Chapter 36 Logan
LOGAN
The glass doors of Elizabeth’s new PR agency swung open as I stepped inside. For a split second, I considered turning around and disappearing into the French Quarter like a coward in sunglasses.
It was stupid to come here. Desperate.
But I was already in too deep.
The lobby was sleek and stylish. A group of well-dressed employees stood near the front desk, sipping iced lattes and radiating a cool demeanor.
The receptionist noticed me, blinked twice, clearly recognizing me, despite the sunglasses and baseball cap I wore. She dropped her pen, then scrambled to her feet. “Um. Hi. Can I help you?”
I gave her a sheepish smile. “Yeah. I’m here to see Elizabeth.”
Her eyes tripled in size. “Elizabeth?” she echoed, as if it were a name she’d just learned for the first time. “And whom may I say is… I mean, do you, do you have an appointment?”
Behind her, a woman walked into the room, saw me, and audibly gasped. She clutched her chest and whispered, “Oh my gosh. Logan Richards.”
Another woman followed, and mid-sip of her espresso, she did a double-take so intense she smacked directly into a ficus, apologized to it, and whispered a reverent, “Ow.”
That’s when I heard a voice behind me: “Okay, what are you all staring at?”
Elizabeth turned, and the moment her eyes landed on me, she froze.
Hair in a sleek ponytail, black blouse tucked into a tan pencil skirt. She looked even better than I remembered.
I thought about the text she had sent me—the one I hadn’t seen until it was too late. The one that could’ve changed everything if I hadn’t been too busy baring my soul on national television, completely unaware that she had reached out.
Elizabeth’s expression was a mixture of surprise and guarded calm. “Hi.” Her voice was steady. Too steady.
I coughed. “Can we talk?”
Silence.
She looked at me, and time slowed, as if we were in a movie, and she was deciding whether to forgive me or throw her iced coffee in my face. I swear, if I were told to leave in front of an audience of hyperventilating young publicists, I wasn’t sure I’d recover.
I thought I was going to pass out. Or sweat through my shirt. Or both.
“Of course we can talk,” she said finally, with all the calm of a woman who had absolutely no idea she was torturing me.
My lungs burned, and I exhaled. I needed to focus on breathing because I’d forgotten how.
The receptionist chirped, “Conference Room B is free. Would you like me to bring you coffee? Water? Whiskey? Me?”
Elizabeth gave her a small smile. “No, we’re good.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked toward the back, leaving me to follow while a half-dozen heads peeked over cubicle walls like meerkats.
Once we were in the room alone, door closed, she stood on the opposite side of the conference table from me, arms crossed, eyes steely. “What are you doing here?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m playing the Superdome tonight.”
She rolled her eyes. “I mean, what are you doing here? Didn’t you say that you were done chasing people who run?”
She was quoting my interview. I winced. “I didn’t know you had texted me when I said that. I hadn’t seen it yet. When I saw the text, I’ve been texting you and calling you ever since.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said quietly. “I blocked you.”
“Oh.” My voice dropped. “Well, I read your text about a hundred times.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Please. I’m sorry I mentioned you to that interviewer. I was angry. Hurt. And stupid. But when I found out you quit your job…. I realized I’d gotten everything wrong.”
She blinked, but didn’t move. She wasn’t going to make this easy on me.
I continued, “You left your job, something that gave you power and control. You gave up your safety net. That wasn’t running away from me. That was risking everything.”
She flinched, as if what I said had slipped past her defenses. But then the mask came back on.
I took a breath, trying not to push, even though everything in me wanted to reach for her.
“When I was with you,” I said quietly, “I was just me. Not the rock star. Just… me. And for the first time in my life, that felt like enough. I messed up. I know that. But if there’s still even the smallest part of you that wonders what we could be, would you let me try again? Can we find our way back?”
Her eyes shimmered, but she didn’t look away. Didn’t run. I took that as a good sign.
Hope cracked through me like light through glass. I could almost see it: her hand reaching for mine, the two of us stepping into whatever this could be, letting everything else disappear.
But then she looked away, and the moment was gone. She shook her head slowly, and my heart dropped before she even opened her mouth.
“I can’t,” she said. Her voice was quiet, almost calm, but I could hear the crack just beneath it—the way it trembled like something trying not to break. “It hurt… Losing you. It hurt so much. But I did what I had to. I’m proud of what I’ve made. Proud of who I am now.”
I wanted to reach for her. I didn’t. “I’m proud of you, too,” I said instead. And I meant it.
She blinked hard, and her jaw tightened like she was holding back something sharp. “But if I let myself fall for you again,” she whispered, “and it doesn’t work out this time... I won’t come back from it. I can’t. You have to let me go.”
It felt like a thousand-pound weight dropped straight onto my chest, but I didn’t try to argue. Didn’t try to convince her. I just nodded.
“Okay,” I said softly. “I understand.” But I didn’t.
Not at all. Not even a little bit. I turned toward the door but paused in the doorway.
Just long enough to say the one thing I hadn’t said.
“I’ve played to sold-out arenas. I’ve heard thousands of people scream my name every night like it meant something.
Like I meant something. But none of it ever mattered the way you do. ”
My hand found the doorframe, steadying me. Something in me refused to let the silence be the last word. Not when the truth had finally started to crack its way out.
“I’ve written love songs for a living. I’ve made a career out of pretending I knew what it felt like. But you…” I turned my head slightly, just enough to catch the blur of her in my peripheral vision. “I mean, I’ve written love songs my whole life. But you’re the one who made them true.”
And then I stepped out into the bright glare of the office hallway, past a dozen eyes pretending not to see me, into fluorescent lights that felt too harsh, too indifferent to the weight of what had just broken behind me.
I just walked away. And I left my heart behind.