Cruel Intoxication (Underground Kings 4)

Now, there’s a story I’ve never told or even thought about in a very long

time.

Nine

Jolie

Owen squeezes the blue bottle of conditioner until he has a large amount of product in his hand. I watch him, this big, strong man, with hands the size of Texas, filling his palm of conditioner to help me.

Someone he doesn’t even know.

His heart is kind, and it’s the most therapeutic experience I’ve had in a year and a half. I’d be an idiot if I didn’t notice how handsome he was, even if it scares me that I notice it. His hair is short, brown, a bit curly at the ends. His eyes are a dark blue, reminding me of an ocean during a hurricane.

I bet that’s exactly who he is as a person too.

Beauty raging in anger.

He soaks my hair with the conditioner, coating it until it’s heavy and wet. He grabs my ends, nearly eight inches of my hair, and tries to detangle it.

“I only know so much because of my wife.” He stops combing, and his brows pinch together. A look of sadness crosses his face, and then he starts to comb again. “My ex-wife.”

“She’ll always be your wife. You didn’t choose for her to die. You don’t have to correct yourself around me,” I try to assure him, and he gives a relieved half smirk, but there’s still sorrow embedded in those angry lines around his eyes.

Lines that tell stories of heartache, sorrow, and pain.

“You’re sweet for saying that, but I think it’s time for me to realize that she’s no longer my wife. She’s…” A breath leaves him that is so hard, it breezes across my cheeks. “She’s dead. It’s time for me to realize that.”

“Grief doesn’t have a stopwatch,” I say, looking at him through the mirror.

“Wise words, Jolie. Wise words.”

We lapse into silence, not awkward, just quiet. “So how do you know so much about women’s hair?”

He laughs, and a slight tug against my scalp has my head yanking back slightly. “Well, there was one time when Annabeth, my wife—ex-wife…” He corrects himself again, and his lips peel back into a huge grin, showing his straight white teeth from the memory. “One time when she got a wad of gum in her hair. It was terrible. We were on a rollercoaster, and there was this kid in front of us that wouldn’t stop screaming. We knew it would be a wild ride considering how much he cried before getting on. He really did not want to go on the ride, but his dad made him saying, “It’s time for you to stop being a baby.” And the guy made his kid go on the rollercoaster that went upside down, right side up, all that jazz.”

“That’s awful. Why would a parent do that?”

“Why do people do anything they do?” he says offhandedly. “Anyway, we got on the ride, and they pulled the handles down over our chests, locking us in. The kid kicked and screamed, and we felt so bad for him, but the dad didn’t care. Anyway, the ride goes forward, right? And the clinking of the rollercoaster rising is somehow making this kid scream louder. Eventually, you can see over the entire park. It’s beautiful. And boom, we drop.”

“Oh no.” I cover my mouth to keep from giggling.

“Everyone is screaming because we’re going down and it’s steep. It’s thrilling. I’m screaming, Annabeth is screaming, the kid in front us is crying, and then suddenly we’re going upside down. Annabeth’s hair is in her face. The entire ride is so fun. Loops, drops, everything. It’s a kid’s worst nightmare, and it’s an old wooden rollercoaster, so it’s creaking and sounds like it’s about to fall apart. It adds to the thrill. We come to a stop, and Annabeth’s hair is still in her face. When I push it out of the way, my hand lands on a wad of blue gum.”

I gasp in horror. “No!”

“Oh, yeah.” Owen chuckles, and the comb gets caught in one of the strands of hair. He does shorter, quicker strokes to try to get the hair undone. “It was a wreck. Her hair was all over the place and caught in it. It was bad. The kid in front of us had blue gum in his mouth before we went on the rollercoaster, so I think it fell out of his mouth. I saw the fear in her eyes immediately. She knew it was bad. She cried. Oh, God, she cried. She was so afraid she would have to shave her head.”

I like listening to him talk about his wife. Is that weird? He seems so happy, not at all like the guy I met in the woods.

“We run to the car, and I let her wear my hoody so she can cover her head. She cried the entire way home, talking about how her hair was going to be ruined for photos we had planned.”

“Of course there are photos planned,” I mumble to the side of my mouth. “It’s always something.”

“Right? Anyway, we get home, and I get out ice and plop it on the gum to get it out. I grab a brush to brush her hair out, and she hits me with her flip-flop telling me that will make it worse. So I grab the comb while she’s yelling at me, hysterically sobbing. It took forever to get the last strand free of the gum. Once I did, though—” He stops combing for a second and stares up to the ceiling. He clears his throat, and his eyes water. He’s doing his best not to cry. Owen shakes his head clear and smiles again. “She was so happy.” His voice clogs, and he wipes his eyes on his shirt by lifting his shoulder. “She was so damn happy. It was one of the biggest hugs I ever got from her. If I would have known she was going to die like she did…” he exhales, “…I would have held her a little bit longer every time she was in my arms.”

“It sounds like you love her very much,” I notice, meeting his red eyes in the mirror. I don’t use past tense because the love is still there, just as strong as it was before.

“I did. I do. She was like jumping in a cold pool after a long hot day of sweating in the sun. I know that isn’t the sexiest analogy, but the relief you feel when you feel the cold water, the happiness of not being hot anymore, that relaxation that takes over you—that’s what she was like. And I never wanted to get out of her waters. I miss her. It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years. It feels like it happened yesterday.”