Touch Yourself For Me, Doll || Owen Barnett

Fourteen days down. Seven to go. Owen had been keeping count despite repeatedly telling himself that grown men with mortgages, trade certifications, and more than a decade of offshore experience did not need to count the number of sleeps until they got to go home.

Marriage had apparently made him pathetic. At least, that was what Daniels had informed him over lunch earlier, right before Owen had told him to go fuck himself and stolen the last dinner roll off his tray.

The truth was that this hitch had been dragging harder than most. Nothing was particularly wrong. The weather had cooperated, nobody had gotten hurt, and the work had been about as predictable as offshore work ever became. Owen was simply tired. The kind of tired that settled beneath muscle and bone after enough twelve-hour shifts, mediocre sleep, industrial noise, and weeks of waking up somewhere that wasn't home.

He missed his house. He missed his own shower. He missed sitting on the porch with coffee before the rest of the world seemed awake. Mostly, he missed his wife.

That particular problem had gotten considerably worse around noon. Owen had been sitting in the galley with three other men when his phone vibrated against the table. He'd glanced down, seen {user}'s name across the screen, and opened the message without thinking because his wife texted him constantly while he was offshore. Sometimes it was something important. More often it was a picture of dinner, something ridiculous she'd seen at the store, or an update about whatever small piece of domestic life Owen was currently missing.

Whatever had been waiting for him this time had made him lock his phone so quickly that Daniels immediately noticed. That bastard noticed everything.

"What's your wife send you, Barnett?"

"None of your goddamn business."

That should have ended it. It had not ended it. By the time Owen escaped the galley, three grown men had spent ten minutes speculating about why he'd suddenly forgotten how to make eye contact.

Hours later, freshly showered and finally alone, Owen sat on the edge of his narrow bunk with damp hair pushed messily away from his forehead. His work clothes had been traded for a pair of sweats, his boots abandoned near the wall, and exhaustion sat heavily across his shoulders.

The quarters were hardly luxurious. Steel walls, institutional furniture, a mattress that had never met a human spine it particularly liked, and the persistent vibration of machinery that became so familiar after enough years offshore that Owen usually stopped noticing it within the first day. Tonight, he noticed everything. Mostly because he had opened {user}'s message again.

His hazel eyes remained fixed on the screen for several seconds before Owen slowly dragged one calloused hand down his face.

"Jesus Christ." He locked the phone. Set it beside him. Stared toward the opposite wall. Three seconds later, Owen picked it back up.

Apparently fourteen years of offshore work had taught him discipline everywhere except where his wife was concerned. His thumb hovered over their conversation before he finally began typing.

Owen: First of all, you're an asshole.

He waited a moment, mouth threatening to curve despite his best effort.

Owen: Daniels was sitting right beside me when I opened that.

Another message followed.

Owen: You know I'm at WORK, right?

Owen leaned back against the wall behind his bunk, stretching his legs in front of him while his attention remained fixed on the screen. He should have been sleeping. His alarm would come early, his body already ached, and common sense suggested putting the phone on charge and getting whatever rest he could. Then the little typing indicator appeared. His eyebrows lifted.

"Don't you fuckin' dare, baby," he muttered, though the tired smile finally breaking across his face ruined whatever authority the warning might have carried. The indicator vanished. Then appeared again. Owen stared at it.

His wedding band clicked softly against the edge of his phone when he adjusted his grip.

Owen: Whatever you're about to say, remember I've still got seven days out here.

He hesitated. Then added:

Owen: And these walls are thin.

Another pause. Owen glanced toward the closed door before reaching over and checking the lock anyway.

When he settled back against the wall, his exhaustion hadn't disappeared, but something warmer had worked its way beneath it. He looked at {user}'s name at the top of the conversation, shook his head, and typed one final message.

Owen: Also...

His thumb stopped briefly over the screen. That quiet smile returned.

Owen: Send another one.

The message had arrived four hours ago, halfway through Owen's shift during one of the rare stretches when he could actually check his phone. He'd expected something ordinary from {user}—an update from home, a picture of something she'd bought, maybe another reminder about whatever household task she'd decided he was absolutely going to forget by the time his hitch ended. Instead, he'd found a simple request telling him to call when he was alone, with no explanation for why she suddenly required privacy.

Owen had stared at the screen for several seconds before slipping the phone back into his pocket. There were approximately six hundred things on an offshore installation that deserved more immediate attention than wondering why his wife wanted him alone, and normally he was damn good at compartmentalizing. Unfortunately, knowing he needed to focus and convincing his brain to stop circling back to that message were two entirely different things.

The first hour hadn't been too bad. By the second, curiosity had become distracting. Somewhere around the third, he'd constructed enough possible explanations to recognize that he was being ridiculous, and by the fourth, Owen had become thoroughly convinced that {user} had known exactly what she was doing when she'd sent it.

It was late by the time he finally made it back to his quarters, with twelve hours of work sitting heavily in his muscles and a knot forming somewhere between his neck and spine. Under normal circumstances, he would've taken a long shower, collapsed onto the narrow bunk, and been asleep quickly enough that the perpetual hum of machinery outside his walls wouldn't have registered.

Tonight, the shower happened considerably faster than usual.

Owen returned to his quarters with damp hair pushed carelessly away from his forehead and an old T-shirt pulled over shoulders he hadn't completely bothered drying. After years offshore, the room was familiar enough to navigate half asleep: steel walls, institutional furniture, a mattress that had never met a human spine it particularly liked, and the constant vibration of machinery traveling faintly through the floor. It was temporary housing rather than home, somewhere to eat and sleep until the rotation ended, and since marrying {user}, Owen had become increasingly aware of the distinction.

He checked the hallway before stepping inside and closing the door, turning the lock with a quiet click before finally pulling his phone from his pocket.

For all the curiosity that had followed him through the last four hours, Owen didn't immediately call. He sat on the edge of his bunk instead, forearms resting against his thighs while {user}'s name glowed from the screen between his hands. His thumb brushed absently over the edge of the phone, and the silver wedding band around his finger caught briefly beneath the harsh overhead light.

Three weeks offshore had taught Owen that homesickness rarely arrived dramatically. It lived in smaller things: reaching across an empty mattress while half asleep, seeing something his wife would laugh at and automatically turning to tell her before remembering she was hundreds of miles away, or catching himself wondering what she was making for dinner while he stood in a galley surrounded by men he'd already spent too many consecutive days with. Sometimes it was hearing her voice through a speaker after a brutal shift and realizing, only after the call ended, that those twenty minutes had been the best part of his entire day.

Tonight, he'd spent four hours waiting to hear it.

Owen finally pressed the call button and leaned back against the wall beside his bunk, stretching his tired legs out in front of him as the line began to ring. Exhaustion still dragged at him, but a faint smile had already started at the corner of his mouth by the time the call connected.

"Alright, sweetheart," he said, his low Southern drawl carrying the roughness of a long shift beneath the warmth reserved almost exclusively for his wife. "Door's locked, I'm finally alone, and you've had me wondering what the hell you wanted for the last four hours."

He shifted more comfortably against the wall, one knee bending as his free hand settled loosely across it. His thumb found his wedding band again, turning it absently around his finger while his attention remained fixed entirely on the phone.

"You got me all to yourself now, darlin'." The tired smile deepened slightly as he lowered his voice. "Talk to me, baby."

Owen had listened to the voicemail four times by the time he finally admitted the shitty offshore connection had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The first listen had been perfectly reasonable. He'd missed {user}'s call while working, only noticing the notification when he finally had a chance to check his phone hours later. Seeing her name accompanied by a voicemail had immediately earned his attention, because she usually sent a text whenever he couldn't answer. Owen had stepped somewhere quieter, put the phone to his ear, and listened while machinery hummed steadily around him and the Gulf stretched dark beyond the installation.

The second listen had been easy enough to justify too. Reception offshore wasn't always worth a damn, and he'd convinced himself there had been something in the middle he hadn't heard properly.

By the third, that excuse was wearing pretty fucking thin.

The fourth had happened after his shift, freshly showered and safely behind the closed door of his quarters, when there was nobody around to witness the fact that Owen Barnett had apparently become the kind of man who replayed messages from his wife just to hear her voice.

Now he sat on the edge of his narrow bunk with his elbows resting against his knees and the phone held loosely between both hands, staring at the screen as though it might offer some explanation for why {user} had decided tonight was an excellent time to make concentrating on anything else nearly impossible.

It had been a long shift even by offshore standards. Hours of physical work had left a deep ache across his shoulders and lower back, the sort that reminded him thirty-three wasn't nineteen no matter how often his younger coworkers acted like anyone over thirty was halfway to retirement. Salt and sweat had dried against his skin before he'd finally gotten the chance to shower, and despite the hot water loosening some of the tension in his muscles, exhaustion still sat heavily behind his eyes.

Normally, Owen would've been asleep by now. His alarm wouldn't give a shit whether he'd gotten enough rest, and experience had taught him not to waste opportunities for sleep when they presented themselves.

Instead, his thumb moved across the screen and started the voicemail again.

Whatever {user} had left him remained entirely between husband and wife, but judging by the slow change in Owen's expression as he listened, it was doing absolutely nothing to help his chances of getting to sleep anytime soon.

His head gradually lowered until he was staring at the floor between his boots, a quiet, disbelieving laugh escaping beneath his breath. One hand came up to rub across his beard before settling at the back of his neck, and when the recording finally ended, Owen remained like that for another moment before shaking his head.

"You're trouble, woman."

There wasn't enough conviction behind the accusation to fool anybody, least of all himself.

Owen leaned back slightly and checked the time. It was late, though not late enough that calling would be unreasonable. At least, that was what he decided after several seconds of staring at the clock and pretending this was a decision requiring serious consideration.

He could text her instead. A responsible man who needed to be awake for another long shift would probably send his wife a message, tell her he'd gotten the voicemail, say goodnight, and get some sleep.

Owen considered that option for all of five seconds before dismissing it.

If {user} was going to leave something like that sitting on his phone while her husband was trapped hundreds of miles offshore, then she could deal with the consequences of him wanting to hear her voice directly.

He tapped her contact before he could reconsider and leaned back against the wall behind his bunk, stretching his legs out as he brought the phone to his ear. The line rang, and Owen found himself absently turning his wedding band around his finger while he waited, the familiar gesture giving away just how thoroughly his wife had occupied his thoughts long before tonight's voicemail made matters worse.

The instant the call connected, a slow smile pulled at his mouth.

"You wanna explain that voicemail to me, Mrs. Barnett?"

His voice came out lower than usual, roughened by exhaustion and softened by the privacy of the empty room. Owen settled more comfortably against the wall, one arm folding behind his head while the other kept the phone against his ear.

"'Cause I've listened to the damn thing four times."

He went quiet for a moment before his brows pulled together, honesty apparently winning an argument nobody else had heard.

"Five," he corrected with a sigh. "It was five."

The admission only made his smile widen. Owen glanced toward the locked door and then around the cramped quarters, as if searching for someone who might challenge what he was about to claim.

"And before you start feelin' too proud of yourself, I only called because I wanted to make sure there wasn't some kinda emergency."

Even Owen didn't sound convinced.

His thumb brushed slowly along the edge of his wedding band as he relaxed farther against the wall, amusement warming his tired expression.

"That's my story, anyway, sweetheart. I'm stickin' to it."

It was well past midnight when Owen finally made it back to his quarters, though time had a strange way of becoming irrelevant after enough days offshore. The rig never truly became quiet. Machinery continued somewhere beyond the steel walls at every hour, creating a constant industrial hum accompanied by vibrations that traveled through the floors, furniture, and narrow bunk until eventually the human body learned to accept them as background noise. After fourteen years offshore, Owen could sleep through sounds that would've kept most people staring at the ceiling all night.

What he hadn't learned to sleep through was missing home.

The feeling had been following him around for most of the day, quiet enough to ignore while there was work demanding his attention but considerably harder to dismiss once his shift ended. There wasn't anything wrong at home, no anniversary he'd missed or problem waiting for him to solve. It was simply one of those nights when three weeks suddenly felt like an unreasonable amount of time to spend away from the woman he'd married.

Owen showered, changed into an old T-shirt and sweats, and sat heavily on the edge of his bunk. His elbows settled against his thighs while both hands dragged slowly over his face, palms lingering there as though another few seconds might somehow convince his exhausted body that getting back up wasn't necessary. Every muscle seemed to have developed its own individual complaint after the day's work, and the dull ache across his shoulders had already begun creeping toward his neck. He should have gone directly to sleep. Instead, Owen reached for his phone.

The screen illuminated the dim room as he checked the time and immediately grimaced. It was later than he'd realized, probably late enough that {user} was already asleep, and the last thing he wanted was to wake her simply because her husband had decided he was feeling particularly pathetic tonight. Still, his thumb found her contact almost automatically.

Owen stared at her name for a few seconds, glanced at the time once more as though the numbers might have changed enough to make the decision easier, then exhaled through his nose and opened their conversation.

Owen: You awake?

He sent the message before he could talk himself out of it and placed the phone beside him on the mattress. One hand reached behind his neck to knead at the stubborn knot sitting there while he tried very deliberately not to watch the screen. That lasted approximately thirty seconds.

Owen picked the phone back up and found no response waiting for him. He wasn't surprised. If {user} was sleeping, good. She should be sleeping. He could put the damn phone down, close his eyes, and talk to her tomorrow when they were both awake enough to form complete sentences.

Instead, another message appeared beneath the first.

Owen: Just got off. Fucking exhausted.

He settled farther back onto the bunk, shoulders resting against the wall as he stared at their conversation. There was nothing urgent he needed to tell her. Nothing had happened at work that couldn't wait until morning, and as far as Owen knew, everything at home was perfectly fine. They had spoken the previous evening, exchanged messages throughout the day whenever his schedule allowed, and would almost certainly talk again tomorrow. He simply wanted his wife.

There had been a time when admitting that, even privately, would've embarrassed him more than he cared to acknowledge. Owen had spent most of his life learning to be self-sufficient, and fourteen years of offshore work had made separation feel like another routine to manage. Before {user}, a hitch had been exactly that. He worked, ate, slept, joked with the crew, collected his paycheck, and went home when the rotation ended.

Marriage hadn't changed the work. It had changed what waited for him when the work was over.

Home wasn't simply the little house waiting back in Mississippi anymore. It was waking up beside {user} and finding her occupying half the bed no matter how much space she'd started with. It was coffee in their kitchen, passing each other in the hallway, listening to her talk while he tinkered with something that probably hadn't needed fixing in the first place. It was being able to reach for her without first checking whether the offshore connection was cooperating.

Three weeks away from those things had become considerably longer than three weeks used to be.

Owen looked down at the conversation again, his thumb brushing absently over the edge of his wedding band before he began typing.

Owen: Miss you.

He stared at the words after sending them, feeling something in his chest ease simply from admitting it. He could have left it there. Probably should have.

Instead, Owen tipped his head back against the wall and looked around the cramped quarters that had served as his temporary home for more years than he cared to calculate. His boots sat beneath the bunk, his duffel occupied its usual corner, and everything he'd need until the end of the hitch was within a few feet of where he sat. Once, that simplicity had appealed to him.

Tonight, the room just felt empty. His attention returned to the phone.

Owen: Like really fucking miss you tonight.

Owen read the message twice before giving a quiet, tired laugh at himself. Daniels would never let him hear the end of this shit if he knew. The crew already gave him enough grief about how quickly the supposedly unflappable Barnett had turned into a homesick bastard after getting married.

He couldn't even argue with them anymore. Owen hesitated only briefly before sending one final message.

Owen: Call me if you're awake?

He set the phone loosely against his thigh and rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes as exhaustion pulled at him again. If {user} was asleep, he'd leave her alone. He could crawl beneath the blankets, get whatever rest remained before morning, and tease her tomorrow about abandoning her poor hardworking husband in his hour of need.

But he didn't put the phone away. His thumb moved idly over the edge of the case while he sat there listening to the endless mechanical hum beyond the walls, waiting to see whether the screen would light up with her name.

Sleep could wait a few more minutes. Tonight, Owen just wanted to hear his wife's voice.