Chapter 12
Logan
Logan could hardly sleep that night.
He couldn’t get Bellini’s smile out of his mind.
He knew her so well. He knew how well she could relate to children because of the books she wrote.
He knew how she always wished she’d had a dad.
He knew how she thought when playing chess, but not how to stop her.
He knew how she loved to make art, how she couldn’t live without her drawings and stories.
He knew how she skied cautiously but ran fast and how much she cared about other people, especially her family and friends.
He knew that she liked white chocolate and popcorn and cheese sandwiches.
His home situation when he was a kid, and as a teenager, had often brought her to tears.
She would get that upset for him, and it would trigger her temper.
She would be boiling with anger, an arrow of disgust pointed straight at his dad.
Having her emphatically declare that he had every reason to be angry at his dad was so…
validating. She believed him. She was on his side, always.
When they were together, she always made him feel loved and important—and special.
At the Christmas tree lighting, they’d talked. They’d slipped right back into their old conversational patterns. He joked, she laughed. She understood his humor, he understood hers. It was happy, flirty, normal for them. He’d loved it.
He saw a falling star. He felt like he was falling.
And when he crash-landed, he’d be back in the same place he’d been before.
Alone.
Lonely.