Chapter 29
It’s evening when our flight lands home in Minneapolis. It’s been a long day of travel. I slept briefly on the plane, but the rest wasn’t satisfying—not enough to make up for all the late nights with Logan.
I stare at the suitcases like a zombie as they go round and round on the baggage claim carousel. “You’re going to stay at my place tonight,” he says.
“I need to go to my house. I don’t have any clean clothes . . . and I need sleep. I’m so tired.”
“I am too,” he says. “I’ll do your laundry. You can wear something of mine to bed. I promise, you can go straight to bed when we get home.”
When we get home, as if I live there or something.
I point a finger at him. “No late-night canoodling.”
He smiles. “Canoodling?”
“Whatever, I’m tired. Words are hard.”
“But canoodling was on the tip of your tongue?”
I disregard his teasing and narrow my gaze at him, signing “No sex” to him.
“Heavy petting,” he signs in a counter.
A smile threatens to show through the serious face I’m putting on. My index and middle finger pinch together with my thumb. “I mean it, Logan. Tonight, sleeping together is literal.”
He holds up both of his hands in concession.
I text Jordan from the baggage claim carousel and let her know we’ll be home soon so she can head out, along with a big thank-you for housesitting and watching Odin while we were gone.
It takes a while for the four of us to get our luggage, but eventually, we split off from Casper and Thor to head home.
We’re both exhausted from a weekend of too much interaction, too much caffeine, and too little sleep.
His loft is shrouded in shadows when we arrive, lit only by the lights of the city shining through the window, casting an orange glow.
It smells like Logan, familiar and calming.
Even the click-clack of Odin’s paws on the aged wood floors is comforting.
Logan takes our luggage to the back corner of the loft near the kitchen and unzips the bags, then begins loading dirty clothes into the washer.
I unpack our water bottles, washing them at the sink, and tucking any snacks we didn’t eat on the plane back into the cabinets.
By the time I’m finished, Logan is carrying the empty suitcases upstairs, and I hear him start the shower soon after.
It’s then I realize we’re moving in sync. No rush, no words, just the soft rhythm of us existing in the same space, like we’ve done it for years. I pause to savor the moment, and a smile blooms on my lips.
Odin whines, pulling me from my amusement, and I snatch his leash.
Just need the keys so I can get back in.
They aren’t in their usual spot. Logan probably left them in his pocket.
I call up to him, but he doesn’t hear me.
He must already be in the shower. Hurrying up the stairs, I find his jeans strewn on the floor and reach into the pockets.
I have a copy of his house key, but the security fob to access the exterior door is a separate thing. My fingers quickly find the cold metal key ring and fish it out, and with it falls a wrinkled piece of paper. A receipt? I pick it up and unfold it.
You will never replace me.
It looks like all the others, typed in a plain font. But this one is different; it’s so much more threatening when there’s not a screen between me and it. My heart gallops in my chest. Where the hell did this come from and why does Logan have it in his pocket?
Odin whines again. I set the note on the dresser and grab the keys to take him out.
By the time I return from taking Odin for a walk around the block, feeding him dinner, and coming up with my own theories regarding the messages, I hear Logan stepping out of the shower.
Before climbing the stairs, I double-check the locks on his door.
I’m not sure how to begin this conversation, but I won’t be able to sleep until we discuss the piece of paper I found in his pocket.
The note is still where I left it. I pick it up and sit on the edge of the bed, staring at it.
The online messages were one thing, but this is fucked up.
I assumed this was Jason trying to mess with me, but Bozeman? That doesn’t make sense.
Steam pours out of the bathroom when Logan emerges shirtless with a towel tied low around his waist. His stride halts when he notices what I’m holding.
“Is this why you wanted me to stay the night?” I ask, studying the words on the paper, wishing they would evaporate.
Logan sighs. “It was on the windshield this morning when we were loading up the van.”
“In Bozeman?”
He turns his head, his palm working the back of his neck. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugs. “You were in such a good mood talking to Thor, we were about to get on a flight, I didn’t want to stress you out. I wasn’t hiding it, I planned on showing you tomorrow.”
Logan opens his top dresser drawer, drops the towel, and tugs on a clean pair of boxers.
Great, now I’ve got to tell him how Rosa and I really met in the bathroom. If what she said was true, it’s likely he left this note. He’s gonna flip his lid when he finds out I kept that info from him, but the probability of these two instances being related are too high.
I squint, rub my tired eyes, and let out an exhausted exhale. “There was something that happened in Bozeman I didn’t tell you about.”
His back stiffens and he turns around. “What?”
“Remember how I said I met Rosa after the convention? Well, it was because she followed me into the bathroom at the event center while we were wrapping up. She said there was some guy watching me, and it gave her a bad vibe. She questioned if he could have been someone I knew; she described him, but he was too short for anybody at our shop. I asked if she could get a picture, but he was already gone when she went back out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I swear red flames flicker in his irises. He can’t be serious.
I throw up my hands. “The same reason you didn’t tell me about the note!”
He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, rubbing his jaw like the news just sucker punched him.
“It crossed my mind that the two things were connected.” I stand. If I don’t get in the shower now, I might not have the energy soon. “But I talked myself out of it and figured it was just a weird guy. Men can be creepy.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know, but Rosa stayed with me to make sure I was safe. We went to a different bar across the street as a precaution, and nothing else happened after that, so I forgot about it. I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. But now that there’s a note . . .”
“How did she describe him?”
I struggle to recall her words after dismissing the event in my head.
“I think brown hair, average build,” I say, undressing and walking into the en suite bathroom.
My voice echoes off the tile walls when I open the glass door and step into the shower.
“I was thinking maybe she noticed Casper or something, but then she held up her hand to show how tall he was, and it was only like five-nine or five-ten.”
I turn the dial and the warm spray from the shower resolves some of the new tension in my shoulders.
Logan clears his throat and enters the steamy room, leaning against the countertop. “How old?”
“I don’t remember if she said.”
“You got her number, right? Can you ask?”
I nod and pop the lid open on the bottle of shampoo, squirting some into my hand. “Yeah . . . I’m going to send her a picture of Jason and ask if she recognizes him. The height matches.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I just have a hard time believing he would go that far. We were only together a couple months. Not to mention, he was too lazy to buy a box of condoms, so following me out of state seems out of the question.”
“He also showed up at your job and started a fight. If you only dated a couple months, then maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”
I roll my eyes, lathering the shampoo in my hair. I disagree, but I can’t prove he’s wrong either. You will never replace me. The message itself is pretty obvious, but why would Jason care? He’s the one who cheated. If anyone was getting replaced, it was me.
“What if the note was there before and we just didn’t see it?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“Maybe it really was somebody from the event, and they left the note early, but we only noticed it on the last day? Could that be possible?”
“Possible . . . But unlikely.”
I rack my brain for other options while rinsing my hair and adding conditioner.
The note was typed and printed, which means it was premeditated. We were only away from the van for maybe twenty minutes.
“This happened at the convention. It’s gotta be somebody in the industry.
They have been messaging me for months, and we posted about it everywhere online.
” Our shop advertised it, along with all our artists.
The event itself plastered my name on their marketing materials and graphics.
A few of those posts went viral, it was all over social media.
Unless . . . “Do you think the person who’s been sending me DMs actually left the note?
Or did they use a messenger?” I ask while soaping up my skin that still has stencil ink smudged on it from over the weekend.
If they were using someone else to deliver it, why not just use the messenger’s handwriting?
Why the extra steps to type it up and print?
“It’s gotta be somebody I know.”
“Yeah. Jason.”
I wipe a clear spot on the glass door and give an exasperated sigh, and he rubs a towel over his wet hair.
“Most stalkers are previous partners, Kelly.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I haven’t used that word yet. Stalker. It makes the whole thing seem more real—scarier. I don’t want to have to deal with this. It was so easy when I could mark the problem as spam and delete it. Out of sight, out of mind.
“You really think it’s a stalker?”
“You’ve been harassed for over a month by somebody leaving strange messages, and now they just left the same message in person. The behavior is escalating.”
It’s so invasive. “So now what? Do I go to the police?”
My question is met with dead air, and I rinse the conditioner from my hair.
“Logan?” I prompt.
“I don’t see why we need to involve the police . . . I’ll take care of it.”
Frustrated and tired, I shut off the water in a huff. “How? You don’t even know who it is!”
He speaks with a level tone. I don’t know how he can be so chill right now. He holds a fluffy towel in front of him when I exit the shower and wraps it around me. Next to the sink, he’s already set out a clean shirt for me to wear to bed. I shouldn’t have snapped at him, he’s just trying to help.
After I finish drying off, I brush my teeth, then slip the shirt over my head, pulling my wet hair from the collar, and get started on my skincare routine. I’m too tired to dry my hair tonight—I can deal with everything else in the morning.
“I’ll find out who it is,” he says, his voice low and lacking emotion. “And I’ll take care of it.”
He says it like he’s got no problem making someone disappear.
I laugh, following him out of the bathroom, then draw back the covers to the bed. “What, are you gonna kill him?”
He doesn’t laugh with me. He doesn’t even blink. His glare is dark and calculating, as if he’s gauging whether to lie to me. The sheet is limp in my hand as I study the shift in his character.
“Would it scare you if I said yes?”
I open my mouth to say of course—that’s how a normal person should respond to a question like that—but stop short because . . . I don’t know. “You aren’t a murderer.”
“No, but I won’t hesitate to bury a problem if it keeps you safe.”
His gaze softens slightly, and he climbs under the covers, looking like my Logan again.
I take off the shirt and settle in next to him, not wanting anything between us.
He hauls me into his side, and goose bumps rise on my skin.
I’m unsure if they’re from the loss of heat after my shower or caused by the words he uttered like a promise; regardless, his body is comforting and warm.
I nuzzle deeper into his chest and close my eyes . . . trusting him.