Chapter Twenty-One
T hey came upstairs to find everyone had moved into the kitchen. Storm was in her high chair. Emma was sneaking spoonfuls of orange mush into Storm’s mouth around the plastic spoon she was clutching and sucking.
Trystan and Cloe were sitting at the small kitchen table, each with a cup of coffee before them, each wearing an air of tension like a pair of cats that were pretending the other didn’t exist and wanted them to know it.
Logan recalled again that Trystan had been checking her out this morning, which actually wasn’t like him. He could have the sex life of the average rock star if he wanted it, but he never had. So what was going on here? Hmm.
“We thought you two left.” Reid was leaning his hips on the counter by the coffeemaker, holding his own cup of coffee.
“I am leaving,” Sophie said. “My boots are up here.” She motioned to the door.
“You’ll come back for dinner?” Emma’s voice edged toward shrill. “I’ve invited Cloe. Trystan will be here, too.”
“Sure. Thanks. Why don’t you see what’s left of those casseroles in your freezer. Keep things simple.” Sophie glanced around the stiff tableau.
Cloe was looking at her as though she was losing her only friend.
“Let me know if you need anything from the store,” Sophie added.
“Will do. And you’ll bring Biyen,” Emma said.
“Sure will. See you later.” Sophie lifted her hand in a wave. Logan made a grab for her before she walked away.
“What?” she asked with surprise.
He stepped closer and dropped a kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you later.”
“We do that now?” she asked, trying to sound amused, but her cheeks went pink with pleasure.
“We do. What time is Biyen back?”
“Usually around four.”
“I’ll meet him.”
“Thanks. I love you.” She threw that at him in a dare, laughter glinting in her eyes.
“I love you, too,” he said unhesitatingly, clear and firm and loud enough to be heard in the other room. Take that. I’m not a coward.
She bit back a smile and didn’t look back as she closed the door behind her.
When he returned to the kitchen, every pair of eyes was on him.
“You’re all going to pretend you were the last to know?” he asked blithely.
“I’m guessing I was,” Cloe said under her breath in what would have been a solid joke in this crowd, but they were all still trying to figure her out.
She wasn’t in a position to adopt Storm. That was good. Right?
She dropped her gaze from looking at Logan and stared into her cup.
Logan helped himself to a coffee mug and Reid moved out of his way so he could pour. “What did I miss?” Logan asked.
“Not much,” Reid said. “Cloe was going to explain why she couldn’t come sooner, but Storm got hungry. We decided we all wanted coffee, then you and Sophie came up to neck in the living room.”
“If he thinks that was necking, then I’m sorry, Em,” Logan said with mock concern. “I’ll have The Talk with him later and explain special hugs.”
“No need,” Em said firmly. “Reid has all the bases covered. All of them,” she added in a deliberately throaty voice.
“Thanks, babe. You too,” Reid said with a slow wink at his wife.
“Ugh. Okay, you win,” Logan groused. “It’s like thinking about my parents having sex.”
There was another snort of amusement from Cloe. A wistful smile played around her lips, but she kept her attention on her coffee.
“Seriously, Logan,” Reid said more gravely. “I had to leave because of my mom. You know that, right? I could have handled things better back then. We all could have. And I definitely could have come back for a visit before you left, but I didn’t have much choice about leaving when I did.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it.” He would rather pull his own teeth than admit he had missed that lunkhead after he had left for university, but at least Reid wasn’t mocking him for his outburst earlier.
“I kept trying to do an Everglades episode,” Trystan said. “Producers never went for it, but I could have pushed harder.”
“You guys have lives. It’s fine,” Logan insisted. “I wasn’t suggesting you didn’t care, just because you had other things to do.”
“This has been a rough year,” Reid said. “None of this has been easy on any of us, but we’re not going back to the way it was. I don’t intend to, at least. I can’t speak for Trys. Remember Em reading us the riot act because we hadn’t seen each other in years?” He smirked and glanced over at Trystan.
“Which lecture was that?” Trystan asked, eyeing Emma. “There’ve been so many, they all blend into one.”
“You’re about to hear another one,” Emma warned tartly. “And you”—she pinned Logan with a stare—“can expect a thorough interrogation about your intentions before I sign off.”
“I’ll pass.” He plucked one of the folded face cloths from where she left a stack on the counter and wet it. “I mean, I’ll pass the test.” He wrung it out and brought it to the high chair. “Is she done?”
“Yeah, she’s lost interest. Thanks.” Emma took the dirty dishes to the sink.
“Here it comes, kid.” Logan started with her hand.
Storm was already turning her face away, squawking her displeasure.
He got the job done as quickly and gently as he could, but she was still mad at him, reaching for Trystan as soon as her bib was off and the dirty tray removed.
“How long are you staying, Cloe?” Logan asked as he wiped down the tray. “ Where are you staying?”
“I was so intent on getting here, I haven’t planned beyond this moment,” she said with an unsteady smile. “I’d like to stay a few days and see a little more of Storm while I work some things out, but I wasn’t able to find anything to book ahead. I was hoping one of you would know of something that isn’t too expensive?”
They all looked at each other. The decent thing would be to offer to let her stay here. She was Storm’s aunt, but Logan didn’t expect Reid to put her up in this house. They didn’t know yet how far they could trust her.
“She can stay aboard the Storm Ridge until I leave on Wednesday. It’s my day with Storm tomorrow anyway. We can spend the day with her.” He directed that at Cloe.
“Really?” Cloe lit up like a Christmas tree. “Thank you. I’d love that. Would it be possible to shower there before dinner? I’ve been traveling.”
“Use the shower here. I’ll show you.” Trystan rose to lead her downstairs, handing Storm to Reid on his way, saying, “She needs a change.”
“Of course she does.” He wrinkled his nose at whatever perfume was coming off the kid.
“So,” Emma said to Logan as footsteps traveled up and down the different sets of stairs. “Let’s talk about Sophie.”
“Look at the time.” He consulted his bare wrist. “I have to meet Biyen. I’ll see you at dinner.”
*
“Hey, Biyen.”
“Hi, Logan”—Biyen halted as his feet hit the wharf—“where’s Mom?”
Shit. It struck Logan that the last time he’d come to the wharf for Biyen, it had been because his grandfather had died.
“She’s totally fine,” he hurried to assure him. “She’s in the office. We’ll go see her in a sec. I wanted to talk to you about something, first. You got a minute?”
“It’s summer vacation. I have nothing but time.”
“Live it up, kid,” Logan said with amusement. “You want to ruin your dinner with an ice cream?”
“What’s for dinner?”
“I don’t know. Emma’s cooking.”
“I’ll risk it.”
What a nut.
Biyen started to run, but remembered he was still on the wharf and held himself to a walk until they were at the ramp, then he grabbed both sides of the rail and ran up fast enough to make his backpack woggle.
They bought their ice cream, then walked to the picnic table to eat it, both sitting with their backs to the table so they could face the water.
“What’s on your mind?” Biyen asked as he slid his tongue around his scoop of tiger stripe.
Only that every time this kid spoke, Logan was more certain he was making the best decision of his life.
“It’s something we talked about once before. Your mom and I have decided we love each other. I wanted to ask you what you thought about my asking her to marry me.”
He sat up taller. “Are you going to have a baby?”
“Are you asking me if I’m pregnant? No. And we’ll circle back to that because I feel like you’re missing some information.”
Biyen giggled. “I mean Mom .”
“Your mom is not pregnant, but if she wants to have a baby, I’d like that. What about you?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He nodded. “Then Storm would have someone to play with who is her age. That will be really confusing, though,” he said with a wide-eyed look of befuddlement. “If you’re Storm’s brother, but you married my mom, what would the baby be?”
Whatever it wants to be , was the correct answer, but they’d circle back on that another time, too.
“Storm would be the baby’s aunt and she would be your step-aunt.”
“But she’s a baby .” He was so tickled he couldn’t seem to lift his cone to his lips. “Auntie Step Storm.” He giggled through his orange-milky lips. “Like, Anti-Storm. What’s that? A nice day?”
Logan chuckled, as amused by the boy’s ability to entertain himself as he was with the things coming out of his mouth.
“What I’m hearing is, you don’t mind if I ask your mom to marry me. Is that right?”
Biyen cocked his head to the side. “Would we still live here?”
“For a while, but I don’t know about forever.” Logan sobered. “My brothers and I have made some big decisions that will affect where we live eventually.” It bothered him that that part wasn’t settled, but he didn’t feel as adrift now he knew Sophie would be with him no matter what. “I think for the time being your mom wants to stay here, so I’ll move downstairs into her room. With her,” he clarified as Biyen’s brow quirked up.
“You guys should sleep in Gramps’s room. It’s bigger.”
“Maybe we will. I’ll let your mom decide that. She might want to keep it the way it is for a while.”
“Yeah. That’s okay.” He nodded. “At least now I can have my playroom back. Yesss.” He pumped a fist.
“You know, I was actually worried you might be upset about this. I thought you might be wishing your mom would marry your dad.”
“Not really. Mom likes you better. When she talks to Dad, she sounds really annoyed. When she talks to you, you guys laugh.” He shrugged, then sat up taller. “Hey. Am I ever going to get to see the Storm Ridge ?”
“Have I got news for you, kid. We can get the key from Trys and take it for a spin right now if you want to.”