4. Logan
4
LOGAN
I stared at my phone, not really sure what I was waiting for. Frankly, I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was waiting for a text from Leah—although I knew it would never come. For the rest of the send-off brunch, she hadn’t even glanced my way.
Maybe she was just trying to keep Kylie from figuring out we had hooked up. Maybe she was just better at compartmentalizing than I was.
It’s not like I was well versed in casual hookups. That condom had been in my wallet for a long time. I’d never had a use for it.
“If you stare at your phone any harder, your eyes are going to burn a hole in it.”
I glanced up and found my oldest sister, Kristin, wiping her hands with a dishtowel.
“Something on your mind?” she asked.
I stuffed my phone in my pocket. “Just tired. Not looking forward to dealing with airport security.”
Kristin let a quiet laugh slip. “The wedding was beautiful, but I’m wiped. We barely had the energy to drive the mile home.”
“Should’ve stayed at the inn like I did,” I said as I raided her coffee maker as soon as the brew cycle finished.
“You could’ve stayed here, you know,” she said as she sipped from her mug. “Especially on Sunday and Monday. We haven’t turned your bedroom into a craft room or a home gym.”
“Yet,” I said, teasing her.
She snickered. “If I were going to turn it into something, we would have done it by now. Not twelve years after you went to college and moved out. You always have a place here. With Hunter and Kylie out of the house now, it’s awfully quiet these days.”
Truth be told, my sister’s giant house had never felt like home. The people in it felt like home, but the house was just a house. The six of us—my siblings and Will—had moved out of our trailer and into the house the summer I graduated high school and moved to college.
I appreciated that they tried to make it my home too, but it was what it was.
“You sure you’re doing okay in Chicago?” Kristin asked hesitantly, cocking her head.
“June in Chicago sure as hell beats June in North Carolina,” I said by way of circumventing the question.
“Will’s not working you too hard, is he? I still don’t understand why y’all had to choose a city so far away for the new team.”
“It’s strategic,” I said.
She sighed. “I know that. I just miss you, is all. With Bryan and Will working remotely here, it just feels like you should be too.”
Thankfully, Will padded into the kitchen and made a beeline for the coffee maker before I had to come up with some kind of response.
“You sure you have to head out today?” he asked. “You should take some time off. Stay another week.”
I chuckled. “Sorry. Can’t. My boss is a hard-ass."
Will smirked. “You have time that you can take off. You just choose to not use it. I checked.”
And that’s what sucked about my brother-in-law being my boss.
Technically, Will was the founder, CEO, and a whole lot of other world-salad acronyms of the tech company I worked for.
When I was a teenager failing math and at risk of not graduating, Will had been there to motivate me and give me something to work for.
I’m sure there were whispers around the new offices in Chicago about me being a nepo hire, but I didn’t give a shit. Will made me work every position I had ever held in the company.
He was one of the two people I owed everything to. The reason I held myself to a high standard.
My phone lit up, and my heart did a strange flip at the thought that it might be Leah.
It wasn’t.
The number calling me had called so many times that my phone identified it without me having ever added it to my contacts.
Federal Correctional Complex, Butner.
I knew as soon as I answered that an automated voice would ask if I wanted to accept the collect call.
Today, I didn’t. Not with Kristin standing three feet away from me. Will glanced at my phone and lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t say a word.
I hit the decline button and stuffed my phone in my pocket.
“You disappeared at the end of the wedding,” Kristin said. “Zoey was looking for you.”
She probably didn’t think to look at the hotel bar.
“I went back to my room.” It wasn’t a complete lie, but it was better than the truth.
The truth that I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her again? It was just supposed to be one night. A little stress relief. Maybe indulging a fantasy that rose to the surface every time I came back to Beaufort to visit and saw Leah around town or with my sister.
But indulging in the fantasy didn’t make it go away the way I thought it would. My phone burned in my pocket as I thought about what I had found the morning after.
“I should probably hit the road and get to the airport,” I said as I set my mug in the sink. "I just wanted to swing by before I left town.”
Kristin’s eyes flashed with sadness and worry. It was the parental mask she had been forced to wear far too early. “You’re flying back here for your birthday, right? We’re having everyone over to celebrate.”
“Of course,” I said as I offered her a reluctant hug.
Kristin wrapped her arms around me and squeezed as hard as she could. “Miss you already, Lo.”
Will loomed behind her, waiting in line to say goodbye. He had always been able to read me like a book, which didn’t bode well for the fact that I was still unsettled after the weekend.
“Drive safe. Let us know when you get on the plane and when you land in Chicago,” he said as he swapped places with Kristin and gave me a tight hug.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said as I grabbed my keys. “Love you guys.”
I hurried out to the rental car I had snagged from the airport at the beginning of the week, and peeled away from the house as fast as I could.
There was something about being back home that made my skin itch. It made me feel like a stranger in my own body, even though I had been here for the first two decades of my life.
All I had ever wanted to do was leave.
So I did.
The wheels of my carry-on clicked across the tiled floor as I made my way down the hallway of my apartment building. It was blissfully quiet after the chaos of two airports and being trapped on a plane for three hours.
I fished my keys out of my pocket and let myself into my unit. I walked through the empty living room and went straight for my bedroom. The bed was still neatly made like I’d left it.
Will made his bed every morning. And somewhere back in my seventeen-year-old brain, I thought that if I made my bed every morning, I’d turn out okay too.
My place was a far cry from the Taylor Creek Inn, that was for sure. It was definitely a far cry from the warm chaos that was Leah Holloway.
The air was heavy since I was still holding out on turning on the AC for the summer. Anything I could do to keep the power bill as low as possible.
I emptied my suitcase into the washing machine and put the rest of my things away in the single dresser that held all my belongings. Every step echoed in the nearly empty space.
After the laundry was tumbling in the machine, I stowed my suitcase in the closet, rinsed off the airport funk, and climbed into bed. I wedged my single pillow under my neck and grabbed my phone. I logged into my brokerage account to check my current investments. After scrolling through the long list of stocks I was buying and selling, I opened my banking app and transferred some more money to my savings account.
I should have smiled. I could check off another one of my “before thirty” goals, right at the deadline. But I didn’t. I always thought I would breathe easier when there was a comma between the two sets of three zeros. But there it was: mid-six figures of untouched savings, and my chest still felt tight.
Maybe I was just dehydrated after the flight.
I peeled out of bed and headed for the fridge. Instead of individual bottles, I had a pitcher with a filter sitting on the mostly bare shelf. I was a simple guy. I was fine with basic sandwiches for lunch and dinner, and eggs and toast for breakfast. None of it took up all that much space.
The apartment was only one bedroom, but it felt too big for one person.
When a glass of water didn’t ease the rock in my chest, I called it and headed to bed.
I made a point to avoid scrolling on my phone in bed. If I started, I’d stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching stupid videos.
I didn’t swipe into the social media accounts I had for my siblings’ sake. I never posted on them anyway. Instead, I made sure my morning alarms were set, opened the voice note app, and closed my eyes.
“Hi Logan. This is Leah Holloway, politely requesting to be fucked into oblivion at your earliest convenience.” Her silken voice was cut off by a squeal of delight. “Also, thank you for complimenting my tits.”
“Tell me something. How does this compare to your fantasy?” I heard myself say.
“You haven’t done anything spectacular, but the sight is incredible.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“I don’t give out participation ribbons.”
“Then open your legs and let me earn it.” The masculine laugh that followed couldn’t have possibly been mine. That guy was relaxed. He knew how to have fun. But I had left that version of me back in Beaufort.
In the heat of the moment, I hadn’t realized that the voice note Leah used to give her consent never turned off and had recorded us having sex. I should have deleted it. But for some reason, I listened to it for the fifth time.
Because that was all it would ever be.
The fantasy that existed on the other side of a line I wasn’t supposed to cross.