Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Logan
Logan woke before the alarm.
He usually did, especially in places that weren’t home.
The hotel room held that faint, recycled quiet of temporary spaces, beige walls, sealed windows, air conditioning humming too steadily.
Early light slipped through a narrow gap in the curtains, cutting a pale stripe across the carpet and the edge of the bed.
Tommy was still asleep beside him, sprawled halfway onto his stomach, one arm tucked beneath the pillow. His breathing was slow and even, mouth parted slightly in the kind of sleep that only came after being completely wrung out.
Logan lay on his back for a moment, watching him.
Not checking for damage. Not searching for signs of regret.
Just watching.
Tommy always looked younger when he slept. Softer. The restless brightness that followed him everywhere, the part of him that seemed to anticipate being measured, wasn’t there. Whatever he’d been trying to prove the night before had drained out of him.
That was what Logan couldn’t stop replaying.
Not the bodies.
Not the heat.
Not even the surprise of recognition.
The shift.
When Chase had stepped into the room, before Logan even understood who he was looking at, something in Tommy had settled. He hadn’t grown louder or more frantic. He hadn’t tried to perform harder.
He’d gone still.
Focused.
Present.
Logan scrubbed a hand over his face and stared at the ceiling.
He’d expected jealousy to show up loud and obvious , territorial and sharp. He knew himself well enough to assume it would. The idea of someone else touching Tommy should have sparked something primal and defensive.
Instead, what had taken its place was something far more complicated.
Curiosity.
Tommy shifted beside him and blinked awake slowly, rolling onto his side. His hair was a mess, eyes heavy with sleep but alert enough to notice Logan wasn’t resting.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Tommy murmured.
Logan huffed a quiet breath.
“Didn’t realize I made noise.”
“You do.” Tommy propped his chin against Logan’s chest. “It’s subtle. But it’s there.”
Logan let his hand settle at the small of Tommy’s back, thumb moving absently over warm skin. The contact steadied him, gave him something tangible to anchor to while he sorted through what he’d felt.
“You okay?” Tommy asked.
It wasn’t accusatory. Just careful.
Logan considered the question honestly before answering.
“I didn’t expect that,” he said.
Tommy didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Chase?”
Logan nodded once.
Tommy’s mouth twisted slightly. “Yeah. That was… not on my bingo card.”
Logan studied him, searching for hesitation, shame, anything sharp. He didn’t find it. What he saw instead was processing, the same thing he’d felt in himself.
“You responded differently,” Logan said.
Tommy went quiet for a moment.
“Bad differently?”
Logan turned onto his side so they were facing each other fully.
“No,” he said. “Not bad.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
“You weren’t trying to prove anything anymore.”
Tommy’s eyes flickered at that.
“I wasn’t,” he admitted quietly.
That matched what Logan had seen.
At the start of the night, Tommy had been bright and electric, chasing the idea of being wanted. By the end, with Chase behind him, he’d been grounded in a way that hadn’t required applause or reassurance.
Logan ran his hand slowly up Tommy’s back, not to comfort him this time, but to feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing.
“You knew him,” Logan said.
Tommy rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
“Unfortunately.”
There was history in that word. Not anger exactly, something older. Competition that had calcified over time.
“Do you still compete with him?” Logan asked.
Tommy’s laugh was soft and humorless.
“I don’t think I ever stopped.”
Logan nodded slowly. That explained more than he’d expected.
“He didn’t feel like he was competing,” Logan said.
Tommy turned his head.
“What did he feel like?”
Logan didn’t answer immediately. He replayed the image in his mind , the way Chase had moved, deliberate but not showy. Attentive without crowding.
“Focused,” he said finally. “Like you were the only thing in the room.”
Tommy swallowed.
“Does that bother you?”
Logan searched himself for the easy answer, the one that would end the conversation cleanly.
It would be simpler to say yes. Simpler to call it a mistake and retreat into safety.
But that wasn’t what sat in his chest.
“No,” he said, steady. “What bothered me was realizing I hadn’t seen that version of you in a while.”
Tommy’s fingers curled lightly into the sheet.
“You think I was better with him?”
Logan shook his head.
“I think you were more yourself.”
The distinction mattered.
Tommy went very still at that.
“I didn’t feel like I had to win,” he said after a moment.
There it was, the thread that ran through all of it.
Logan exhaled slowly.
He understood competition. Understood what it meant to perform strength until it became automatic. He’d spent years building himself into someone solid, someone dependable, someone people leaned on.
He wasn’t afraid of losing Tommy.
What unsettled him was the possibility of becoming predictable, the safe place Tommy returned to after feeling alive somewhere else.
He brushed his thumb along Tommy’s shoulder.
“What are we doing?” Tommy asked.
Logan held his gaze.
“We’re not closing the door,” he said.
Tommy’s expression shifted, relief, surprise, something warmer.
“But we’re not blowing it open either,” Logan added. “If this keeps going, it’s intentional.”
Tommy shifted closer, pressing his forehead briefly against Logan’s collarbone.
“And you?” he asked quietly. “Where are you in that?”
Logan didn’t look away.
“If this works,” he said evenly, “it won’t be because I tolerated it.”
Tommy waited.
“It’ll be because I chose it.”
The words settled between them, solid and unhurried.
Tommy leaned up and kissed him once, slow and steady, no performance in it.
Logan wrapped his arm around him automatically, pulling him closer.
When they got dressed later and stepped out into the day, Logan wasn’t walking toward a party that threatened what they had.
He was walking toward a possibility.
And he knew, in a way that felt steady rather than reckless, that if things shifted again, he would meet them head-on.
Not because he had to.
Because he wanted to.