November 21, 2020—Tel-Aviv, Israel—The Next Day #7
Logan wanted to kiss him now—needed to—but he stopped himself again. Not yet. Adrian deserved stability, not impulsiveness, and Logan’s priority was keeping him alive. He pulled back, letting himself take in Adrian’s face, every detail burned into his memory.
“We have to start,” Logan said with a smile that could melt iron, brushing a strand of Adrian’s hair behind his ear and jumping to his feet.
“Let’s start by calling your doctors and setting an appointment?
There’s no time to waste. We might need to fly for treatment if there are better programs but—”
Adrian flinched, shoulders tensing, the color draining from his face. “Logan, slow down,” he said, standing. “What do you mean, fly? This is Israel. The health care here is good—better than good—and it’s free. I can’t—”
“I’m not saying we have to,” Logan broke in, voice taut as wire, “but we have to be ready. If there’s a better program somewhere else, I want you to have it.
I can’t read the language here, Ad. I can’t argue with doctors if I don’t understand them, and if you fall through some crack because I couldn’t fight for you, I’d never forgive myself. ”
Adrian’s jaw clenched. “And if my doctors tell me the best chance is here?”
“Then we stay,” he said. “No matter what. But if there’s anywhere that can give you more, we’ll go.”
Adrian hesitated, folding his arms across his chest and taking a step back. “Lo… I don’t have the money for this. You’re talking about flying, hospitals, treatments… I… I can’t afford it.”
“Ad, I know,” Logan said gently, stepping toward him. “It’s okay.”
Adrian dropped his gaze, his voice quieter as color tinted his cheeks. “I don’t think you do. I don’t own a car. I live with a roommate. I don’t have a steady job.” He trailed off, his embarrassment palpable.
He had been living simply, scraping by on savings and support, because he hadn’t seen a future worth planning for.
He had been preparing to say goodbye. He always thought: just eleven more months, just eight more months, just six more months…
counting down the moment and trying to live in the little time he’d left.
“I know,” Logan repeated, taking Adrian’s hand and leading him back to the couch. “And it doesn’t matter. It’s all on me. Every single bit of it. It’s not even a question.”
Adrian frowned, conflicted as they sat down. “I don’t like it. I agreed to the treatments, but I didn’t think it would mean leaving here and—”
“Ad,” Logan interrupted gently, intertwining their fingers. “This is the best way to save you. Please, don’t worry about the money. I’ve got it. All I want is for you to fight. Let me take care of the rest.”
Adrian stared at Logan for a moment, his heart aching at the determination and love in Logan’s eyes.
Finally, he nodded, though the hesitation in his eyes was clear.
Logan saw it and reached out, gripping his hands tightly.
“Ad, please,” he said softly, yet his voice was steady.
“It’s just money. You hold my life in your hands now, that is what matters.
Not a few pieces of paper. You’re worth so much more than any of it. ”
Adrian’s gaze dropped, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s… too much.” He wasn’t referring to the money, but to everything—Logan showing up, the whirlwind of changes, the chaos he’d brought into his carefully constructed resignation.
Logan bent slightly to meet Adrian’s eyes, his voice firm but filled with warmth. “It’s far from too much. I know it’s scary, but we’re in this together. We are together in this.”
Adrian’s lips curved into the faintest of smiles, a fragile thing, yet real. “I like the way that sounds,” he murmured.
“So do I,” Logan replied, his own smile radiant and genuine, lighting up his face. “So, why don’t you start by calling your doctor and setting an appointment for as soon as possible?”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“And then maybe we’ll grab something to eat?” Logan blurted, voice tripping over itself, caught between hope and fear. He took Adrian’s hand gently, grounding himself in the familiar warmth of that skin. “If… if you’d like, of course. Or, if you’d rather rest, I can head back, I mean—”
Adrian shook his head. “Do you want to maybe order in or get take-away?” Adrian asked in a calm, tentative voice.
Logan exhaled, relief flooding him, softening the tension in his shoulders. “Sure,” he nodded. “So, do you want to go make that call, and I’ll grab something to eat? I also need to get some ointment for the new tattoo.”
“Or…” Adrian put one hand on Logan’s cheek. “Or you could stay with me while I make the call. Then we can go together. Pick something up, stop by the pharmacy, come home…just…do it together?”
Logan felt tears welling up before he could stop them, the relief and the ache crashing into him all at once. “That,” he whispered, pressing his lips to Adrian’s knuckles, “sounds perfect.”
Adrian got up from the couch and walked toward the bedroom to grab his phone. As he reached the nightstand, he spotted the device and stretched for it, but before he could reach it, Logan’s voice called out softly from behind him.
“Adrian.”
He paused and turned around, and the next moment Logan was hugging him so tightly it almost made him lose his breath.
“You’re going to be okay,” Logan declared, his voice brimming with certainty. He wrapped Adrian in a hug, his arms tightening around him as if anchoring him to the world. Logan buried his face in Adrian’s shoulder, breathing him in, and Adrian felt his heart stutter in his chest.
Adrian nodded against Logan, his head resting against the warmth of Logan’s torso, loving how tall Logan was, but doubt lingered.
He wasn’t sure if he could believe it. But his traitorous body didn’t care—it reveled in the closeness, the feel of Logan’s arms around him, and the way his own heartbeat seemed to be trying to leap out of his chest and settle next to Logan’s.
And just like that, Logan Vaughn had blustered back into Adrian’s life, as chaotic and unstoppable as a summer storm.
He’d swept through, leaving nothing untouched, nothing unaffected.
The wounds Adrian had spent so long nursing, the scars he thought he’d accepted, were eclipsed in Logan’s presence.
All that remained was the undeniable sense of wholeness, as the part of Adrian that had been missing was finally returned.
Logan had grown leaner, almost too thin, as though the weight of his own struggles had carved him down to the essentials. His face carried the wear of sleepless nights, and there was a fragility in his features that made something seize inside of Adrian.
But he was still Logan. The same beautiful, determined, kindhearted man who had swept Adrian off his feet two years ago. And now, against all odds, Logan had come crashing back into his life, just as unrelenting and irrepressible as ever.
Adrian placed a trembling hand over his chest, the uneven rhythm of his heart pounding against his palm, wild and erratic, as if it were alive with memory, as if it were trying to remind him of something vital.
It pulsed beneath his fingertips with a desperate kind of loyalty, a quiet plea that whispered: Remember.
Remember what it feels like to truly live.
Remember what it feels like to be whole.
Logan had taken his heart once before, silently, painfully, and left him bleeding in his absence. And now, just like that, it seemed Logan had done it again—slipped past Adrian’s carefully constructed defenses, stolen the fragile remains, and claimed them as though they had always belonged to him.
And they had.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly, his hand still pressed to his chest, as though he could hold the ache inside, contain the rush of feeling that Logan’s presence had stirred.
But it was futile. His heart, loyal to its thief, refused to obey, thrumming wildly with the thrill of living, the fullness of hope that he hadn’t dared to let himself feel in so long.
Just like that, Logan had undone him.
Again.