11. Logan
LOGAN
“Chase,” I say softly as he clutches against me, attaching himself to me like a six-foot barnacle.
“Just let me hug you,” he says into the crook of my neck. “Please?”
Overwhelming doesn’t even begin to describe it.
I swear I could have stood there for an hour, just burying my face in his dark hair. It’s a tiny bit longer now, still beautiful in a slightly messed-up, tousled way.
I keep my composure as I relax in his arms, holding him close. It’s just a hug. I know that, logically.
“It really is good to see you,” I tell him.
His body is so warm against mine, and he doesn’t seem to have any intention of releasing me.
“Sorry,” he murmurs against me. “I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you.”
I hum. “Nothing wrong with hugging a friend.”
I know damn well that we were never “friends” to begin with, but if I’m going to be spending months here at the Bellwood again, that’s how it will have to be.
“I have to stop hugging you now,” he says quietly.
I puff out a quiet laugh. “Am I too suffocating?”
He pulls back, and his eyes land on mine.
“No. Having you here is just… a lot.”
I forgot how visually arresting it is just to look at Chase. Everything about his body is impossible to ignore, and my eyes don’t even know where to start with him.
He has new tattoos.
I can only see the edges of a couple of them. One peeks out at the top of his chest and it looks like the edge of a crescent moon, and the other is at his wrist, and I only see purple ink inside black lines and I can’t make out the rest. A gemstone, maybe? An amethyst?
I can’t remember if his lashes were always this full and dark, but I’m sure they always were, and I’m just stunned to witness it again in person instead of in memory.
And his hair.
That’s exactly how I remember it.
The waves that fall around his face, framing him, only add to the feeling that he’s a living painting, a jolt of striking color in a world that can feel so monotone.
“How are you and your one true love?” he asks.
I lift an eyebrow. “What?”
“Single-malt Scotch.”
I drop my head for a moment. “Oh. I’ve been laying off the Scotch. I have wine sometimes, but not even close to daily. No hard liquor, really. Definitely no cigarettes.”
He nods. “Same. I haven’t drank or smoked or done anything since last year. How is LA?”
He says it so casually, like he’s just reporting a change in his wardrobe.
But it hits me like I just missed a step on the stairs.
“You quit drinking?”
He casts his gaze down toward the floor. “It might shock you, Logan, but I really don’t want to fucking die. I was slowly killing myself with that shit. I have too much I want to do.”
“I’m proud of you,” I tell him.
“Save it.”
“No, Chase, I’m really proud of you. That’s amazing to hear.”
He stares at the ground for a while and I feel like I’m two seconds away from pulling him into a hug again.
Before I move, though, he digs into his pocket and pulls out a little piece of paper. It’s square-shaped and looks like it was printed at home, but it’s clearly a business card. The background is printed with neon-colored line art, and at the center, it says his name.
Chase Cameron Fine Arts.
There’s a QR code and a link written below it.
“This is the only thing I’m proud of,” he tells me. “Quitting everything else was the easy part, even though I felt like absolute shit for a while.”
I take out my wallet and slide his card into it. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
He stands there for a while looking at me like there are a thousand tiny explosions going off beneath his surface.
It feels like I’ve lived three lifetimes in the span of the year that I’ve been away from Chase. When I won a couple of Emmys, the tenor of my fame changed, and the media veered away from calling me a “heartthrob” and started calling me “the most sought-after actor of the new era.”
I started therapy shortly after going back to LA, too, specifically focused on a sort of gentle exposure therapy, where a lovely woman named Leslie helped me grapple with my rapid fame.
I learned how to make better small talk.
I spoke to other actors, heard their stories, and slowly felt less alone.
My co-star Charlie has become a good friend to me, and the press is less inclined to rumor-monger about us now.
The media has mistakenly been spreading rumors about me dating an actress, lately, but…
All of that floats away when I’m near Chase.
Last year, it felt like I was ignoring the rest of my world when we were together. But right now it just feels like it’s going into soft focus behind him. He’s always commanded my attention. It would be impossible for him not to.
The thing about Chase is that he doesn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve, though.
He wears it all over his whole fucking being.
He’s leaning there against the shelves now, trying to act casual as he grabs a little sugar packet from behind him and taps at it over and over.
He’s probably dying to touch me. I know him well enough to know that.
“You can talk to me,” I offer. “I know you want to say something.”
He shrugs. “I’m good. Just wanted you to have my card.”
“You’re still looking at me like you’re staring off that fucking rooftop, Chase.”
“Nope. I’m fine.”
I look down, trying to bite back a smile. “Right.”
"Look, we both got it out of our systems, okay?” Chase finally blurts out. “I’m not so desperate for cock that I’m going to throw myself at you just because you’re in the penthouse again.”
“But you told me you were considering coming up to my room last night.”
“Because I just wanted to give you my card.”
“I see.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Not even a little bit.”
He lets out a frustrated groan, pacing down the hall a little and then looping back around toward me. “Yeah, this is going to be easier than I thought. I forgot how irritating you can be.”
“I forgot how fired up you get when I call you on your shit.”
He holds up a middle finger to me, but behind it, I can see him hiding a smile.
“Just tell me you’ll check out my art?”
“Of course I will.”
I glance down the hall and at the very end, I can see a group of people that asked for my autograph earlier waiting near the elevator bay. I stand up a little straighter, remembering the rest of my life all at once.
“Who’s that?” Chase asks.
“Fans.”
They’re waiting for the elevator right now, facing the other direction, but if they turned around, they’d see us.
“I take it you don’t want to see them?”
I frown. “They were already drunk when they talked to me earlier, and I bet it would be worse now. They had me pretend I was tossing a football to them, over and over, while they tried to film a TikTok.”
“Come here,” Chase says, clasping his hand around mine.
He tugs me a little further down the hall and uses his access card to beep into an employees-only door nearby.
He pushes the door open and flips a lightswitch, pulling me into the small room. It’s a storage pantry full of bulk supplies for the bar. Extra bottles of fruit syrups and jars of olives fill the metal shelving units around us, as well as boxes full of paper towels, napkins, and coasters.
It smells like lime and sugar in here, in a comforting way.
My pulse steadies.
My nerves finally calm.
Being around overzealous fans has gotten a hundred times easier over the past year, but when they appear at certain times, I still want to disappear.
“Thanks.”
“Easy dodge,” he says. “Do your fans know you’re bi yet? My friends all know I am by now, probably because I never shut up about it.”
“You know I don’t care if people find out I like guys, Chase. I just don’t want them snapping pictures of me with anybody.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that anymore. I have nothing to hide about my life,” he says firmly, almost like he’s trying to prove a point. “Any exposure is good exposure. I want to sell art, too.”
He leans back against the edge of the tall shelves, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear.
God.
Chase looks even better than I remembered, too.
Quitting the excessive drinking seemed to do him a lot of good, and he looks like he might have started working out more, too. Even under his uniform, I can tell he’s filled out more. He probably looks incredible under those clothes.
“So…” he says, looking down and then back up at me. “Are you going to get mad if I show up at your door?”
“Mad wouldn’t be the word I would use,” I tell him softly. “But I might think it’s a questionable idea.”
Chase nods slowly. As he paces back over to me, he’s fiddling with a thin black string around his wrist, and when he approaches me, he reaches out and puts a finger through one of my belt loops.
I know it’s just automatic for him. But it makes it feel like no time has passed since the last time I saw him.
“So you’re going to be here for two months?” Chase asks.
“Filming a movie called Silent Brutality for the next two months. I’m going to a premiere tomorrow for another movie at the Lincoln Center, and having plenty of meetings while I’m here, as always.”
I feel him give the loop a little tug.
“Are you comfortable?”
I nod. “I am.”
The air between us suddenly feels charged. It doesn’t help that we’re tucked away in this storage room, and that Chase is fiddling with my waistband and tugging at me. We stay silent for a while, and his finger roams along the edge of my pants, back and forth.
“What are you thinking?” I ask to break the silence.
His lashes flick up to meet my gaze. “You asking for the truth?”
I swallow. “Sure. I always want honesty.”
Something flickers in his eyes. “No you don’t.”
I pull in a long breath. “Just say it.”
He still looks wary. “Okay, but you can’t blame me afterward. I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“I was wondering if you miss my cock,” he says, and every nerve ending in my body is suddenly awake, hyperattuned to Chase’s eyes. “I was wondering if you ever think about it. Dream about it. That kind of stuff.”
I nod. “Thank you for your honesty.”
It feels like something in this small room could detonate at any moment.
I’m sure he notices that I don’t answer the question.
I can’t answer it.
But I don’t give him any relief on that part.
He grips my belt loop a little tighter for a moment, then finally lets it go.
“Thank you for visiting the bar,” he finally says, his eyes dancing over me. “It’s been boring as fuck without uptight old actors haunting the place.”
I puff out a laugh, and finally the tension leaves my chest.
“You can’t seriously be calling me old.”
His mouth comes up in a grin, and a dimple appears on one of his cheeks.
“Never said I didn’t like it.”
“Thanks, Chase.”
He breathes deeply, giving the door a nod. “The fans outside are probably gone. Get over here, VIP. Let’s go.”