Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
CASSIE
I wake up warm, cozy, tangled under blankets and between limbs.
It takes me a second to place it, my brain slow and syrupy, before I fully register the arm draped over my waist, the leg pressing up against mine, and steady breath at the back of my neck.
Last night hits me all at once, a rush of heat and memory and something I don’t want to name yet.
Rebound. This was supposed to be a rebound. Nothing serious.
I flicker my eyes open like I’m waking from the dead. And when I crack one eye open and squint at the clock.
9:07 a.m.
“Shit.”
I don’t oversleep. Ever.
I bolt upright so fast Logan grunts behind me, his arm tightening instinctively like he’s trying to keep me there.
“Mm. Morning.”
“Logan,” I hiss, scrambling out of bed. “What time is it?”
He rolls onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling. “Damn.”
“What are you looking at?” I say, popping a hip out.
“You. You look so hot in the morning.”
“Logan! Ugh. My brother is coming over this morning to fix the kitchen cabinet door.”
That gets his attention.
He pushes up on his elbows. “Okay?”
“Okay?” I repeat, already yanking on a T-shirt. “He has a key, Logan. He’s supposed to be here at nine.”
Right then, I hear footsteps inside.
“Sis? Where ya at?” Jackson’s voice calls from downstairs.
Then I hear boots on the stairs, and my blood goes cold.
“Oh my God, he’s here. He’s coming up the stairs.”
Logan swings his legs off the bed. “Alright, relax. We’re two adults.”
“Closet.”
He pauses. “Cassie, I think you might be overreact—”
“Closet. Now.” I grab his arm and start dragging him across the room. “If my brother sees you half-naked in my bed, I will actually die.”
“I’m not half-naked,” he mutters, glancing down at himself. “I’m fully naked.”
I shoot him a death stare. I can hear Jackson’s boots clanking in the upstairs hallway now.
“Logan, I swear to God. I will kill you myself.”
“Some people work hard for this.”
“Logan.”
There’s a creak in the floorboards close to my room.
“Cass? You up here?”
He exhales, then lets me shove him toward the closet. “This is insane.”
“Get in.”
He ducks inside just as a floorboard outside my room groans.
I slam the door, then immediately wince at the sound, which is too loud and too obvious.
I drag a hand through my hair, trying to smooth it down, trying to slow my breathing so I can act normal.
A knock taps lightly against my door before it swings open anyway.
“Cass? Who were you talking to?”
I turn, forcing what I hope is a casual expression. “Hey. Uh, that was Avery. Early morning chat, you know.”
My brother stands there, coffee in hand, looking way too awake for this hour. “So you were talking to Avery.”
“Uh-huh.”
He eyes me suspiciously. “You just wake up?”
“Pretty much,” I say, shrugging. “Slept in.”
His eyebrows lift. “You? Slept in?”
I shrug again, aiming for nonchalance and probably landing somewhere closer to suspicious. “Crazy, right?”
He steps further into the room, glancing around.
I become acutely aware of everything.
Such as the rumpled sheets and Logan’s lingering scent. Not to mention the fact that my heart is beating like I just ran a marathon.
“So,” he says slowly, “you ready to tackle the cabinet situation or…?”
“Yeah. Totally. Just give me, like, five minutes.”
“Mm-hmm.”
He takes a sip of his coffee, still looking around.
Sniffing, almost. Oh my God.
“Did you switch detergents?” he asks.
“What?”
“Smells different in here.”
My laugh comes out a little too high. “No. Same as always.”
Inside the closet, something shifts. Just barely, but I hear it and freeze.
My brother’s eyes narrow slightly. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
He glances toward the closet. No. Absolutely not.
He takes a step in that direction.
“I’ll grab a hoodie,” he says. “It’s freezing in here. You’re really cranking the AC.”
“No!”
The word flies out of my mouth way too fast, way too loud.
He stops and looks at me.
I swallow, scrambling. “I mean—I’ll get it for you. You don’t know where anything is.”
“I’ve been in your room a million times. I helped organize this house before you moved in.”
“Yeah, but I reorganized.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
He stares at me.
“I think I have a hoodie, in the, uh, bathroom.”
He frowns. “The bathroom?”
“Yeah.”
I pivot fast and head that way, praying he follows and doesn’t think too hard about it.
Spoiler: he thinks about it.
He follows me in, arms crossed as I rummage through absolutely nothing.
“Cass.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s no hoodie in here.”
“Huh. Weird.”
He just looks at me, then exhales through his nose, and turns toward the bedroom again.
Now I’m pretty sure he’s just straight suspicious.
He ignores me, walking straight past, pushing the bedroom door open wider. Each step feels like a countdown.
Three. Two. One.
He grabs the closet handle and yanks it open.
I stop breathing.
But there’s nothing there.
Just hangers. Shoes. A pile of sweatshirts. And definitely no Logan.
Jackson blinks as he grabs one. “Yeah, there it is. Love this Riverbend U hoodie.”
My brain short-circuits. Where the hell did he go?
“I swear I heard something in here,” he mutters. “Just want to make sure there’s not squirrels in the walls or something.”
“Yeah,” I say quickly, heart still racing. “Old houses have ‘house noises’ sometimes, right? Probably super normal.”
He eyes me one more time, then shrugs. “Alright. I’m gonna head down and start on the cabinet.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I don’t move until I hear the stairs creak beneath his weight, each step putting space between us.
Then I spin toward the closet, examining it thoroughly. I even check the ceiling, in case he’s pulling some Spider-Man stuff, but he’s not there.
What the hell?