It Only Takes a Minute

Chapter 3

The sound of Claire's belly laugh was filling the subway car, her right hand linked with Owen's, their fingers curled around each other's. His eyes were soft on her while she kept laughing, he took advantage of the moment and let his thumb gently caress the back of her hand and play with her knuckles.

She had been laughing for a few seconds and the sound of it was simply the most adorable he had ever heard. He had made a quick mental note to try make her laugh as much as he could, it was a good thing he thought of himself as someone humorous and that she found him to be actually funny.

"I'm pretty sure that's a foul." She managed to say between her laughter. She was resting her free hand on her stomach, and then reached over to brush some light tears from her eyes. She couldn't remember when was the last time she had laughed this hard.

"It's not!" He promised, "it's called the sneak attack tactic." He explained. They had been engaging in thumb-wresting for about fifteen minutes now, and for that last match Owen had used his pointer finger to take her over.

"And I'm sure you have the how-to-play manual with you to back this up." She nodded incredulously. Claire wasn't an expert on this little game, but she was positive that using any other finger but your thumb to try defeat the opponent had to be cheating.

"You are the kind who has to read the whole guide before playing, aren't you?" He teased her, "it must be a blast to play board games with you." He sarcastically pointed out, "according to page six section four, if you land on space twenty you get double points." He started with a mocking voice.

"There's not such thing as a 'sneak attack tactic'." She decided to ignore his observation since he was absolutely right about that aspect of her personality, and instead decided to bring the subject back on track.

"There is!" He insisted with a chuckle, "but okay, it's not valid. We are still three - two." He nodded in agreement, a smile on his face. Claire was beating him by one point so far. It was impressive how strong she was and also how determined. Each passing second he spent talking to her and just getting to know her, the more he knew she was the one.

The redhead licked her lips and nodded, she chuckled and took a deep breath trying to keep her laugher under control. "One, two, three, four, we declare a thumb war." She started this time, both of them following the little initiation.

"Five, six, seven, eight, with this hand I masturbate." Owen added as he kept moving his thumb from one side of hers to the other.

"Oh lord." Claire blushed and laughed some more, however she didn't fail on tightening her grip around his fingers. If what he wanted was to catch her off guard, then she was not going to let him have it. She fixed her green eyes on his hazel ones. It almost felt like they were having both a thumb war and a stare contest simultaneously.

She giggled and tilted her head while both their thumbs wrestled it out. She moved her eyes down to their hands and bit on her lips trying to concentrate. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her, and kept smiling to himself watching her wrinkle her nose and just focus on memorizing every little gesture she did.

Maybe that was the reason behind her triumph over him; he just kept getting distracted by her and it eventually ended with Claire being able to pin his thumb down for those three seconds.

She celebrated her victory until she brought her sight back and caught him staring. The redhead couldn't help fix her eyes on his and smile softly. They both were quiet for a second, just letting their eyes express how much they were enjoying this little moment. A second that made Owen wonder if this is how heaven felt like.

"So—" She cleared her throat and looked away after realizing how easy she was letting herself get lost in his expressive hazel eyes, "where did you learn to wrestle?" She went back to the casual conversation they were having before they started playing. Claire tried to get her hand back, but Owen pulled it closer to him and kept his fingers curled around hers just like they had been for a while.