Free Confess: A Novel by Colleen Hoover

kill you.”
    I don’t know why this makes her feel better, but she laughs. “Well, since you promised,” she says, holding the door open wider, allowing me inside her apartment. “But just in case, you should know I’m very loud. I can scream like Jamie Lee Curtis.”
    I shouldn’t be thinking about what she sounds like when she’s loud. But she brought it up.
    She points me in the direction of her restroom, and I walk inside, closing the door behind me. I grip the edges of her sink while looking in the mirror. I try to tell myself again that this is nothing more than a coincidence. Her showing up at my doorstep tonight. Her connecting with my art. Her having the same middle name as I do.
    That could be fate, you know.

CHAPTER FIVE
Auburn
    W hat the hell am I doing? I don’t do this kind of thing. I don’t invite guys into my home.
    Texas is turning me into a whore.
    I put on a pot of coffee, knowing full well I don’t need caffeine. But after the day I’ve had, I know I won’t be able to sleep anyway, so what the hell?
    Owen walks out of the restroom, but he doesn’t make his way back to the door. Instead, a painting catches his eye on the far wall of the living room. He walks slowly to it and studies it.
    He better not say anything negative about it. He’s an artist, though. He’ll probably critique it. What he doesn’t realize is that painting is the last thing Adam made me before he passed away, and it means more to me than anything else I own. If Owen criticizes it, I’ll kick him out. Whatever this flirtation is that’s going on between us will be over faster than it started.
    “Is this yours?” he asks, pointing at the painting.
    Here we go.
    “It’s my roommate’s,” I lie.
    I feel like he’ll be more honest in his critique if he doesn’t think it belongs to me.
    He glances back at me and watches me for a few seconds before facing the painting again. He runs his fingers over the center of it, where the two hands are being pulled apart. “Incredible,” he says quietly, as if he’s not even speaking to me.
    “He was,” I say under my breath, knowing he can hear me, but not really caring. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”
    He says yes without turning to face me. He stares at the painting for a while longer and then continues around the living room, taking everything in. Luckily, since most of my stuff is still back in Oregon, the only trace of me in this entire apartment is that painting, so he won’t be able to learn anything else about me.
    I pour him a cup of coffee and slide it across the bar. He makes his way into the kitchen and takes a seat, pulling it to him. I pass him the cream and sugar when I finish with them, but he waves them away and takes a sip.
    I can’t believe he’s sitting here in my apartment. What shocks me even more is that I feel somewhat comfortable with it. He’s probably the only guy since Adam that I’ve had the urge to flirt with. Not that I haven’t dated at all since then. I’ve been on a few dates. Well, two. And only one of those ended with a kiss.
    “You said you met your roommate online?” he asks. “How did that happen?”
    He just seems to want to cut right to the core with his heavy questions, so I’m relieved he’s finally given me a light one. “I applied for a job online when I decided to move here from Portland. She spoke with me over the phone and by the end of the conversation, she’d invited me to move in with her and share the lease.”
    He smiles. “Must have been a great first impression.”
    “It wasn’t that,” I say. “She just needed someone to split her rent or she would have been evicted.”
    He laughs. “Talk about perfect timing.”
    “You can say that again.”
    “Talk about perfect timing,” he says again with a grin.
    I laugh at him. He’s not what I initially expected when I first walked into his studio. I assumed artists were quiet, brooding, and emotional creatures. Owen actually seems very put together.