Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
Logan
He’s been quiet since we got home. The bathroom stunt was an impulse, and not one I can regret, but it might not have done everything I wanted it to. I wanted his mind off of Zeke and all on me, but I can only hope that it worked.
“Baby?”
“Hm?” He sounds exhausted. Looks it, too.
Baby’s walking around his room in nothing but another skimpy pair of shorts like a darling little zombie.
I didn’t spank him that hard, but his skin is so fair that it still looks raw hours later, the reddened flesh peeking out from the slightly frayed edges of his cotton shorts.
I get that I’m the cause of that, and I know he enjoyed it, but seeing him in this state makes me want to bundle him up, comfort him somehow. My poor little vampire.
I perk up when he stands sluggishly in front of his dresser, bleary eyes fixed on the bottle of lotion he stores there. “Want help?” I hope he says yes, that he lets me do this for him. It feels like I need to do something.
He brings the bottle with him to the edge of the bed, handing it to me when he’s standing between my spread knees. It was quieter than I’d hoped for, but it’s a yes. He relaxes before I even touch him, eyes falling shut as I warm the lotion between my hands.
I hate that I can feel confused during moments like this, but it can be jarring.
It’s taken me longer than it should have—too long, honestly—to realize that this isn’t something entirely new that I’m experiencing.
I’ve always wanted to be near Baby, to talk to him, touch him.
These urges have been around for a while, but now I’m living in constant aha!
moments. It all makes sense now, why I was so set on forcing our friendship.
I’ve had a fucking crush on this guy since I moved in.
“Logan,” he complains quietly when it takes me too long to start.
I puff out a soft laugh, releasing the grip I had locked around his wrist as I was zoned out. “I’m sorry.” I kiss the back of his hand to prove it.
“Hurry up,” he demands, the sleepy frown on his face making it too precious to deny.
I start with his hands, then go up to cover his neck before I slide my palms over his shoulders.
His nipples are peaking—my touch the cause—and I take the time to rub my thumbs over them before moving down his flat stomach.
He leans in closer, his lazy way of asking me to get his back.
“I can get the rest.”
“No,” I grumble, my fingertips already slipping beneath the band of his shorts.
His back arches the slightest bit, and part of me wonders if it was voluntary or if his body had a mind of its own. Either way, I like that he reacts to me, gives me subtle signs that he enjoys these moments as much as I do.
“Okay, fine, but I’m too tired for anything else.”
Well, maybe not as much as I do, but still. It’s his fault I’ve got his ass checks in my palms right now.
“I have self-control, Baby.” The sentence comes out awkwardly as I stumble over it, choosing the words carefully to try to sound assertive.
“That’s good.” His eyes finally open—and almost all the way—because he can’t pass up a chance to be witty. “After the whole bathroom scene, I figured it’d disappeared.”
“That was… necessary.”
His scoff lolls out slowly and officially loses all of its usual oomph when the only thing he can manage afterward is to close his eyes again.
I actually do have self-control, and plenty of it. I prove it by finishing my job quickly, adding more lotion to every part of his skin I can reach, and then maneuvering him into his bed—doing all of that without any unneeded lingering.
“Logan?”
”Yes?”
“I thought that you liked ropes.”
I stare at him, look him over as he’s cuddled up beneath his fuzzy blanket and a handful of splashiest still behind his back.
“I do.” But the ones I have, I can’t use on him.
They’re not new. “The cuffs reminded me of you—I thought you’d like them.
” They did. Actually, a while ago, months before we even kissed.
In my head, I told myself it didn’t mean anything that I got them.
When I couldn’t use them with anyone, I figured it was just because it was weird—being reminded of my roommate and best friend while with someone else.
I wish I’d realized then that it was because I wanted him.
“I do like them,” he says, a small smile on his lips. It reminds me that he needs his lip balm. I get it out of his drawer and hand it to him, feeling like I’ve been rewarded when he thanks me before closing his eyes once again.
“Can you turn the light out when you go?”
I freeze in place, one arm still in the shirt I was removing. “What?”
“Please,” he presses, snuggling one of the many stuffed animals that didn’t end up on the floor when he settled into bed.
He’s more tired than I thought. Obviously, I’m sleeping in here.
∞∞∞
I cross my arms and glare at the shared wall between our rooms—not that he sees it. I’ve been sent away, forced into solitary confinement as he cuddles a pink dildo plushie. I woke him up one singular time to play with his butt, and now he can’t trust me to let him get a good night’s sleep. Pfft.
It’s three in the morning, and I should be sleeping, but the hit to my ego is making that impossible. The fact that he’s passed out only adds to the insult. Instead of attempting to snooze, I left his room and ended up on the couch.
I choose the first thing I see in Baby’s purchased catalogue that isn’t from the eighties, but pay zero attention to it.
Part of me wishes I were one of the many, many people who doomscroll all their time away, but I don’t go on social media very much—and when I do, it’s just to keep up with family.
I bet he’s pretty active on them—which ones, I don’t know, but there’s a way to find out.
His online persona is not quite the Baby I know.
It’s not that his image is insincere—the eighties callbacks, the selfies, the memes and videos he shares, they fit him, but it’s all extra.
It’s like Baby squared. My investigation gets creepy the longer I snoop, because I look for any and everything.
I save some of his selfies, even the ones I have to screenshot because the app won’t let me download them.
Comments he’s left on his friends’ posts and images, the videos he’s liked and saved, and his many reposts.
There are even a few captions that say they’ve been edited, and I look at the originals just to find out he’d fixed his grammar.
I spend hours finding things I already knew and discovering new things that surprise me. I’ve known that The Lost Boys is his favorite movie, but I can’t wrap my head around the idea that he never wants a cat or a dog. I’ve always pictured myself having a couple of each.
I wonder if he’d be open to a compromise—just a little dog. Or a quiet, independent cat, I don’t know. Or a bird. Those are kind of cool.
“How long have you been up?”
I blacken my phone screen and look around. The sun is rising, casting a blue hue over the room, but I don’t know what time it is.
I mumble noncommittally, choosing to keep my cyberstalking a secret. “Why aren’t you asleep?” I figured I wouldn’t see him up and about until noon.
“Had to pee.” He yawns as he rounds the couch, still showing off his physique in nothing but shorts.
I could tell him that he’s breaking his most coveted rule, but he sits down next to me, and the thought disappears there.
“What are you watching?”
I’m too self-conscious to say. I didn’t even pick it—it just automatically played after those mouse movies. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him that, though.
He grabs the remote to check himself when I take too long to answer him. “The Little Vampire.” He gives me a breathy laugh as his head lowers, not settling until his cheek is pressed against my thigh. “That’s what Cade calls me.”
“What?”
He’s said many times that I make him mad on purpose, but this is definitely ragebait.
“I call you that.”
He rolls his head, looking up at me with his sleep-crusted eyes in confusion. “Okay.”
“I do.”
“I believe you.”
I cross my arms, effectively blocking out his bullshit.
“Logan.” His fingers curl over my forearm, baby pink nails softly scratching at the tensed muscle. “I know you’ve called me that, but Cade says it more. It’s—”
I lift my arms just enough so that his fingers slide off of me, and then go back to sulking.
Maybe I don’t say it out loud every time, but he’s literally my little vampire.
I mean, not a literal blood-sucking creature of the night, but he’s mine and small and a chronic biter. Nobody calls him that more than I do.
“I can tell him not to say it anymore,” he says, face still hidden. “He calls me a lot of other things, so I’m sure one less nickname—”
“What’s your actual name?” I ask, uncrossing my arms to face him.
He blinks slowly, and I can’t tell if it’s from having just woken up or if he’s holding back an answer.
“Hold on.” He rolls off of me sluggishly, ending up on all fours in front of the couch, where he stretches like a cat.
It’s all very dramatic and showy, and again, he’s either still tired or trying to distract me. “Wait.”
I choose to follow him to his room instead.
“Here.”
I take the card he hands me, his actual ID, with wide eyes. This isn’t something I ever saw happening. “Oh.” Feels a bit anticlimactic.
It’s actually Baby.
“I changed it when I turned eighteen.”
“Well… then why not just show me this sooner? I’ve asked you a million times what your name is.”
He climbs back onto his mattress, collecting one of the stuffed animals off the ground as he goes. “You should have believed me.”
“But… I don’t get it—nobody believed you, and you’ve had the proof this whole time.”
“Yeah, but it’s nobody’s business. And my moms would only pay for the name change if I kept my middle name.”
I look for it, struggling for a second to read what it says. “Oh.”
“It was my grandpa’s name.”
“That… makes sense.”
“Don’t laugh, Logan. I’ll murder you.”
“I’m not, it’s… I think it’s cute.” Baby Beaufort Hollbrook. “Fancy.”
“Shut up.”
“Baby, come on.” I shrug. “It’s not bad. Beau for short, that’s cute as fuck.”
He doesn’t believe me. “Whatever.”
“It is. Beau fits you.” Beaufort is another story, so I can see why he’s so apprehensive.
“Why’d you change your name in the first place?
” If his current middle name was his first. I’d understand why he changed it then, but still.
Beau does fit him. He could just walk around telling everyone it’s short for beautiful.
“My mom’s favorite movie was Dirty Dancing.”
That explains nothing.
“The main character, everyone calls her Baby, so my mom used that more than she used my actual name, which was also the main character’s actual name.”
I stare at him dumbly as I try to process what he just said. “What?”
He sighs. “My name was Francis, but she called me Baby and I… am Baby.”
Francis Beaufort Holbrook. “I guess that was a little too grown-up for you, huh?”
He scrunches his brows, unhappy at the assessment.
“I mean, Baby fits better.” Maybe it’s because that’s all I’ve known him as, but it does.
That makes him smile—for a brief moment. “You can’t tell anyone. I’ll—”
“Murder me, I know.”
“I could do it.”
“I’m sure you could.” He looks comfortable, clearly getting ready to fall back asleep. I could use a few hours myself, so I set his ID down and head for the door.
“Wait—can you fill my water, please?”
He probably hasn’t fully sobered from all the alcohol, and it’s only because I don’t want to listen to him whine when he wakes up later with a hangover that I grab his metal cup.
On my way to the fridge, I spot the bananas and roll my eyes.
They aren’t even good. They’re the mushiest fruit I know of.
If they’re too green, they leave a weird film on your teeth and tongue, and those stringy pieces of the peel are annoying to pick off.
I sound mental—which is the only reason I don’t throw the bundle away on my way back to Baby.
He thanks me and sits up enough to take a sip, and when I turn to leave again, he grabs my hand. “Wanna lay down with me?”
I shrug nonchalantly. “Sure.”
As tired as I am, I feel a burst of excitement at being invited into his bed. I have to smash that feeling down so I don’t hug him too tightly, settling for spooning him instead. I fall asleep within minutes.