Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Logan knocked twice before I could rush to the door. Jenna and Lindsey were both in the kitchen, and I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this situation unscathed. They would recognize him immediately, considering his face had been all over the school paper since the semester started.
I cracked the door, and the cold slid past my ankles.
“Who’s that?” Jenna called out.
“No one!” I snapped back.
He stood there, hair damp with snow melt, holding two Tim’s coffees like a peace offering. The storm had indeed rolled in, a little later than expected.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed. “Weren’t you hosting a party?”
Logan shrugged. “It was at my house, but I wasn’t really the host.”
“So they’re all still there?”
“Probably.”
“And you just . . . left?”
He nodded. Shifting on his feet. The night pressed in blue and grainy behind him, streetlight trapped in the drifting flakes.
Who walked out of a party at their own house because some random girl from their old college phoned them? Logan Kemp made absolutely zero sense to me.
“Can you pull your hood up or something?” I hissed.
He peered over my shoulder, and I moved to block his view of Jenna and Lindsey. “You’re embarrassed to be seen with me?”
“Something like that,” I muttered. “Just hide your face, okay?” If they saw Logan here, I was never going to hear the end of it. It wasn’t like they were friends with Sharla, but still. The fewer people who knew about this weird rendezvous, the better. Because it was only going to get weirder.
Logan pulled up the hood on his coat, and I stepped back to let him in. He took off his shoes, already coated with a layer of snow, and I barely managed to hustle him through the living room before Jenna and Lindsey realized what I was doing.
“Wait, is he sleeping over?” Jenna asked right as Lindsey said, “You didn’t close the front door!”
Oops. I shoved Logan into my bedroom and ran back to remedy the situation.
“You’re not going to introduce us?” Jenna stood with a hand planted on her hip.
“No introduction necessary.” I scrambled for an explanation. “It’s a business thing.”
Lindsey’s eyes widened. “Like, what kind of business?”
I locked the door and strode back through the room to the hall. “No, nothing sketchy, I promise. It’s an art thing.”
Jenna still looked skeptical. “Did he convince you to strip for a self-portrait or something?”
“Nope, but I wish I could make money sitting bare-assed on a stool.” I waved at the two of them, then slipped into my room to, “If he tells you to touch his penis for a promotion, say no!”
Definitely Jenna on that one. She’d worked at a spa run by an old European dude for about three weeks over the summer until he made it clear just what he expected from his staff.
“She’s right. Always say no to that.” Logan stood barely a foot in front of me. I shut the door, and the space shrank by half. My bedroom wasn’t big on a good day. Single bed with a quilt my mom made me, thrift-store dresser, and a desk. With Logan there, the walls leaned in to eavesdrop.
Melted snow still clung to the ends of his hair as he shrugged off his coat, then picked up the Tim’s cups he’d set on my dresser. “It’s decaf.”
I took one. The cup was hot against my fingers. “Thanks.” My heart was already beating like I’d taken a shot of espresso. Why was Logan here? And why couldn’t I stop thinking about whatever girl was chasing him down at his party? Again, so many questions.
Logan sat on the edge of my bed, and it protested with a squeak.
I tried to perch myself on the lip of the desk, which resulted in my knocking a jar of pens onto the floor.
There wasn’t room for me to pull out the chair with Logan’s knees in the way, so after picking up after myself, I shuffled over and leaned against the dresser.
“I’m not going to bite.” Logan patted the bed next to him.
I hesitated, then flipped off the lid to my cup to buy myself some time. I breathed in the scent of dark roast to clear my nose of his cologne, then blew on the top. “There’s something I have to tell you—”
“I got that much.”
“But you didn’t have to come over here.”
He took a sip of his coffee, shifting on the bed. “The party wasn’t really my jam.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Hot girls throwing themselves all over you isn’t really your thing?” I forced myself not to tag on “anymore” at the end of the sentence.
“You don’t know if they were hot.”
I snorted and took a sip of coffee, burning the tip of my tongue.
“Why did you phone me?”
Guilt burrowed behind my ribs and made a nest. “I have something to tell you.”
“Yup, still with you there.”
I set the coffee down so I wouldn’t be tempted to scald the remainder of my virgin mouth. “I—Norman had a few misconceptions. About the whole meeting yesterday.”
His eyebrows lifted, just a fraction.
I continued, “He thought—I’m not sure what gave him this impression, but he thought that you and I were . . . together.”
Logan cocked his head to the side. “Huh.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘huh?’” The way he said it made my hackles rise.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it so out of the realm of possibility that someone like me would be dating an NHL player?”
Logan held up a hand. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What did you mean by it?”
“I don’t know, you said you weren’t sure what gave him that impression, so I was agreeing with you.”
I pursed my lips. This wasn’t going well.
I was too on edge, and Logan was . . . Logan.
Confusing and annoying and hot. Not a great combination for me, it turned out.
“Norman thought we were together, so he offered me the job because it includes some press opportunities and outreach. Both of which he assumed we’d be doing together.
He only gave me the opportunity because he thought you came with it. ”
There. I said it. I picked up my coffee cup and stared into the muddy liquid. He’d added cream and sugar. Exactly how I liked it.
When Logan didn’t say anything, I risked a glance up. He was grinning at me. “You signed it.”
“I—” I snapped my mouth closed. He looked exactly opposite of what I expected. I had responses ready for anger and betrayal, but glee? I was at a loss. “I did. I signed it.”
“You’ve been giving me shit about being selfish and not being honest with Shar—”
“I get it!” I groaned, clutching my cup like a comfort blanket. “But this is a little different, okay? He put me on the spot!”
“And that girl in Ontario didn’t put me on the spot?”
“Dude, you kissed more than one other girl while you were dating Shar! This is so not the same!”
“I think the Bible would disagree. And making up a story about me in my absence—"
“For the love! Are you seriously getting all religious on me?” I turned my back on him, my cheeks on fire.
I set my cup on the dresser and started organizing the clothes I still hadn’t folded from laundry day.
“I’m sorry, okay? I was blinded by my own ambition, and I wasn’t thinking straight because it was Norman frigging Marcus!
” I threw a sweater onto the bed in frustration.
“I’ll phone him. I’ll tell him he misunderstood, and if he takes away the job—”
“No.” Logan was laughing—laughing—as he stood and pressed his large hands onto my shoulders. I froze, tilting my head to look at him. “This is perfect. And I’m going to tell you why.”