Chapter 7
Gage
Yesterday and all of today seemed to drag by, my texting with Logan offsetting the torture of waiting for tonight.
I’d never had a guy text consistently leading up to the first date.
Usually, if I met someone, they only wanted sex and were willing to bang and leave, which was partly why I’d stopped dating to begin with.
Logan had made it obvious he wasn’t after just sex.
He’d asked questions, planned the date, sent funny memes that let me glimpse his sense of humor. He sincerely tried getting to know me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this excited for a date. Like, I was actually giddy. Wanting to frolic through the flowers, giddy. Had I ever looked forward to a date like this before?
I was ready to go at six on the dot because I was punctual.
Logan pulled into my driveway at six on the dot because apparently he was also punctual.
Thank god. People who were never on time drove me straight up the wall.
I’d broken up with a guy in college because he was habitually thirty minutes to an hour late to everything. That kind of shit got old in a hurry.
So far, Logan had checked a lot of boxes.
Please check more boxes by being a good in-person conversationalist, have no red flags hidden in your closet, and have an EQ of at least fifty percent and this might go somewhere.
I wasn’t asking for true empathic ability, but something above a teenager’s level. Please and thank you.
I felt relieved he hadn’t shown up on his bike, because desire for connection aside, I had limited willpower. Him on a bike would have pushed me past my threshold and caused Asher to win his sex bet.
Logan’s Jeep was older, but it appeared clean and well maintained.
It fit with what I knew of the man—how he took care of things.
I locked my front door and smiled at Logan as I climbed into the passenger side.
He had nice leather seat covers, too, with minimal wear.
I didn’t see any sign he off-roaded, but it also looked like the Jeep had been cleaned this morning.
It had that I’ve-been-detailed smell. If he’d actually cleaned his car to take me on a date, then I was definitely kissing him at the end of the night.
I appreciated his effort and thoughtfulness.
“Your house,” Logan informed me, “is cute as sin.”
“Thank you. A lot of hard work went into it.”
“Am I right in guessing you renovated this one yourself?”
“We basically all renovated our houses, so yes.”
“We?”
“Ah, right, you don’t know the story. By we, I mean my friends and business partners. We all found houses needing renovations and took turns helping each other renovate. That way we could showcase our work to potential clients.”
“That’s smart as hell. Two for one.”
“Yup. Riggs’s idea. He’s brilliant with marketing.”
“It’s super impressive you could join in with friends and make your business work. Most companies don’t because the friends start fighting, or someone fails to pull their weight.”
“You’re not wrong. And it was a concern I had, that we might end up fighting, but thankfully I chose the right people to go into business alongside.” I liked his interest very much and was quite happy to answer his questions. I had just as many for him.
“Alrighty, we’ve got thirty minutes before we get to the restaurant, and I’m curious. How did creating a business with friends come about?”
He seemed truly interested. Also, he looked incredibly sexy tonight, and I couldn’t figure out why.
Maybe it was the color of the short-sleeved shirt he wore?
It was an inky dark blue and brought out the sun-kissed highlights in his hair and the warmth of his tanned skin.
Plus it fit him like a glove and just…yum.
I wanted to peel the shirt off him. From this close I could study the ink on his arms. He had two full sleeves, a mix of all sorts of symbols, designs, and whatnot that would take me time to get to know.
But I would. I’d ask him about each one and maybe map out a few with my fingers.
Yes, tattoos were a turn-on. No, I wasn’t ashamed to admit it.
“I’m happy to tell you but first let me say, you look on fire tonight.”
Logan stopped at the end of the street to shoot me a sexy wink. “Why, thank you. You somehow took it up a notch too, but I can’t put a finger on how.”
“Thanks. I’ve been reliably informed by Ash that red is my color.”
“Maybe that’s it, or maybe I’m just happy to take you on a date.”
The man was smooth. He was one of those types, wasn’t he? The type who could talk you right out of your clothes. I couldn’t wait to be proven right.
“I’m very happy to be on a date with you, for that matter.” I almost slid my hand over to tease him, then realized he was driving a manual. Oh wow. Rare breed here. I didn’t know many people who could drive a manual. I’d ask him about it later. I had a different pressing question to answer.
“So, back when I graduated college, I came home to start job searching. Wasn’t having a lot of luck, to be honest. Most people wanted to pay me peanuts because I didn’t have any work experience in my field.
I almost took one of those jobs just to have some kind of paycheck when I happened to meet Cohen and Riggs.
Riggs had made a Facebook post looking for people wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons, and I was searching for any excuse to get out of the house, so I joined.
I took Ash with me, as he’s also a die-hard nerd, and we had a blast. It was about three sessions in when we started comparing notes and realized three out of the four of us were in the renovation business in some way.
Cohen’s a contractor, Asher’s an interior decorator, and me you know.
After the fourth session, Riggs had us three stay behind and hit us with the idea of creating our own business.
He volunteered to be office grunt and handle the admin side of things. ”
“And you were just sold?”
“More or less. As I told you, Ash I’ve known since diapers.
We grew up next door to each other. Cohen has a very steady personality and acts responsible all day long.
So does Riggs. I had nothing to lose at that point and said yes.
We took out a business loan and dove into the fray, so to speak.
Our first year was rough, as we worked insane hours to get things done, all of us wearing multiple hats.
Hell, Ash even helped with demolition, and he’s not a demolition kinda guy.
But our hard work paid off by the second year, and now, four years in, it’s paying off in spades.
We’re getting in more work than we can actually manage and have started hiring freelance crews to handle some of the load. ”
“Wow. That’s super impressive. I know how hard it is to build a business out of nothing.”
That segued nicely into something I wanted answered. “Did you do that with the bar?”
“Sure did. Built it with my own hands from the ground up. No business loan, though. I worked two jobs for years to launch it.” Logan snorted, smile a tinge bitter. “No bank would have trusted me at that point in my life, and for good reason. So I had to do it on my own.”
Now, those words didn’t make sense. “Why? Or is that something you don’t want to talk about?”
“Actually, this is something you probably need to know. Might as well get it out in the open. I’m not proud of who I was, but I’m proud of who I’ve become.” He paused, as if formulating his thoughts.
I let him take his time. Patience was needed right now.
“I was, in essence, Cooper.”
“You mentioned something about that when we first met. I’m having a hard time reconciling that, because you’re the exact opposite of my brother.” In fact, it gave me a migraine even trying to imagine him as Cooper, and I had a pretty good imagination.
“Yeah. Sadly, I think I was worse than Cooper. I tangled with the law many a time.” That bitter smile stayed, twisting his lips, and his dark brown eyes appeared a touch sad.
“I’ll explain the why if you’re curious, but in essence, I was a neglected kid.
I grew up with anger issues and a problem with authority because of it.
By the time I hit my late teens, I had three misdemeanors and jumped from trouble to trouble like it was an Olympic sport.
No one could do anything about me. The only person who loved me despite it all was my grandmother, who knew all too well why I self-destructed. ”
I didn’t know why, but I felt defensive on his behalf, which was weird as hell.
If Cooper had said something similar, I’d have been on his ass immediately, telling him why he was the way he was.
I wouldn’t have given him an out. But for Logan, I wanted to protest none of it had been his fault.
I didn’t understand my own contradiction.
Maybe because I could see the end result, the man standing in front of me today, and knew he was better than the angry teenager he described?
His past seemed painful to talk about, but also like he needed to share.
I felt driven to understand this man, to hear how he came to be the person he was now, because I truly could not imagine his past self.
“I’m sorry, I have to ask, why were you like that?
If it’s too painful to talk about, we can switch topics. ”
Logan huffed out a breath. “Short version is my parents never should have been parents. They were very set on having girls for some reason. All they wanted were little girls. Instead, they got five sons. The gender disappointment made them ignore us boys completely. They eventually had a girl, the youngest, and their entire world revolves around Erin. She’s a good kid despite them spoiling her, hates our parents because she sees how they treat us boys is not okay.
They’re constantly asking why she’s so mad at them, she’s constantly asking why they’re assholes to their own sons. ”