Chapter 39
Chapter thirty-nine
All my little scraps of truth
The bed is warm and the sheets are tangled around my legs, still soft with sleep and the ache of a man who apparently thinks “Olympic break” means “see how many times I can make her come in one night.”
Spoiler: it was a lot.
My thighs are sore and my brain is foggy, and I’ve decided I am not a morning person in the instances where I’ve been manhandled all night.
So when Logan’s voice rumbles near my ear, far too smug and wide awake for someone who made me ride his face mere hours ago, I groan into the pillow.
“Rise and shine, beautiful.”
I grumble something incoherent that’s probably a threat.
“Come on,” he coaxes, all fake sweetness and soft hoodie rustles. “You’ve dragged me to a hundred sunrises. Time to return the favor.”
I peek out from under the covers, squinting up at him. His hair’s still damp from a shower I didn’t hear. His Storm hoodie hangs loose on his frame, sleeves pushed to the elbows, and he’s already got Dusty’s leash in one hand.
He’s grinning. Grinning.
“No,” I croak. “Absolutely not.”
“You promised.”
“I was naked when I promised,” I whine. “And being asked questions while being dicked-down does not make the answers legally binding.”
Logan snorts. “Too bad. You’re committed now.”
I flop dramatically onto my back. “It’s February, Pookie. The sun doesn’t deserve to be seen before 7 a.m.”
He leans over me, palms braced on either side of my pillow, and kisses my forehead. “Get dressed. Layers. And shoes you can walk in.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Barely.”
He smirks and straightens, tossing my leggings and a hoodie onto the bed. “Five minutes.”
Somehow, I get vertical and mostly dressed in that timeframe. Then I’m being shuffled out the front door with a travel mug pressed into my hand and Dusty practically vibrating with excitement at my side.
I squint back at the house as we leave, but Logan places his hand on the small of my back and promises me more matcha at the lookout spot.
Whatever. He’s lucky he’s hot.
The sun’s rays are only just peeking out from the horizon by the time we reach the top of the hill, the sky streaked with pink and soft orange.
Dusty jolts off ahead, flopping dramatically into a patch of half-melted snow and then immediately regretting his life choices. Logan laughs from behind me, and tightens his arm around my waist, pulling me in against his chest.
It’s warmer like this. Tucked into him, his chin resting on my shoulder, both of us watching the light shift across the trees.
“You awake yet?” he murmurs.
“No,” I mumble, watching Dusty set off on a mini adventure through he bushes. “But I hate you slightly less.”
“Progress.”
He kisses the side of my head, then slowly pulls away. I expect him to reach for his coffee or Dusty’s leash or maybe his phone to take a picture—he always takes pictures up here now. But instead, as I turn to him, he slides a hand into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulls a flash of pink out.
Then he drops to one knee, and my breath catches when I see it.
“Oh my god.” I half-gasp, half-choke “You did not keep that stupid ring!”
He holds it up, grinning now, the ridiculous pink plastic diamond glinting in the sunrise. “Didn’t think it’d become a family heirloom, did you?”
I press a hand to my mouth, still laughing—but something trembles underneath it, because I remember.
That night at Charlie’s bachelorette, in the middle of all the noise and dares and dancing, he’d knelt down in front of me and held that exact ring between his fingers. Grinning. Teasing. Playing it off like the joke it was.
But it hadn’t felt like a joke, not to me.
And now, looking at him here with the sunrise lighting his face, snow clinging to the edges of his boots and his hoodie sleeves shoved up, something in me tips over.
Because this man. This grumpy, ridiculous, quiet, kind, and deeply inconvenient man.
He kept it.
Logan’s grin softens and his voice drops. “That night, it was supposed to be a stupid dare. But I knelt down and looked up at you and everything in me knew right there.”
I bite my lip, willing the sting in my eyes to subside.
“I didn’t know what to do with it back then, didn’t know how to say it. But I knew I was already completely in love with you.” He swallows hard, the words scraping. “You’re the only wish I’ve ever made, Lulu, and somehow, it came true. And I really, really want to keep this one.”
My heart stumbles, my breath does too. Because this isn’t just about a dare, or a ring, or even the fact that he’s down on one knee in front of me. It’s the way he’s looking at me.
His girl. His wish.
Logan takes a breath. “So I’m asking you now, with the dumbest ring known to man, because it’s the one I had when I knew I’d never want anyone else.”
He looks up at me, sunrise in his eyes. “Marry me, Lu. Wife me up for real this time.”
Tears press hot at the back of my throat, and I say it before I even have time to blink the blur away.
“Yes. Of course.”
His grin breaks wide across his face, giddy and crooked. I drop to my knees too, laughing as he slides the ridiculous plastic ring onto my finger.
And then we kiss, our lips meeting on a breathless giggle.
It starts soft and sweet, just lips and breath and warmth in the cold morning air. But then his hands slide into my hair and mine curl around his neck, and suddenly I’m not cold anymore.
Suddenly I’m being lifted onto a flat rock, legs wrapping around his waist, his mouth devouring mine.
“Still hate me?” he breathes against my throat.
“Ask me again in five minutes,” I pant, tugging him closer.
He growls low, like I’ve just lit a fuse, and then he’s kissing me again. His mouth is urgent, tongue claiming mine, hands sliding up under my hoodie to find bare skin.
“Fuck, Lu.” His breath shudders out. “How do you get me so hard so fast?”
“I’m a Pisces,” I whisper back, matter-of-factly.
He laughs, then yanks the hoodie over my head. My sleep top rides up with it, leaving me bare from the waist up. The cold hits my nipples instantly, peaking them, but it only makes the heat in his eyes flare hotter.
Logan sinks to his knees in front of the rock, then he leans in.
His mouth closes over my breast, warm and wet and perfect, and I arch back with a soft cry, threading my fingers into his hair.
The wind lifts around us, but I don’t feel the chill. Not with his hands sliding up my thighs, not with his mouth finding my nipple, not with the sunrise painting him gold.
His fingers hook into the waistband of my leggings, and I lift my hips. He drops to his knees in the snow, rough hands sliding down my thighs as he pulls my leggings and panties down in one tug, baring me to the elements.
Then he leans in again.
His tongue slides through me instantly in a long, deep stroke. I cry out, clutching at his hair as he groans against me.
“Fuck,” I moan, hips jerking against his mouth. “Oh my god, Logan—”
“You’re so wet already,” he groans against my pussy. “All this for me?”
“Yes—Jesus, yes—”
He flattens his tongue and sucks my clit into his mouth, so hard and hungry, and I swear I black out for a second.
I brace my hands on his shoulders, rocking against his face, and he doesn’t stop.
“God, I could eat this pussy for days,” he mutters, breath hot against me. “Grind right into my face, yeah, just like that baby.”
“Yes, yes, fuck, yes—”
“Come for me, Lu,” he demands, sucking hard. “Wanna taste it. Wanna feel you fall apart on my tongue.”
I cry out his name as I come, shuddering so hard I nearly slip off the rock. He holds me steady, his mouth never leaving me, tongue working me through it until I’m panting and trembling at the sky spinning above us.
He stands in one fluid motion, and shoves his joggers down just enough to free himself. I reach for him immediately, curling my hand around his hard cock, watching his head tip back as I stroke him slow and tight.
“Want you inside me,” I rasp. “Now.”
He presses forward, cursing under his breath as he lines himself up and sinks into me in one slow thrust.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters, head falling to my shoulder. “You feel so good, baby. Always feel so good.”
I lock my legs around his waist, heels pressing into the backs of his thighs, and pull him deeper. Every thrust hits right where I need him, dragging breathy moans from my throat I don’t bother to hide.
“This what you wanted?” he pants. “Wanted me to fuck you right here where the whole damn sky can watch?”
All I can do is moan and frantically nod as his hips slam harder, control slipping as I tighten around him and dig my nails into his shoulders.
“Then say it,” he rasps, breath hot against my ear. “Say yes again while I’m fucking you.”
My breath catches as my hips rise to meet each thrust. “Yes—yes—I’ll marry you—”
“Fuck,” he whimpers, completely undone. “That’s it. That’s my girl.”
“Logan—”
He pins my hips down and fucks into me harder, the wet slapping of our bodies echoing between my moans and his ragged panting.
“Fuck, fuck, yes don’t stop!”
“You’re gonna be my wife,” he grits out, hips snapping. “Gonna come home to this pussy and eat it every day. Worship it forever. Gonna fuck you full and make you feel like my wife every… damn… day.”
The orgasm tears through me like wildfire, heat and light and Logan everywhere. He curses against my mouth as he follows, spilling inside me, cock throbbing as he ruts through the aftershocks.
We stay like that for a moment—panting, trembling, tangled up and breathless in the rising light.
Then he lifts his head and presses a kiss to my lips. Then my cheek. Then the corner of my mouth.
“I really fucking love you,” he says quietly.
I smile against his jaw, still breathless. “I really fucking love you too, Pookie.”
When we eventually make our way back home, my hoodie’s inside out, my hair’s a disaster, and my thighs are aching in ways I’m not going to recover from by lunch.
Logan unlocks the door ahead of me and Dusty barrels through to his water bowl.
I follow behind, still floating, still flushed, tugging the sleeves of his hoodie down over my hands.
I step into the living room—and stop cold.
Balloons. Dozens of them, floating at different heights, each one tethered with a ribbon—and at the end of each ribbon, a polaroid.
Photos of me.
Sleeping, curled into Logan’s chest.
Laughing so hard I’m blurry.
Making gluten-free brownies in his hoodie.
Chalk on my hands at school.
Curled up with Dusty on the couch.
Flipping him off at the lookout in a giant puffer jacket.
Teaching. Cooking. Dancing.
Being me. A celebration of me.
Each photo has a little handwritten note on the back, just like I did for him months ago. I step forward, stunned, and reach for the nearest one.
You make chaos feel like home.
The next one:
You laugh with your whole body.
Another:
You saw more than just the stats.
My chest caves in. Just completely collapses. Tears well hot and instant, and one falls before I can stop it. Then another. Then I’m full-on sobbing, shoulders shaking, hands trembling as I reach for more of the notes.
You teach mistakes to be growth
You always drag me into the light
You’re the best mama to Dusty
You say 'fuck' in the cutest way ever
You make me feel warm all the time
I’m crying so hard I almost miss the sound behind me, but I turn and there he is.
Logan, down on one knee again.
He’s not holding the plastic ring this time, he’s holding a diamond—simple, round and elegant. And he’s looking at me like I hung the goddamn moon.
I crumble. My knees hit the floor as I laugh through the sob, and I reach for him with shaking hands. He steadies me instantly, one palm warm at my waist, the other still holding the ring.
“I wanted you to see it, baby. All the ways I love you, all my little scraps of truth.” He glances at the ring in his hand. “All the things I never say out loud, but should, just like you do for me.”
He looks up at me and smiles. “I don’t need to wish for anything else,” he says simply. “Just need you to say yes again.”
“Yes,” I whisper, laughing and crying all at once. “God, yes.”
He grins as he slips off the pink ring and swaps it for the diamond, and then we kiss, deep and breathless and still crying a little.
Dusty barks so loud it makes me jolt. I laugh wetly and lob a balloon over to him as Logan buries his face in my neck, arms wrapped tight around me on the living room floor.
Polaroids sway around us. The sun streams through the front windows. I close my eyes, surrounded by ribbon and sunlight and this man I can’t picture a single day without.
And I realize, this is it.
This is my wish that came true.