Chapter 22 #2
I tried to picture what a little Logan might’ve looked like, befriending a little Noah. “He seems so different from you. So much more… into the school rivalry stuff.”
His eyes slowly opened, but he didn’t look at me. He stared straight up at the sky. “Yeah. He is.”
I watched him, continuing to comb my fingers through the front pieces of his hair. I thought about asking him more about it, but there was clearly something about the topic that bothered him.
“Noah, he—” Logan cut himself off with a breathy chuckle. “He’s opinionated. Sees things in black and white. Danielle tries to introduce him to gray more often.”
“How did they become a couple?”
“We’ve all been friends for years, but it was last year that he asked her to prom.
A sort of ‘let’s go together so we don’t go alone’ sort of thing.
They left the After Prom officially together.
” Logan’s eyes shifted from blinking up at the sky to me.
“They’re cute together. It was weird at first, but they’re cute. ”
“I can’t wait to see them together,” I told him honestly.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a couple that was true goals.
Connor and Jade were anything but, even back when they were actually dating for real.
I still wasn’t sure if Landon and Lacey Churchill were actually dating or not.
Heck, even Maisie’s boyfriend, Alex, seemed like an idiot.
It’d be interesting to see what a real couple looked like.
I wondered if they’d look like Logan and me.
Suddenly, Logan surged upward, as if he all at once couldn’t sit still.
He drew in a sharp, shaking breath, and the truck bed bounced a little as he moved.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to do,” he said as he situated himself beside me against the cab.
“Something I’ve held myself back from doing—barely—but I want to do it with you. ”
Kissing me?
My cheeks flamed hot from the absolute audacity of my thoughts. “W-What’s that?”
“Read Babble.” He tipped his chin down. “Read about you on Babble.”
It took a second for his words to sink in, and my mind did a double take. “Wait, what?”
Logan took ahold of my shoulders and eased me away from the cab, sliding in behind me. One of his legs stretched out against my side, and he tucked me close to his chest. “Pull your phone out,” he told me.
“Wait,” I repeated, urgency filling the word. “Now?” Like, together? With me present? He wanted to scroll through Babble in front of me?
Propped against the cab of the truck, Logan leaned back further, tightening his arms around my frame to pull me along with him.
His chest was warm against my spine, and had panic not been setting in, I might’ve felt fluttery by the embrace.
Instead, I felt trapped by it. “I’ve almost opened it up a time or two on my own, but I figured you’d probably prefer to do it with me. ”
Uh, yeah. I would’ve died if I found out Logan scrolled through Babble. Not that it was a barren tabloid wasteland, but there were some things that were totally embarrassing. Bad photos, mean comments, awkward articles. And, even worse, his Babble debut. “Uh, it’s really not that—”
“Come on,” he murmured into my ear, lowering his head until his chin brushed the side of my temple. “Let’s open Pandora’s box, shall we?”
I sucked in a breath as the whisper made its way down the side of my neck, my body traitorously unwinding at the sensation. The jerk totally hypnotized me. “I don’t see why you’re so curious,” I muttered, easing my phone out of my cheer skirt’s inside pocket.
“You’d be curious if there was a whole gossip blog for Jefferson,” he pointed out patiently, seeing right through me.
Logan was right; if Jefferson had its own Babble, no way would I have been able to hold myself back. No, Logan waited two weeks to see what the school’s gossip blog had to say about his girlfriend. He deserved a glimpse.
I just really didn’t want to.
“You promise not to laugh,” I told him, my thumb hovering over the web browser app on my phone. I’d gone through these same articles the other day when I’d searched my name, so realistically, I knew there wasn’t anything too bad waiting for us. But still.
Logan gave me a little squeeze. “Promise.”
The Babble homepage was a light blue background with darker blue pawprints scattered throughout, with some gold ones as accents. The layout was relatively simple to navigate, with a clear search bar at the top where you could input names or topics.
The article that greeted us was just about tonight’s football game, and what the student section’s theme was to dress up as. I tapped on the search bar, slowly typing in the letters of my name as if signing a death warrant.
MADISON OLIPHANT
201 RESULTS
“Woah,” Logan murmured, leaning in. “I guess you are popular.”
“This is any time my name has been mentioned in an article. Even if it’s not all about me.”
I’d been proud of these articles once upon a time. I’d been happy to see my name in a headline, to see people leaving dozens of comments about me. It’d been exhilarating, and if I concentrated, I was almost positive I’d remember where I was when each one dropped. Especially my first one.
Now, though, as Logan watched my screen, I felt nothing but horrendous, cheek-burning embarrassment.
The articles that loaded weren’t anything too crazy.
Logan’s Babble debut didn’t pop up either, since the article obviously didn’t mention me by name.
The MLT list didn’t, either, since my name was mentioned in the PDF attachment, not the article itself.
But others did. Cheer Captains Announced—Or Should I Say CO-CAPTAINS!
and Top Tier First Day Outfits! Things had been lowkey since the start of the school year, which meant tamer Babble headlines.
“This isn’t bad at all,” Logan said in a light voice a few minutes after reading. “I was expecting worse.”
“Worse?”
“Like… Cheerleader Gone Wild or something.”
I scrunched my nose. “As if. We have a status to maintain.”
“My mistake.” I could hear a smile in his voice, and could feel the turn of his lips as they brushed my ear. I went ramrod straight in his embrace as electricity zinged through me. “Ooh, what’s this one? Madison’s Mystery Man—” Logan abruptly stopped reading.
It was the Babble post that’d gone out on the first day of the school year. After Ava had posted her Welcome Back article, and after Jade and I had gone around the school hyping up Logan’s impending arrival.
Madison’s Mystery Man—Fact or Fiction?
My Babble inbox has been floooooded with the news.
Brentwood High’s latest transfer student is Madison’s new boo?
Sounds dreamy. The only problem… is that he’s nowhere to be seen.
But don’t worry! Babble will have the inside scoop for you first, and Madison would totally never let us down, so everyone keep their eyes out!
She was more gracious than most of the student body was.
I knew without looking what the comments all said; I’d burned them into my memory.
He totally doesn’t exist or She’s just trying to steal Jade’s spotlight and how embarrassing that she got ghosted!
I’d been refreshing the comments almost as incessantly as I’d been scrolling Logan’s text thread back then.
I could feel Logan’s shoulders fall. “I should’ve been honest earlier.” Regret filled Logan’s voice. “I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have let you think that for so long.”
“It was Jade’s fault, really,” I told him.
He tensed as I shifted in his arms. “She wanted to post about you to stir up excitement. But don’t worry, it blew over pretty quickly.
” The Most Likely Tos had taken its place as the superior gossip topic.
The memory of that article dropping had my stomach turning.
“Do you see yourself being friends with Jade forever?” Logan asked me after a beat. “You’re that close? You’d forgive her… for anything?”
I lowered my phone a little, because the idea of forever and Jade as of late immediately made me pause.
As strange as it sounded, I couldn’t picture it at all.
Life after high school in general just seemed so fuzzy, like an unfocused lens of a camera, but the idea of Jade after Brentwood seemed…
impossible. You’d forgive her for anything?
“I don’t want to talk about Jade,” I said, turning around and looking up at Logan.
His expression was clearly twisted with something like unease.
I locked my phone and placed my hand on his leg, batting my eyes at him.
“I don’t want to look at Babble anymore, either.
I just want to be here in the moment with you. ”
It didn’t immediately clear Logan’s restlessness, but his eyes curved ever so slightly, on the cusp of a smile. “Deal.” And he allowed me to settle back into his arms, once more drawing me close.
We sat like that for a little longer before he had to head to get ready for his game and I had to get ready for mine.
We made nonsense shapes out of the clouds, laughed at the truly ridiculous images, and soaked up the sunlight as it peeked through.
Logan’s fingers traced their own mystery shapes along my skin, and I leaned my temple back against his chin, and everything was perfect.
I could do this forever, I thought while the time passed, feeling his heart beat against my back, my own matching the pace. I want this. Forever.