Chapter 18
Eighteen
Baby
“You and your boyfriend are cute.”
I drag my eyes off of Logan’s back to look at my nail tech.
“He’s…” I stop myself from stating the obvious.
He isn’t my boyfriend, but he is my fake boyfriend, and I can let myself live in the fantasy a little.
“Yeah, I know,” I say instead, letting myself be proud whether I have the right to or not.
“This doesn’t happen a lot, but I think it’s sweet when guys who obviously don’t get their nails done ever come in with their partners.”
I can imagine, but that’s not what this is. Logan is just… Logan.
“So what are we doing here?”
I jump at the suddenness of the voice next to me and look up to see the girl who was doing Logan’s nails standing next to me, leaning over me enough that her silky hair brushes my shoulder. My tech holds one of my hands up for her to see.
“Cute.” She smiles at me, her full lips making me wonder if Logan has noticed them. “I love a simple pink moment—what shade is that?” She’s being nice, and it makes me feel bad that I was jealous. A simple pink moment is clearly not her style—her nails are long and red.
“Ballet Slippers,” my girl answers as she goes back to work with a thin brush to outline the heart I asked for.
It is a fairly basic set, and with Logan getting a simple clear coat, I figured the hearts and gems would make it worth their while.
No extensions, because I hate getting used to the length—there’s always a few days where I end up texting an insane amount of typos, and with school assignments being largely typed, no thanks.
I really don’t know how to feel about this.
Embarrassment was my body’s initial reaction.
Confusion, a smidgeon of how-dare-you sprinkled in with some needless defense, but also excitement.
I usually paint my own nails, and I’m not the best at it.
When I paint my toes, I can get away with letting it spread onto the surrounding skin because a day or two of that ugly mess usually results in a perfect pedicure. Fingernails are less forgiving.
But I’ve rarely gone to nail salons. I know California is on the more liberal side of things, but I’m still a boy, and that one detail garners all sorts of looks. So, yeah. Amidst the excitement were all those other shitty feelings.
I’m an anomaly of sorts—a contradicting mix of proud and insecure.
The brazen attitude and nails, the tiny Fiat and unusual outfits—I’m loud but only sometimes proud.
Moments like this, when it’s hard to be as true to myself as I try to be, really get to me.
They make me feel every bit the weak boy I try to convince people I’m not.
It’s not Logan’s fault. I know he did this intending it as a nice gesture, but my own insecurities can’t be avoided.
I wiped my nail polish off after spending a night with Logan and a bunch of pretty girls for reasons that confuse even me.
I’m not a girl, but I’m in this weird spot where sometimes I don’t quite feel like a boy either, at least not the stereotypical one.
If Logan saw that too… I just didn’t want him to.
I didn’t want him to think of me that way, even if I am that way.
Not while we were doing whatever it is we are.
I am a boy who can’t handle someone being with me and wishing I were more of a girl.
I probably shouldn’t have picked a color called Ballet Slippers if that was the goal. Or the hearts. Or the diamond-shaped gems.
I hadn’t really noticed her leaving, but the sound of Logan and his tech laughing back at her station catches my attention, and I’m reminded that he’s the one who brought me here.
He’s seen my nails pink before. He’s even seen them a few times when I picked a different color, and he told me earlier that he liked it.
But maybe all that means is that he prefers me feminine.
The thought makes me queasy.
“Put this hand in the lamp.”
I do as she says and let my worries get louder.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
“What?” I look at the girl in front of me and can’t keep the confusion off my face.
“You’re just fidgeting a lot,” she says with a friendly smile.
“Oh.” I go still. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t aware that I had been.
“No worries. If you do need to go, I can wait, and you can get up after this hand cures.”
“I’m okay.”
We’re silent as she finishes the set—no extensions, just a solid pink on every nail except my ring fingers that instead have a cutout heart in the center and some gems on a few fingers.
“Do you like them?”
I wish I could say yes and mean it. They are cute, but part of me still wants to go home and soak them off.
I force a smile. “I love them. Thank you.”
She cocks her head, and by the look on her face, I can tell she doesn’t believe me.
“How much do I owe you?” I ask before she can press the issue.
“Nothing. Your boyfriend’s card is on file.”
“Oh, I can—”
“You all done?”
I fight the urge to hide my hands when I look up to see Logan.
It’d be a silly thing to do, considering he knows what I was sitting here doing the past forty or so minutes.
He doesn’t give me a chance to anyway—he plucks one right off my lap to inspect.
I hold my breath while he stares, and when his face breaks out into a smile, I brace myself for a laugh.
It’s what Zeke would have done.
But this is Logan, and instead of laughing, he bends down to kiss the back of my hand.
“Pretty.” He points his grin my way, and I feel the relief sweep over me in a woosh. It was like my blood was frozen still, and that one little peck punched it through my veins.
I laugh shakily, pulling my hand away and trying to play off the nerves.
I feel much lighter while he settles things up with the cashier. Warm. I keep looking at my fingers and his face, and can’t help smiling.
It’s not until we’re back in the truck that I think to ask to see his hands too.
“Cool, huh?” He grins dopily, and all I can do is stare. “The nail lady suggested it.”
He got a simple set, like me. Trimmed and painted in a clear polish, each nail except for two.
Both his ring fingers have a small pink heart in the center.
∞∞∞
Maybe Logan’s bisexual. I should ask.
I’d made the suggestion to Zeke once, but I may as well have spit on him.
Remembering it is what keeps me from opening my mouth now.
I don’t think that Zeke was—is. He’s shown interest in girls, but he was just a kid who tried really hard not to be himself.
Logan isn’t someone who would lock parts of himself away.
He isn’t Zeke. I know that—I mean, he painted his nails for me!
They even match my own, a detail so fucking sweet I’m still not over it.
It’s also weirdly turned me on. It’s a small thing to him, I can tell from how cavalier he was about the whole thing, but to me it’s huge. Massive. It feels like his version of acceptance. It’s not that he didn’t accept me before, but this is something bigger.
Apparently, I find it hot when macho men are confident enough in who they are to get pretty pink hearts on their nails.
I don’t want to keep dwelling on the past, but I can’t help thinking about how Zeke would never have done something like this.
“Baby?” Logan’s voice cuts through my errant thoughts, and I’m grateful. I don’t think he’d appreciate the comparisons.
“Hm?”
“Why does it bother you to let me see you naked?”
This boy makes it hard to ignore my blood. Whether it’s running cold, racing through my body, filling up my skinny dick—he makes me feel it. And right now I can feel it rushing to my head.
I open my mouth, but all that comes out is a strangled sound of distress. It’s a warranted reaction. We were sitting here watching Sixteen Candles, so this is quite the topic change.
“Well, not—I mean, it’s okay that you don’t, but I was wondering.” He frowns. Something about my face and the way I look shuts him up. “I’m sorry I asked.”
I laugh, a high-pitched titter that makes me sound crazed. He’s sorry.
“Then why did you?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Or—yeah, I do. I was curious. You just seem different, Baby.”
“No, I don’t.” I swallow as the squeak in my voice echoes between us. “And how would you even know? You don’t know what I’m like when…” I trail off, losing that burst of shock that fueled my argument.
“I don’t, not really. But I know that you hide from me. You hide yourself, and not just in bed. I also know you didn’t use to. I know—”
“I don’t hide!” I stand up, a sudden rage washing all humiliation away. For a brief moment, anyway.
“You do,” he has the fucking gall to state the truth, and I genuinely think about running. This is very unlike him—he rarely presses like this. I don’t like it.
I scoff, swipe at my forehead, and then scoff again. “I do not hide.” But the shirt that’s hanging halfway down my thighs sways a little, and it may as well have the word liar in bold print across the chest.
“It’s not a bad thing—do what you want—but if it’s because of me, I need to know that.”
I don’t say anything.
“Is it?”
When nothing leaves my mouth, not a single sound, he takes that as my answer.
His brows crease, renewed concern crossing his face. “But why?”
“I—” I stop there, not sure how to answer, and definitely sure that I don’t want to.
“Tell me,” he urges in a voice that matches the pleading I can see so clearly on his face. It’s not until he reaches for me that I manage to form a full thought.
“I just—it’s hard to believe that you even want to see me… like that.” I take a single step back, away from him and his freshly painted outstretched hand.
“I do,” he wastes no time in reassuring me. “But more importantly, I want you to be okay with it. I don’t want you to run or shut me out every time I get a peek.”
“Logan, I’m—” I pause to take a deeper breath. “I said I was sorry about that.”
“I know you did, but it still happened, and we should talk about why.”
“I don’t know!” I really don’t. I kind of want to ask him if he liked it, getting a peek. Touching me. I want to know. It’s an important question, and it seemed like he did, but I’m not sure I can take the answer.
He could say no. He could say it confused him. That he regrets it. His behavior doesn’t say any of that, but he just might, and then I’d be left dealing with the fallout.
“I’m just not… like the people you’ve slept with before.”
He gives me the smallest, crookedest grin that tells me he’s gathered as much. “Baby—”
“I don’t look like them, Logan. You—there’s a reason you’ve only ever slept with girls, right?”
“And you. Girls, and you.”
I huff. “Well, yes, but…” He’s just experimenting.
“There’s a reason for that, too.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to hear it.”
He rolls his eyes but says nothing.
“I don’t,” I insist.
“Fine.”
I know what I said, but it was a lie. I’m always treating his words like they couldn’t possibly be taken at face value, but I’m the one who constantly contradicts what I feel.
That’s enough to make me reconsider things on a deeper level, but I’m stubborn.
Even with it all laid out, the full picture is pretty clear to me.
“Let me show you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Part of me wishes that he could.
“Logan—”
“Please? If you won’t let me say it, just let me show you.”
I want to agree. I want to throw myself at him, let him ravage me, and maybe even love me. I want that so much.
What I don’t want is to see disgust in his beautiful brown eyes. I don’t want him to see me and wish for things I don’t have. I went into this thing with him knowing that I’d get hurt, but I’m in no hurry to feel that just yet.
“You can’t.”
“I can.” He grabs my wrist and tugs, reaching me easily because I didn’t step very far away from him to begin with. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to. “I will, Baby. You just have to trust me.”