summarizing the last nearly four months at Ashley waters. It all fits succinctly in three pages, single spaced, and yet it felt like forever stuck at that school, attempting to finish a mission when all our attention was stolen by green eyes and a soft voice. And yet every second of it was worth it.

    I would relive every staff meeting, every fight, every crowded hallway and grabby handed teenage girl, every second spent in the presence of Hendricks and McCoy, all of it, because in the end it had brought us to Sang. And as confusing, painful, and stressful as all of it was, she was worth every second.

    Shaking myself from thoughts of her, musical laughter and brilliant smiles echoing images in my brain pulling me further from my reports, I read through it again. We'd found Hendricks and McCoy funneling cash meant for the betterment of education at Ashley Waters into their own accounts, listed foolishly under easily decrypted pseudonyms. Not only was the school a base for their embezzlement attempts, but they had also been the facilitators for the introduction of JH14 to the students. No surprise the culprits involved in selling this product: Jade Williams, Roderick "Rocky" Simms, Gregory Michaels and several others we'd immediately pegged as suspicious. They will all face charges and possible prison time for their crimes, and my family will be taking some well deserved time off to focus on us, and our hopeful new addition.