10. Chase #2
He splits off toward the bar and I head into the dessert kitchen.
The day feels like it passes as slowly as molasses.
I get started prepping fresh cut strawberries, creme brulee, and chantilly cream.
We go through our early evening rush, then our busiest time of night, and as the hours whittle by, Julian stops into the kitchen and tells me there’s been no sign of Logan all night.
Finally, it’s time to close.
I clean up the kitchen with our manager and the dishwasher.
When I shut off the lights and head toward the door, I’m rationalizing all of the reasons why Logan might not have come.
But none of that feels like the truth.
You know what he said.
You remember it clear as day.
He told you that you had the potential to ruin his life. Why would he ever want to see you again?
My stomach feels like a pit. The thoughts are circling my mind like hungry vultures, ready to feast on every shred of self-doubt that I’ve been working so hard to avoid. I shut the bar door behind me and lock it, walking out into the hall that leads to the main lobby of the Bellwood.
I pause at the elevator bay.
The elevators are right there. Golden doors, waiting to be opened.
I could go up to the top floor and knock on the door of the penthouse suite anytime I wanted. But instead I head out the front of the building and walk all the way home with an empty feeling in my chest.
The next day, my shift feels like a cut-and-paste repeat of yesterday's.
Another day has passed with no sign from Logan, and I’m realizing that Julian might be right.
At the end of the night, I’m the last person out of the kitchen again. When I walk out alone, there’s a figure standing in the hall.
And my heart skips a beat.
It’s actually him.
Logan is there, down by the bar, leaning on the wall, and his gentle eyes land right on mine.
He almost looks like a mirage, like something I must be dreaming up.
My heart twists in my chest.
I act unaffected as my blood runs hot.
I walk over slowly, giving him a little nod. “Took you long enough.”
One corner of his mouth comes up like he’s about to smile, but it never spreads wider. He’s wearing a cream-colored silk button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and a few of the buttons at the top are undone. His skin is tanned, like LA has been treating him very well.
His hair is sun-kissed, too. Blonder highlights run throughout his deep gold waves.
“I was going to come see you yesterday,” he says. “Was very busy, though. You weren’t in the bar tonight?”
“I work in the restaurant now,” I tell him.
Fuck, it’s still there.
That feeling in my chest.
“It’s nice to see you, Chase.”
“I almost went up to your room last night,” I admit.
His eyes dance across my face. “It wouldn’t have been a good time. I had a phone meeting with a casting director. The call lasted two hours, then I had a dinner meeting on 5th Avenue, and then I came back and crashed into bed.”
“Busy busy.”
“Always.”
A silence hangs between us for a moment. This short corridor that leads from the hotel lobby to the bar is empty right now, but the sound of high heels clicking echoes down from the lobby.
The moment stretches until it feels like it could snap. Even on a good day, my filter is almost nonexistent, but with Logan right in front of me again, I feel it crumble away into nothing.
“Why did you come here, Logan?”
The words exit my mouth too quickly.
“I can explain why I chose this hotel. Don’t read into it too deeply,” he says. “The Bellwood is the best hotel in the city, and everyone on my team wanted to stay here.”
I stare at him. “So you had to stay in this hotel? It wasn’t your choice, and you had no part in the decision-making process?”
“I wanted to do what was best for my team, and for myself. Should I have told them no?”
I shake my head fast. “No. I’m glad you’re here. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
Something like relief washes over his face. “Good. I’m going to be filming here for two months, and I need to know that we’re both on the same page.”
“Which is?”
“That I’m sorry for the way things ended,” Logan says. “We were bad for each other.”
My heart thuds in my chest. “Bad. But good in other ways, too.”
“Bad,” Logan repeats.
I hate the look on his face. I remember it from the last time I saw him, because it’s the look he always had on his face when he was putting up his walls with me.
Walls that went up the moment I told him we should do the right thing, and be mature, and all the shit I said because I was trying to protect him from my chaos.
Those walls seem pretty ironclad right now.
He shifts on his feet and I catch his scent in the air, and I hate how it pulls me right back to last year. If pheromones are a real thing, Logan radiates them. The scent of his skin, the back of his hair, even the way his fancy suit smells.
I pull in a long breath and shut my eyes for a moment.
And I think of a world in neon.
The cityscapes I paint, with sunsets shot through with bold pink and nightscapes where the windows glitter with blue and green.
The raven I painted last week with electric purple eyes, and the hissing mountain lion I painted in electric orange, with fangs bared, unafraid.
Fuck it.
You knew who I was, even if you never showed me all of yourself.
I’m just going to be me.
I let my eyes flutter open again, and when I look at him, I feel like I’m stepping back into myself.
“You look better than I remember,” I tell him, because that’s the fucking truth.
It’s like a miraculous bolt of sunshine when Logan’s mouth actually comes up into a smile, like he can’t even pretend not to like what I just said. He smiles fully this time.
“Are you saying I looked bad last year?”
I shake my head. “Not even close. But you looked sadder last year, and now you look… you look fucking great, Logan.”
“I was a lot sadder back then. I had no idea how to handle this career, that’s for damn sure.” He pauses for a moment, his eyes searching my face. “Please tell me you’re doing better, too?”
I’m silent for a beat.
I want to shout about everything in my life. There’s something about being with Logan that makes me want to express every stupid thought in my head, and it’s all bursting to come out, like all of that neon blue and pink and purple waiting to get splashed across an open canvas.
“I want to answer that. But can I hug you first?”
As soon as he utters the word yes, I step forward and wrap my arms around Logan and hug him as tightly as I can.
I pull the bulk of his body against mine, and he’s so warm, so tall, so real.
He hums in my arms and I feel the gentle vibration of it.
Nothing close to what you feel like in my dreams.
In my mind, I’d remembered fragments of him. But as I grip my arms around his back and breathe him in, it’s all here again. The pain. The desire.
And my goddamn inability to let go.