Chapter 8
Miles
Logan was crying. Logan never cried, not when the Tornados called him up for a moment of hope, sat him on the bench for three whole games, and sent him back down with zero playing time; not when he told me about his childhood with his mother in short, flat sentences; not even when my old cat who’d loved Logan died.
He’d comforted me when I broke down over Lily’s small furry form, but his eyes had stayed dry.
Now, he sobbed like his heart was breaking.
For a second, I resented that. Logan was the one who’d screwed up, the one who didn’t talk to me, the one who’d told me to fuck off and leave him out of it.
I was the one who’d been left hanging, not even knowing if he was alive.
Then he’d blown me off an hour later like it was nothing. Why did Logan get to cry and I didn’t?
But the sharp rasp of his breaths, sucked through clenched teeth, made it hard to hold a grudge. I’d loved him then, and fuck if my heart didn’t hurt for him now. I rubbed his shoulder, and he flinched under my touch.
“Don’t.”
I lifted my hand. “Why not?”
“I don’t fucking deserve it. I’ll be good. Give me a second.”
“You don’t deserve someone taking care of you when you’re crying?”
“I don’t deserve you to be nice to me.” Logan turned back to face me, running his hands over his face.
“I know what I did. I mean, I didn’t realize you were that worried.
That just makes it worse. You know, I lied in that text.
The one about ‘ooh, I didn’t realize it was that late.
’ I totally knew. I sat on the train as six p.m. passed, and six-thirty, and imagined you at that banquet, and I didn’t text you. ”
“I don’t get it.” I could hear the plaintive tone in my voice. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Logan twisted his fingers together in his lap. “Nothing. I mean, I knew you’d support me. You always did. This time, I knew you shouldn’t. Like, you should’ve been able to say, ‘Come to the banquet and catch the train afterward.’”
“How about, ‘I’ll drive you up to Tacoma afterward?’”
“Fuck.” He choked. “Yeah, you would’ve.”
"Or you could have taken the Volvo and claimed it was a rental." I took a breath and asked a question I’d wondered about a long time. “Were you trying to break up with me? Was this finally a reason?”
“No!” Logan stared at me. “No, I love you. Loved.”
“You didn’t fight very hard for us.”
“You were the one who blocked me.”
Logan’s indignant tone annoyed me. “Wait. You remember texting ‘Leave me out of it’ and ‘I really don’t care what you do?’” I’d maybe looked at those texts too many times in the past year. “You said those things.”
“I didn’t mean them.” Logan closed his eyes and tipped his head sideways onto the headrest. “Shit. I don’t know anymore what I meant. I was scared, panicked, flailing around, and most of what I hit was you. I’m so sorry.”
I tried to gentle my tone. “Why couldn’t you trust me to stick with you, even when it suddenly got harder?”
“Because no one ever has.” Logan slapped a hand over his mouth and opened his eyes. “Sorry. That’s some kind of pity-me bullshit. Sorry.”
I realized what he’d said was true, though.
Logan grew up without his dad, with a mom for whom he came second to her next fix.
He’d had some decent coaches, but none he considered a mentor.
He’d gotten a contract with the ECHL through sheer grit and determination, and battled for the AHL.
Then, when he got his first shot at moving up, he’d wrecked his knee.
His agent dropped him after the injury. He’d rehabbed, done the work, gone into debt he was still paying off— hadn’t let me pay off— for extra PT beyond what his insurance had covered.
He’d battled back, made it to the AHL over and over, but never for long, never to stay.
And no one had ever had his back, through any of that.
I said, “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t realize you still didn’t believe in us.” God that hurt, right down to my soul. I’d thought we were too solid for anything to break us, and Logan had apparently expected us to fail all along.
“Not us. Not you. Me. I didn’t believe in me. I knew I was going to do the wrong thing and fuck us up somehow. Maybe, subconsciously, you’re right. Maybe I was trying to break up before I hurt you worse.”
I choked and rubbed my chest, right over where that thought burned. “Worse? Logan, I was a fucking wreck after we split. It took me six months to so much as look at another guy.”
“There were videos of you dancing with guys at a club, like, the next day.”
I almost laughed. “Yeah. Dancing. I did all the shit we said we’d do. I was out and proud and visible. I was so fucking lonely.”
Logan breathed, “Me too.”
Those words hung in the air in that confined space. I was vividly aware of Logan’s presence, his solid body, the faint hint of his cologne, his hockey-battered hands, and the soft sound as he took a shaky breath.
Then he said, “I came out to my captain today.”
“You what?” I was hit with a rush of emotions I didn’t even want to tease apart. “You came out?”
“Before you came looking for me. Before I knew Avery was a beard, or you were hers, rather. You are, right?”
“I was. Her big lesbian declaration’s all out on social media now.” I leaned toward him. “Back up. You told people, on purpose?” And not just to please me, from what he was saying.
“Yeah. Not, like, all of the team or with a speech or anything. Two people. Cap, I mean Petrov, and Bubs.”
“Bubs sounded like a good guy.” I didn’t remember half the guys on his team, a series of nicknames ending in y and er, but I remembered Logan’s few friends.
“Yeah. He is. He’s cool.”
“I didn’t think you liked Petrov.”
“I don’t, but…” Logan turned serious eyes on me. “What you said in your speech, about locker rooms? It made me think.”
“You listened to my speech?” He’d helped me figure out in general what I wanted to say in the month leading up to the banquet, but I hadn’t practiced the final version in front of him.
I’d wanted him to hear me there, in front of our audience.
Some of my hurt had been thinking he never heard the words I’d crafted in part for him.
“Yeah. So often it auto-populates in my searches.” Logan flashed a twisted smile. “I thought about the Gryphons’ locker room, and how it’s been more toxic the last couple of years, even when we had an out gay player. Maybe because we did.”
“Do you know how Dolan’s doing?” Logan had been debating how far away to keep himself from Rusty Dolan and his likely gaydar, when all the shit went down. I hadn’t paid attention since.
“Doing good. He’s with the Tornados now, and if the Rafters lose a defenseman, I wouldn’t be surprised if they call Dolan up.”
“Hey, that’s fucking cool.” More representation was always a good thing.
“Right? When I talked to him yesterday, he said locker rooms were hard to change—”
I interrupted, “Wait, did you come out to Dolan too?”
Logan shrugged. “He’s gay, so it wasn’t the same.”
“Still, I am so fucking proud of you.”
“A year too late.”
“Not too late.” I gripped his knee, trying to make my point. “Remember my speech? I said the best time was then, but the next-best time was now. I’m fucking proud of you. I waited till I was fucking retired and safe. You didn’t.”
“I don’t know what’ll happen. But I want to make a difference, in my locker room, at least.” Logan stared down at my hand, tracing my raised veins on the back with a fingertip, like he used to sometimes when he was thinking, a touch I hadn’t imagined I’d feel again.
That was far from an erogenous zone, but the sensation arrowed to my core.
“Let me help,” I murmured.
He looked up. “You want to? After everything I did?”
“I think we both fucked up,” I told him. “You most, yeah. You scared me and you fucking hurt me. But also, I didn’t manage to get you to trust me—”
“Fuck no!” Logan pressed his fingers to my mouth. “Don’t you dare take that on. You were so good, the best thing in my life. Not trusting? That’s on me.”
I kissed his fingertips, and he flinched away, then gave me an uncertain smile.
I knew what I wanted, in that moment, like a fire burning me alive.
I wanted Logan back. Flaws or not, this was still the man who made two years of my life, even after I lost football, the best years I’d ever lived.
All I needed to do was figure out how to convince him.
“Okay, but I also blocked you and then I never got back in touch.”
“I tried,” Logan said. “Like, three days later. That one bounced too.”
“Yeah, I was still angry then. It took longer, a week, maybe two, for me to feel more empty and alone without you than mad at you.” I sighed.
“You were still up with Tacoma then. You’d scored a couple of goals.
I didn’t want to fuck things up for you, or pressure you.
And…” I hesitated, but needed to say it.
“I didn’t want to give you the chance to push me away again, because you were getting that shot at the brass ring. ”
Logan pressed his lips together and nodded a few times. “I missed you so bad but, yeah, I can’t promise I wouldn’t have. I wasn’t ready to come out.”
“And you didn’t trust me not to push.”
“I saw some of your interviews. You looked good. Comfortable. Proud.”
“You didn’t recognize media training when you saw it?” I’d been anything but comfortable. Mostly empty inside and going through the motions, because what else was I suffering for?
“I don’t think your team trained you for those questions.”
We sat in silence, till I couldn’t stand it any longer. “How do we fix this? How do we move forward?”
“You want to? Still?”
“I’ve wanted you back on my terms from week two. On any fucking terms I could get since week three or four. So yeah.”
Logan raised an eyebrow. “And yet, you still didn’t call.”
“No. Maybe my pride was too strong.” I held his gaze. “I want to now. Pride doesn’t keep either of us warm at night, or hug us when we’re sad.”
“God, I could use a fucking hug,” Logan muttered.
The Porsche’s console was in the way, but I reached across as best I could, and Logan leaned toward me.
He thumped his forehead on my shoulder, and I grabbed him.
He was still the same solid, muscular man in my arms. His hair smelled the same when I buried my nose in it.
He clung to me like he was drowning, and I blinked my stinging eyes.
After a moment, Logan pulled back and looked up at me, his dark lashes damp. I put a hand under his chin. “Can I?”
His lips parted. “God, yes.”
I bent and kissed him, still squished and awkward with that hunk of plastic between us, and yet that kiss was the best thing I’d felt in a long, cold year.
Logan threaded his hands into my hair, pulling me down, his grip almost painful in its intensity.
I wanted that, wanted to give him everything I had, everything I was.
I opened my mouth for the demands of his tongue.
He groaned and put a knee up on the seat to get closer, tipping my head back.
All my senses blended in the whirlwind of that kiss.
By the time Logan thumped back down into his seat, I was achingly hard. “Fuck, I need you, but Avery’s at my place and your roommate’s home.”
“You have a backseat.”
“I’m too fucking big for backseat sex.” I cupped the back of Logan’s head and hauled him toward me for another kiss. “Hotel room?”
I felt a shudder go through him but heard the hesitation in the stutter of his breath, before he said, “Yes. Right the fuck now.”
“Or a motel. I can get the room, you can sneak in.” I swore I wasn’t going to push. I’d do the damned hiding for the next five years, if Logan wanted to.
“No.” Logan reached across the console into my lap and squeezed my dick, drawing a gasp from me.
“Fuck. No fair,” I muttered.
He slid his hand up and stroked my neck, then gave my stubbled cheek a little slap. “I’m not hiding anymore. I may not want to come out with speeches and parades, but I will fucking walk into a hotel with you and not be ashamed. Or afraid. At least, I’ll try.”
I caught his hand and kissed his fingers, then clutched them in my own. “The Royal’s pretty discreet. It’s where my teammates stay when they visit me, and they haven’t had issues with the paps.” The Royal was as high-end as Eugene got.
Logan bit his lip. “I bet the beds are nice too.”
“Probably. You’re going to let me pay for the room, right?”
“I’m not a fool. I’m going to let you pay for a bunch of things.
” He grinned, only a little twisted. “Not everything. You still need to check in with me. But I’m not going to have sex in a roach motel just because it fits my budget, when my rich boyfriend—” He stopped short.
“I probably shouldn’t use that word, huh? ”
“Maybe not yet.” I squeezed his fingers. “I want to jump back in with both feet, and also my dick, but…” I didn’t want to put my hesitation into words. “Maybe soon?”
“I get it.” His smile dimmed, but he didn’t let go of my hand as he faced forward. “Drive, dude.”
“I need my hand back and you need your seatbelt.”
“Big football player can’t drive with one hand?”
“It’s icy. Big football player wants to not end up in traction and unable to fuck for another fucking month,” I retorted.
“Good point.” He nipped my knuckles and let go. “Hotel, James. Move your hot ass.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” I buckled my belt and put the car in reverse. Then I stepped on the brakes, leaned over, and kissed him. “One more to last us for the drive.”
Logan’s gray eyes shone, looking up at me. God, I’d missed him. I reversed with more speed than care, despite the sleet, and headed back down the lane toward town.