Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
LOGAN
W hen she asks me why I’m amped up, I know I can’t give her a complete answer. I don’t want to scare her with the mob stuff. I don’t want to ruin her first week on the job.
Hell, has it only been a week? It feels like so much longer.
She looks at me with gorgeous patience on her face, her cheeks a subtle shade of pink, makeup mixed with her natural warmth.
“Maybe it has something to do with my Hardcover living up to her name,” I say.
She takes a sip of her wine. “Logan…”
“I know. It’s not as easy as when we’re texting.”
“We shouldn’t be texting or talking like this.”
“I know,” I say passionately. “But you changed me, Piper. You changed me three years ago.”
She gasps. “Logan?—”
“I know ,” I snarl. “I shouldn’t talk like this. I shouldn’t think like this. I should keep control of myself. But when I was a kid…”
I trail off. What am I even saying? Why am I going there?
She shuffles closer to me, reaching under the table and taking my hand. “Hey, don’t close up on me now.”
“It’s like you said. Some things are easier over text.” I tell her.
“Just because something’s hard doesn’t mean you should shy away from it. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like I’m a dork,” she says.
I lean close, wanting so badly to kiss her, but I can’t, not here. She turns slightly away as if reminding me of that painful fact. “I didn’t mean to look at you like that, Beautiful. You’re just so impressive to me. You inspire me… it’s your attitude, your soul, just… just you.” My voice catches with emotion.
“We’ve got the same attitude about life. I won’t deny that. But it doesn’t mean this won’t blow up in our faces.”
“You changed me,” I whisper, pent-up emotion bursting from me. “That first kiss woke something up in me. For three years, I’ve been trying to pretend it’s not true. I’ve been lying to myself. Before that moment, I was broken. Dead inside.”
“Logan,” she whispers, her voice filled with emotion. “Why? Because of what happened when you were a kid?”
“Maybe,” I say, looking away.
She reaches over and touches my face, turning my gaze toward her. Doing this in public is a risk. She knows it. I know it. But she does it anyway. Looking at her is like a temptation to heal, to leave the past behind and not let it consume me.
“I won’t go into detail,” I mutter. “But life was terrible. It contaminated everything I ever did, everything I felt…”
She lowers her hand, bringing it to rest on my leg instead. Whenever we touch, there will always be passion shivering beneath the surface of every interaction, every word, whether spoken or texted. But this is something else—emotional, empathy, love.
Or the beginnings of love, at least, the start of a road that could lead there if we’re both reckless and don’t turn back before it’s too late.
“I always felt different from everyone else. I’d look at other people and wonder how they could live so easily, so effortlessly. Now that I’m older, I know that it was a mirage. Everybody is fighting their own battle. But when I was younger, I thought everybody except me had it figured out.”
She tightens her grip on my leg.
“Then I walked into that buffet room. I saw you… and everything changed.”
“Logan,” she whispers passionately. It’s like she’s torn between telling me to stop and telling me to never, ever dare stop.
“I saw you, and I felt , Hardcover. I felt… something. Full stop—and that was a miracle. You changed me. I didn’t plan on grabbing or kissing you, but the second our lips touched, it was like I was suddenly human. It was like the world suddenly made sense. But then it all came crashing down: the fact of what I was doing, the betrayal. I had to run. I had to pretend to try, anyway, even with myself.”
She blinks, her eyes glimmering, tears threatening.
“But I was only ever pretending,” I go on. “Deep down, I knew you were, and always would be, the person who had changed me. It was like I was sleepwalking through life before that kiss. Call me Sleeping Beauty if you want.”
When I wink at her, she laughs and sobs, a tangled noise of adorable confusion.
“I told myself it was just a kiss. As the years passed, I tried to reason with myself. Maybe this wasn’t me becoming normal. Maybe this was proof I was even more deranged than I thought. I tried not to think about it. But now, I can’t avoid it. Even if we’re forced to end this, I’ll never forget how it felt to finally feel alive.”
She wipes a tear from her cheek. “Logan,” she says, her voice trembling. “Oh, God. I want you so badly. But we can’t. Why is the world so unfair? I feel like we’re a match. I feel like we fit .”
“I can see us sitting in armchairs in front of a fire, the flames flickering, each with a battered copy of Wrath in our hands. We’d stop reading from time to time to discuss a particular passage or to bat a business idea back and forth.”
“That sounds beautiful,” she says, lowering her gaze. Her following words come out choked. “For another life, maybe.”
I sigh heavily. “Another life,” I repeat. “Let me take you home, Piper.”
It’s almost impossible not to hold her hand as we walk to my car. When I hold the door open for her, she laughs. “Is it Sleeping Beauty or Prince Charming?”
I grin, the sound of her laughter somehow pushing away all the pain. In the car, I try to convince myself we can find a way back from everything we shared today. We have to. For Elliot.
Outside the apartment building, I stop, looking across the street at a car parked on the corner.
“Is something wrong?” she asks.
“Let’s just sit here,” I mutter, glaring at the car, wondering. Did Sal send the car? Is somebody waiting for Elliot or Piper?
“Why?” She looks at the car. “You don’t think it’s them, do you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to take the risk, not with you.”
“Is this about The Clam?” she asks.
I grind my teeth. “I don’t want you to be a part of this.”
“I already am a part of it if my brother’s involved, if my bo… if you’re involved.”
I turn to her. “You were going to say boyfriend.”
“Maybe,” she mutters. “I need to stop reading so many freaking books. It’s too easy to live in make-believe worlds.”
“I’d be prouder to be your boyfriend than I am being the CEO of Do It All.”
She rolls her eyes. “Ha, ha…”
“I’m not kidding,” I say.
“Look.” She gestures. “It’s just a food-delivery guy.”
I sigh when I see the delivery driver step from the car, putting my anxious energy at ease—for now.
“I want you to stay at a friend’s this evening,” I say.
“What happened, Logan?”
“Sal came by the office. I lost it. I put my hands on him. The little worm deserved it, and I’m almost certain he wouldn’t come after you. Why would he? But please, for me, stay with a friend. And remember, call me if anything happens. Whatever time it is.”
She sighs. “I could stay with Ruby… But I’m worried about you, too.”
“You don’t need to worr?—”
“I don’t need to worry about my boyfriend? Are you kidding?”
It’s reckless, dangerous, and insane, even, what I do next. I lean forward and wrap my arm around her waist, leaning down so that my lips touch hers. But it doesn’t feel like a mistake when she makes that gorgeous moaning noise.
It feels like our first kiss. It feels like waking up.