12. Logan
12
LOGAN
T he doorframe bit into my back as I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath. I was going to be waiting for a while, even if Leah came straight home.
Truthfully, I didn’t know why I had decided to sit outside her apartment like a stalker while she was at dinner with her parents. But something inside me said that I needed to be here when she got back.
I had spent the majority of my Saturday sleeping off the all-nighter I had pulled to make it from Illinois to North Carolina without any forethought. When I finally pulled my ass out of the bed that was piled high with pillows and blankets and moseyed downstairs, Kristin was waiting for me.
It’s like she knew.
I would have assumed that Will told her about my situation with Leah, but I knew he wouldn’t spill until I was ready.
Still, Kristin was like a dog with a bone, interrogating me about why I had actually come back to Beaufort. She didn’t believe the line about me wanting to spend time with my siblings. She knew me better than that.
She also knew I wouldn’t tell her a damn thing if I didn’t want to, which was why she didn’t argue when I declined their invitation to go out to dinner. I slipped out when Kristin, Will, and Zoey left, ran through a drive-thru for a bite, then parked my ass on the floor outside of Leah’s door.
My phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts. I glanced at the screen and sighed. I’d already dodged three of her calls lately. I felt like shit about it, but I had a lot going on as it was. Still, the guilt ate at me.
I accepted the call and pressed the phone to my ear. The robot voice I hated hearing was predictable, but still grating.
“You are about to receive a collect call from Cheryl Boyd , an inmate housed at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women, calling for Logan Boyd . Before accepting this collect telephone call, please be advised that accepting a collect call will cost you more than it would if you prepaid for this collect call. If you want to accept this collect call, please press three. To prevent future calls from this facility, please press seven.”
The mix of the automated voice with my mom’s rapidly aging tone as she stated her name and mine was never less startling.
I had changed my last name to Will’s so that it didn’t match hers. It didn’t matter. As soon as I heard it, I was back to that scared kid who’d had his house raided at night and watched his parents get arrested.
I always wanted to press seven. My finger lingered over the button. One press, and she would have no contact with me.
I tapped three and waited for the robot to come back.
“This call is subject to monitoring and recording. Please hold while the call is connected.”
I waited until I heard the click on the other end, then my mother’s voice.
“Logan?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I’m here.” It was the most I could muster. Saying ‘hello’ or ‘hey, mom’ always sounded far too cheery. Kristin had gone no-contact with our parents the moment our lives were turned upside down by their actions, but she left the choice to have individual contact with them up to Kylie, Hunter, Zoey, and me.
Hunter was no contact. Same with Kylie since she sided with Kristin on most things. Zoey hadn’t even been a year old when everything happened. She had no memory of them as anything other than fiction, and never went to see them in person.
I was the pushover.
I accepted the collect calls. I put money in their accounts. I even visited them once or twice a year. And I always wished I could go back to my eighteenth birthday and not walk into that visiting room.
Before I was an adult, Kristin refused to let them have any communication with me. When I was of legal age, it was my choice.
I had gone to visit because I had questions. Because I deserved answers. Because I wanted them to know how badly they had fucked up my life.
All they saw was a kid whose new brother-in-law was a billionaire.
That’s when the requests for money started coming in. But I had already opened the floodgates, and I didn’t know how to stop the torrent.
“I was starting to worry,” Mom said. “You didn’t accept the call the last few times I tried you.”
“I’ve been traveling,” I said, keeping it vague. I didn’t want her to know I was only a few hours away from where she was serving time.
“Oh? Are you traveling now? I needed to talk to you about putting a little something on my books, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to call next. And you know the rest of your siblings won’t talk to me. You’re the only one I’ve got, Logan.”
Footsteps echoed up the stairwell, catching my attention.
“What—uh...What’s going on?” I muttered as a shadow rounded the corner.
Leah’s blonde hair was the first thing I saw as she stepped up onto the landing. It cascaded across her profile like a waterfall, hiding her face.
But I didn’t miss the sound of ragged breathing and sniffing back tears.
“Leah, what’s wrong?”
She jumped at the sound of my voice.
My mother paused her spiel on the phone. “What was that, Logan?”
“I’ve gotta go,” I muttered, then hung up.
Leah crashed into my arms and buried her tear-stained cheeks in my chest as she sobbed.
All the annoyance I’d felt over the phone call vanished as rage took its place.
“Are you hurt? What’s going on? Is it the baby?”
She shook her head.
“Your parents didn’t take the news well,” I guessed as I cradled her head against my chest and combed my fingers through her hair.
Hyperventilating or having a panic attack couldn’t be good for her or for our baby.
“W-What are you d-doing here?” she stammered.
I tightened my hold and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Just had a feeling you two might need some moral support.”
She reached between us to wipe her eyes. “And you were just...sitting there? Waiting?”
“Yeah,” I whispered into her hair as I glanced at the time on my phone. No way had she actually eaten dinner with her family. It hadn’t even been an hour since she texted me that she was going in.
I wiggled her keys out of her hand, unlocked her door, and escorted her in. “Did you eat?”
She shook her head. “Never got around to it.”
I tugged her down onto the couch and didn’t even question what the hell was wrong with me when I pulled her into my lap. “What happened?”
“My mom ambushed me with my ex the moment I said I was pregnant,” she cried.
“ What? ” I raised my voice a little too sharply, startling her. But goddamn, that pissed me off.
Leah and our baby were mine .
The epiphany of exactly what I needed to do hit me like a ton of bricks. But it wasn’t just what I had to do to make things right. It’s what I wanted to do.
I listened while she told me what had happened—about how her mom had been a judgmental shrew from the outset, how she had been ambushed with her ex, and the ensuing commentary on my lineage.
As she recounted every horrifying thing, I slid our twined hands onto her belly. Leah didn’t protest. She didn’t even take a breath between words. She curled into me as I held her with one arm around her waist and the other hand cradling the life we had created together.
“I wish I had been there so you didn’t have to go through that alone,” I said softly when she wrapped up the events that had transpired over the course of a few unfortunate minutes.
She rested her temple on my chest and closed her eyes. “I’m glad you weren’t. You don’t deserve to be subjected to that.”
“You don’t deserve to be subjected to it either,” I reminded her as I flexed my fingers over her small bump. “I’m sorry that you were.”
Leah wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I just want one reveal to go right.” She let out a trembling breath. “It sounds so stupid. I...I just want one person to be excited for me. Because I’m excited. I’m scared as hell, but I’m excited.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t take it better,” I said honestly. “I was...”
“Shocked is probably an understatement,” Leah said.
“Something like that. I felt really unprepared. That’s not something I like feeling. I like having a plan for everything. It was a curveball. But I’m working on it. I think I’m still processing.”
“I’ve had months. It’s barely been a week for you. I’d say you’re handling it pretty well.”
“I still feel guilty for walking away from you that night that I showed up here. I should have stayed and talked it out with you. I should have figured my shit out before I made it your problem.”
Leah didn’t argue, but she also didn’t pull away. We lay together on her couch, curled up in one another like we had been the night that everything changed.
“This okay?” I murmured against her forehead as I traced abstract shapes on her belly with my splayed fingertips.
She nodded and closed her eyes as she let out a deep breath. “The DeRossis and Lawsons will probably be nice about it, but I know I’m messing with their schedules because I’ll need time off. I know Kylie isn’t going to take it well because you’re her brother and she’s my?—”
“Best friend,” I said, filling in the blank. “You’re lucky to have each other.”
“Have you told anyone besides Will?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t really have anyone else to tell.”
She looked up at me with kindness in her eyes. “I’m excited.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You should be. You’re going to be a great mom to this little bumblebee.”
She laughed. “Why do you say that?”
I held her closer. “Because you walked away from your parents tonight and put yourself and our baby first. And for the record, I’m sorry for whatever happens with Kylie when she finds out, but I’m on your side no matter what.”
I slipped out of Leah’s apartment after seeing to it that she had eaten, thanks to her next-door neighbor, Dr. Mehta. She was emotionally exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. I couldn’t blame her.
After promising to talk to her in the morning, I made the drive back to Kristin and Will’s house in silence, trying to figure out exactly what I needed to do.
The problem was, I didn’t know what Leah wanted, and I didn’t know how to ask. We were doing things out of order. Usually you knew someone well enough to be in some kind of relationship before having a baby with them.
Did she even want a relationship? Did I want a relationship? I had never actually been in a serious relationship before. I usually had short-term stints of seeing the same person for a few weeks, then ending things before they got too serious.
A figure was sitting on the front porch when I pulled up to the house. The person was too small to be Will, and given that Hunter and Zoey’s cars weren’t in the driveway, I took a guess that it was Kristin.
When I hopped out of the car and moseyed up the walk, I found that my hypothesis was correct.
“Hey, you,” she said with a tired smile. “I was wondering when you’d be back.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and made my way up the steps. “Sorry I didn’t join y’all for dinner,” I muttered.
Her smile was kind. The lines around her eyes started to show her age, but they also showed how happy she had been since Will came into our lives.
It was a good look on her.
“That’s all right,” Kristin said as she eased back and forth in the rocking chair. She patted the empty one next to her, silently inviting me to join her. “Did you have fun while you were out?”
“It’s Beaufort. There’s not much to do,” I murmured as I sat.
She propped her elbow up on the rocking chair arm and rested her chin in her hand. “Must be pretty boring compared to Chicago. I was a little surprised you came back so soon. Not that it’s a bad thing. It’s why I always have your room made up. I love it when you come to visit us. I wish you were here more often, but I want you to be happy more than I want you close. I know I’ve only seen you in passing since you got in this morning, but how long do you think you’ll stay?”
I hunched forward, resting my forearms on my knees. “I dunno.”
Kristin cocked her head, but didn’t say anything. She just waited me out like she always did. I swear, my sister had the patience of a saint.
“If it’s cool with y’all, I think I might stick around for a little bit. I need to talk to Will and make sure it’s fine that I work remotely.”
Kristin let out a loud laugh. “You want to stay with us? Done. I don’t work for SolomonTech, but I’ll talk to HR myself.”
“Your husband is the CEO. I think he can make the decision.”
She smirked. “He controls the company. Who do you think controls him?”
I raised my hands in surrender to her logic.
Kristin softened. “Wanna talk about whatever’s going on? I wasn’t born yesterday. I know you’re not here because you felt bad about your birthday party and wanted to have some family time. If you wanted family time, I would have seen you for more than five minutes today.”
“Sorry . . .”
She reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t be sorry. We all work through our mess in our own way.”
I knew I was going to have to tell Kristin eventually, especially if I planned on staying here longer than the weekend.
“Leah Holloway’s pregnant.”
Kristin nodded. “I know. Kylie told?—”
“The baby’s mine.”
She looked surprised, but not shocked.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Her brows knitted together. “Why are you sorry, Lo?”
Huh. No one had asked me why I was sorry. They just told me that I shouldn’t feel that way.
I shrugged. “You raised me better than that.”
“Was it consensual?” she prodded.
“Yeah.”
“And you used protection and it failed?”
I nodded again.
Kristin laid her hand on my knee. “Life has a margin of error, Logan. Nothing is ever foolproof. No plan is ever perfect, no matter how hard we try. Don’t beat yourself up about it. What happens now is you chart a new course. Set your heading and go at it like you’ve gone at everything else.”
“You sound like Will,” I muttered.
She laughed under her breath. “I take it you’ve already told him?”
I tilted my head and looked at her. “You’re not mad he kept it from you?”
Kristin just shook her head. “When Will and I started seeing each other, it took me a while to get comfortable with the idea of him coming around you kids. I never wanted to bring someone into the house who would do you all harm. Especially Kylie, Hunter, and Zoey. They were so young.”
I stared at the wood slats under my feet as crickets chirped a gentle song. I had never really thought about Will coming into our lives like that. How scary it must have been for Kristin to trust him around us kids, especially alone.
“When things settled down and I knew what we had was a forever kind of love, Will and I had a lot of talks about what his relationship with you all would look like. I knew that you needed an adult in your life that wasn’t me.” She laughed. “Someone to talk to about all the things you don’t want to share with your sister. Part of that meant that Will had to prove to you all that he was trustworthy. He and I agreed that he would keep whatever you told him in confidence as long as those secrets didn’t cause harm to you or anyone else.”
My throat felt like it was stuffed with sand and cotton as I thought back on the early conversations I’d had with Will while he helped me with math homework and college applications. It was never big stuff at first, just little grievances I had about the people around me. Eventually, we’d sit on the dock and talk about the big stuff.
Kristin was right. I had needed him just as much as I needed her.
“I knew you had something on your heart when you disappeared from your party and then came back this weekend,” Kristin said. “You were visiting Leah?”
I nodded. “Kylie doesn’t know yet.”
“Then I’ll keep this to myself.” A pensive smile painted her lips. “How’s Leah doing?”
I thought back to how brave she had been to extend an olive branch with her family, then walk out of a toxic ambush. “She’s gonna be a good mom.”
“And you? How are you doing, Dad?”
I just shook my head. “I just hope I’m not like ours.”