Chapter 13 #2
Jade shook her head. “At least he’s making headlines.”
I didn’t miss her emphasis. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We need to get you a boyfriend, Mads. Like, now.” Jade raised an eyebrow at Landon. “Someone else is trying to take your It Couple status.”
It Couple status. I’d been so obsessed with it before school started, and now… “I’m kind of okay with hanging out like this for a while,” I said, still quiet, in case Ava overheard. “Landon can take the top spot.”
“Landon does not want the top spot,” Landon said in the third person. “I was only talking to Ava because—”
“Madison, you need someone. That way everyone talks about that and not your label.”
Underneath the table, my hands curled into fists.
I told you, I wanted to shout, and could feel the words forming behind my closed lips.
You should’ve thought it through. Because I knew she’d seen the same Babble comments I had—about how it was a little harsh the Top Tier put one of their own friends on the list. And Jade wanted to be seen as benevolent, never cruel.
But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “We’ll see.”
Jade turned back down to her phone. “Go put in an order for pizza.”
I leaned around to see her phone screen. “What does Riley even want, anyway—”
“Gosh, nosy much?” Jade jerked her phone back, shooting me a glare. “Can’t you cover the pizza this once?”
She forced me to come bowling, made me pay for shoes when she wasn’t even playing, and was going to make me buy a pizza Reed and Connor would devour in five seconds? I opened my mouth, but above her, Connor slowly shook his head at me. Don’t provoke the beast.
“I’ve got it,” Landon said, pulling his card out of his wallet. “Get a large. We all know Connor’s going to have, like, four slices.”
“As if you’re any better,” Connor shot back with a grin.
There was a longish line for the food, and I stepped up behind a kid begrudgingly, turning over Landon’s card in my grip.
I wasn’t sure if Jade was just tense because the owner of Babble was present, but I had no idea why she was taking it out on me.
Whatever was underneath her skin was beginning to creep under mine, making me way too on edge for a simple round of bowling.
I stood in the line at the food counter, thinking about a certain text thread on my phone. I’d gotten away with our secret date on Tuesday—it was too risky to text Logan again. I needed to remind myself of that. That it was a bad idea.
If you ever need another therapy session, Logan had said. You know where I am.
“Pizza here any good?”
The quiet male voice was right in my ear, and my first instinct was to jerk away. But—wait. What if it was a guy who might’ve been willing to buy pizza for a pretty girl? That way Landon wouldn’t have to fork up twenty bucks for crappy bowling alley pizza.
Straightening my shoulders—and maaaaybe popping my chest forward a bit—I fluttered my lashes, turning. “That’s actually what I’m getting—” And then I stopped.
Logan Castle stood not even a foot behind me, waiting for me to finish with a small, puppy-like smile on his face.
My heart stalled at the sight of him, and everything else faded out around us. Like the lens of a camera zoomed in on just him, blurring the background. I could see the other corner of his mouth tip up, almost like he was thinking the same thing.
And then reality sacked the moment in an unforgiving tackle. “Are you crazy?” I hissed, whirling back around and counting the people in front of me. Five. Maybe six—my world was swaying, so it was impossible to tell. “What are you doing here?”
“Buying a pizza.” It sounded like he was smiling wider.
“No, I mean—at the bowling alley.”
“Bowling.” Definitely smiling.
“Don’t—don’t you work Thursdays?”
“I took the day off.”
Why? I wanted to demand. Why is this happening to me? Why here? Why now?
Logan lowered his voice. “My friends are here.”
Panic licked its way up my spine, and I glanced at my table from the corner of my eye. Landon had just bowled a gutter ball—comforting that I wasn’t the only one who absolutely sucked—and the two other boys were teasing him. I couldn’t see Jade from where I stood. “The football players or the…”
“Dorks?” Logan chuckled a little, as if there was nothing wrong in the world. “The dorks. Are you here with your friends?”
Along with panic, heat began to burn its way up the back of my neck. He stood way too close. “Well, I’m not here bowling by myself.”
“No, I’d reckon not.” I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but he seemed to lean even closer. “Then again, I’m surprised you’re bowling in the first place. Our exposure therapy worked already, hmm?”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I turned around, eyes wide. “Shut up.”
Something seemed to dance across Logan’s expression—something like a thrill. “Sorry, Juliet, I forgot that that’s our secret.”
Juliet.
“That was one session. Or, maybe, technically two? Can you imagine if we had another?”
Ha, as if I hadn’t been imagining that very thing for the past two days. “No.”
Someone placed their order and stepped out of line, shuffling us all forward. Four more. “Are you going to tell your friends that I’m here with my friends?” he murmured.
Logan’s breath brushed the skin at the side of my neck, and I fought the shiver crawling up my spine. “No.”
“Another secret?” I could hear the smile in his voice. “How many secrets do you have with me?”
They were words I might’ve teased him with—bold, straightforward, flirty.
I turned around to shoot him another glare, but I found a vastly different expression than I’d been expecting.
Logan looked—shy. Slightly embarrassed, as if he, himself, couldn’t believe those words left his mouth.
He didn’t take them back, though, despite the flush that kissed his ears.
Something in me softened, even more so when he couldn’t maintain eye contact. “You’re ridiculous,” I muttered under my breath.
“I know,” Logan whispered back.
The line moved forward. Three more ahead of me.
Logan stepped closer, close enough that the edge of his shoulder pressed into the curve of my back.
I didn’t move away. Instead, my body almost seemed to—on its own accord; I couldn’t stop it—lean back into him.
The edge of his shoulder became firmer against me, sending a rush straight to my head. Not allowed, not allowed, not—
“I shouldn’t have come over here.” Logan gave a soft sigh, and for the first time, unease entered his voice. “You ever do something you know is wrong, but you can’t help yourself?”
I swallowed hard. “You know I have.”
“Right. Me.” Logan shifted on his feet, his shoulder brushing more firmly against the middle of my back. “I shouldn’t have come here. But I had to see you again. Just once.”
My eyes snapped open—when had they fallen shut? I glanced back to my lane again, but I still couldn’t see Jade through the crowd of people. What if she saw us? The thought of getting caught had me sweating. “It’s not only my friends here. The girl who runs the gossip site—”
“Let’s not talk, then,” Logan said abruptly, but the pressure of his body didn’t disappear from my back. “Pretend I’m not even here.”
The line shuffled forward again. Two people ahead of us.
Logan’s fingertips brushed my clenched fist in a teasing touch before gently taking it into his large hand.
I jumped at the contact, and how the coolness of his skin attempted to swallow my fire.
He worked his fingers around mine, forcing them to loosen, my nails easing up at where they’d been biting into my palms.
A shiver still zipped its way across my body.
I allowed myself to imagine what it’d be like if I leaned back, connecting my spine along his chest. What it’d be like if his lips grazed my ear, my cheek.
I thought about what those arms, lined with muscle from a boy dedicated to his sport, would feel like if they settled against me, wrapped around my waist.
I focused on the menu hanging above the counter, but the words meant nothing to me.
Logan’s fingertips brushed my knuckles, a teasing, ghostly swipe. It was my left hand, and he stood so close that even if my friends did look over, they couldn’t have known he was touching me.
Pretend I’m not here. His words turned my mind to mush. My fingers imperceptibly curled around the tip of his thumb. We can keep us a secret.
Logan pressed his palm flat against mine, like a kiss.
A sharp shriek cut through the bowling alley. I jerked toward my lane just in time to see Maisie shoving her chair back from her table, dark pop soaking the front of her white shorts. Her boyfriend beside her picked the fallen cup, and one of her friends started dabbing with napkins.
Even from here, I could hear the amusement in Jade’s tone. “There she goes again. Clumsy.”
A tight pressure gripped my chest, especially when Maisie pushed away from her table and stormed toward the bathrooms, with nearly everyone in the alley watching her. It was like freshman year all over again.
“Do you know her?” Logan asked at the same time the girl at the counter sighed in frustration.
“Hello?” she called. I hadn’t even noticed the kid in front of me had already ordered. “Do you know what you want? There’s a line.”
Logan’s mind-boggling touches paired with Maisie practically fleeing into the bathroom left me imbalanced, like a robot glitching.
What was I in line for? What was the last thing Logan asked me?
What should I be doing? My legs hummed, as if about to start moving on their own accord, but I had no idea where they’d lead me.
“Two large pepperoni pizzas, please,” Logan answered for me, reaching around me to offer out a small wad of cash. “One for lane nine and another for lane twenty-two, please.”
I looked up at him in shock—for the fact that he bought my pizza but also knew my lane number, but Logan only looked down and gave a nod of his chin. “Go ahead,” he said to me, eyes flicking toward the bathroom.