Owen tossed the loaf of bread on the counter and placed his big, dirty hands on the flat surface. He leaned in and glared at me. "Are you going to sit here and yap at me the entire time that I'm here, Boston?"
"I just might. I mean, seeing as how I'm the queen of this place." I waved my spoon at our surroundings. "First Lady of the Loser Lodge. I think that gives me the right to yap as much as I want to. Are you not going to talk to me?"
He gave me a derisive look. "I don't think I have anything to say to you."
And there went my temper. I'd gone from gloating to furious all over again. God, I hated this man. I calmly stepped around the counter and slopped my bowl of melting ice cream on top of that hood. "Fuck you very much, sore loser," I said in my sweetest voice.
And walked away.
This was going to be a long, long round in the loser lodge if Owen was here.
Vacation? Ruined.
I DIDN'T SEE OWEN AGAIN until the next morning, which suited me just fine. Mornings in the Loser Lodge were kind of nice. I woke up around nine, because about that time, the newest camera-crew shift had just cleared out to go film the contestants, and that meant I was in the kitchen alone. I liked the crew well enough, but given the fact that they weren't really supposed to talk to me? It made meals awkward, so I just avoided them to make things easier.
The kitchen was fully stocked, and the coffee delicious. I puttered around for a few minutes, trying to decide what to cook myself, before settling on eggs and toast. I wasn't much of a cook at home. Normally I headed out to Dunkin' Donuts first thing in the morning, grabbed breakfast, and then opened my laptop up to write. I wasn't used to making my own food, but I figured I couldn't mess up eggs.
I'd just cracked them in the skillet when I heard a pair of shuffling feet behind me. I turned...and there was my nemesis.
Owen.
I made a face at him. "Good morning, Sunshine." I focused back on the eggs I was burning, and turned the burner down. Jeez. You wouldn't think eggs would be so wicked hard to make, but mine were already turning a dark brown around the edges and were still watery in the middle. I focused on my breakfast and not on Owen.
The man had a lot of nerve, showing up in the kitchen in a pair of sleep pants with no shirt on. He had a delicious, smooth brown bare chest that only irritated me even more. Jerk was probably just trying to show it off, which made me like him even less. I rolled my eyes at my eggs. Typical male.
I heard the clink of the coffee pot being moved and whipped around. "What do you think you're doing?"
Owen stared at me, mid-pour into a coffee mug. "Getting myself coffee?"
"That's my coffee," I told him. I'd only made enough in the pot for one large cup—mine. "You'd better not be drinking my coffee."
"I'd bettah not?"
"You want my fist in your face?" I told him belligerently. "Cause I'm wicked good with my fists. It's a Boston thing."
"Like being an ass**le?"
I breathed heavily out of my nose, practically snorting like an angry bull. He was just trying to get my goat. "Put the coffee down, you son of a bitch. I said that's mine and I meant it."
In disbelief, I watched as he finished pouring the last of the coffee into his mug, and gave me a challenging look. Then, he sat down at the nearby breakfast bar and picked up a newspaper, ignoring my spluttering.
I grabbed my egg skillet and tilted it over his cup. My mushy eggs slid right in with a delicious plop. "There! Now neither of us has coffee. You satisfied?"
Owen got up and gave me a disgusted look with those amber eyes. "Man, you really are a lunatic."
I gave him the finger.
He left the kitchen, and I was left with no coffee, no eggs, and a mess to clean up.
FOUR
It’s a shame that Luna’s totally my type: blonde hair, blue eyes, short, curvy little body…at least, until she opens her mouth. – Owen MacIntosh, Lodge Home Movies footage
I HID IN MY ROOM for most of the day, flipping through magazines, napping, and jotting down ideas for future scripts. The lodge no longer felt like a safe haven. I'd tried relaxing in the living room, only to find that it made me tense to think that Owen might turn a corner at any minute and see me doing yoga, or writing down script bits. I wrote horror movie scripts for a living, and it was a fun job, but one that was easily misunderstood, considering I wrote myself notes like ‘the termite axes her head off, lots of gore’. The last thing I wanted was to give Owen more ammo to mock me with, so I simply avoided him and hid my notepad.
Had I thought the lodge was boring and miserable before? It was nothing compared to having to stay in your room for fear of seeing the person you loathed the most.
The next day, I crept down the long hall on careful, silent feet. All of the bedrooms were on the second floor of the lodge, and the floors creaked, so I wanted to make sure Owen didn't hear me sneaking out. As soon as I made it past the rooms, I headed down the wooden stairs into the main part of the lodge. It was a huge building with a great layout. While the bedrooms were on the second floor loft, the rest of the lodge was completely open. A massive fireplace dominated the back wall, surrounded by floor to ceiling windows. On the far end of the enormous open room, the kitchen area rolled into the section designated as dining. It was clearly a party lodge, meant for a large group of people. The entire place was terrific.
Unless you were trying to avoid someone, and all that open-ness became a bit of a curse.