Chapter 22
How did we end up like this?
It was so freeing—saying it out loud. Or, almost saying it. That moment with Maisie on the festival stage . . . I told her the truth in the only way I knew how. Not with some big dramatic speech, but with action. With the way I looked at her. Held her. Kissed her.
The memory of her lips against mine is all I can think about.
This sizzling excitement preventing me from falling asleep at night—it’s so much more than just the novelty of kissing someone new.
It felt like . . . coming back home after a long and arduous journey, gazing into the eyes of the one who’s been waiting for you and knowing, in that moment, how much they’ve missed you.
Am I crazy to think that?
I know she felt it, too—the way she reciprocated my enthusiasm—you can’t fake that.
So how did we go from that to this?
I yank open the refrigerator door, hoping for something edible, but it offers nothing but half a bottle of water, an expired yogurt, and a sandwich I wouldn’t feed to a raccoon.
“Pathetic,” I mutter, grabbing the water and slamming the fridge shut, wishing I had more of Maisie’s chicken noodle soup to slurp.
It’s my fault. All of it.
She asked me to be honest, and I wasn’t.
Not because I didn’t want to tell her everything—about Victoria, about the contract I’m obligated to keep, about how I’m one lawsuit away from career implosion.
Would she even want to be with someone whose entire life is one big dumpster ready to be set ablaze with a strike of a match?
If she knew everything about me, how messed up my life has been, would she reject me?
My parents mastered the art of rejection before I hit puberty. Every gold record, every sold-out arena—just more desperate attempts to make them notice. Yet somehow, the thought of Maisie turning away hurts more than twenty years of parental indifference.
If I lose Maisie—
I shake off the thought and down the water so fast it feels like icy spikes stab the center of my forehead. I wince and slap a palm against the ache, squeezing my eyes shut.
Coward.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Here I am, a grown man who’s spent years on stage in front of hundreds of thousands, frozen by the idea of knocking on one woman’s door.
A woman who teaches first-graders finger painting and doesn’t care if my socks match or if Rolling Stone thinks my last single was derivative.
I pace the kitchen from restlessness. The house feels hollow, just like the fame, just like everything except those moments with her. When I’m with Maisie, I don’t feel empty. She’s beautiful inside and out. Her small-town charms are intoxicating.
I can’t lose her. No more waiting. No more hiding. No more pretending.
I grab my keys off the kitchen counter, shove my feet into the nearest pair of sneakers, and nearly trip over an amp cable on my way out. The afternoon sun hits my face like a spotlight, but for once, I’m not worried about being recognized.
Here we go.
My fist slams against the door. “Maisie?”
No answer. I bang again, louder this time, my knuckles stinging against the wood.
The door creaks open, but it’s not Maisie—it’s her mom, wearing a frilly apron with cartoon chickens and holding a spatula like it might double as a weapon.
“You’re going to alert the entire neighborhood,” she scolds and steps out, eyes scanning the perimeter to make sure no one is spying on us, then shooting me a glare that makes my blood run cold.
I take a careful step back and swallow hard. Moms can be terrifying. Especially the ones who look at me like I’m the reason their daughter’s life is in shambles. “Can I talk to Maisie?”
Mrs. Lang crosses her arms, the spatula jutting out like she might stab me with it.
She means business. “Stay away from her, Logan. Ever since you showed up, her life has been chaos. Reporters. Rumors. She’s been missing school and can’t even walk through town without someone snapping a photo.
Do you even know what they’re saying about her on social media? ”
Truth be told, I learned to ignore socials after becoming famous. Too many faceless, nameless people dictating how I should lead my life when they should worry about their own. But this isn’t about me anymore.
I pull out my phone and start scrolling through Twitter. My stomach plummets with every swipe. #LoganLovesTeacher seems to have the most comments, some positive, but mostly cruel.
Gold digger.
Attention seeker.
Another fame chaser.
What have I done? This is all because of me.
“It’s not what it appears—” I begin.
“Oh, isn’t it?” Mrs. Lang tilts her chin up, knuckles on her hips. “Because what it looks like is my daughter being dragged into your circus while you keep one foot out the door.”
My jaw tenses, muscles working beneath my skin. “I never meant to—”
“You don’t get to ‘mean’ anything.” She cuts me off with a flick of the spatula.
“How long before you go back to your celebrity life, your escapades with actresses, and leave her behind? No matter what the rumors are, there’s always a touch of truth to them, isn’t there?
All that’s waiting for her at the end of”—she waves her hands frantically and almost smacks me in the face with that spatula—“whatever this is between the two of you, is heartbreak. She’s suffered enough. ”
I’ve been accused of much in my career—fraud, cheating, manipulating, even stealing kittens—all falsehoods.
But none of it had landed as hard as Mrs. Lang’s words.
I want to argue, to defend myself, but haven’t I given the world plenty of reason to see me as exactly what she’s describing?
The playboy. The troublemaker. The guy who never sticks around.
But that’s not who I want to be Maisie.
“I know what she’s been through,” I say.
“You have no idea what she’s been through.
“ Mrs. Lang’s finger is more threatening than my record label’s lawyer when he threw consequences at me for attempting to break my contract.
“That despicable boy tore her heart out. Humiliated her in the worst way possible. And now I’m afraid it’s happening again, just with a bigger audience. ”
Yeah, I’d like nothing more than to punch Andy in the face, but in a messed-up way, I’m kind of glad he did what he did. Otherwise, Maisie never would have knocked on my door.
“At least let me apologize to her.” I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “She deserves that.”
“And you promise to stay away after?”
I meet Mrs. Lang’s eyes, for I must make this crystal clear. “I can’t do that.”
The way she looks at me, I brace myself for a smack on the head with her spatula, but it never comes. Instead, something in her expression shifts—not softening, exactly, but reassessing.
“I care about Maisie, Mrs. Lang. More than—” I catch myself before admitting just how deep my feelings go. “I need to talk to her.”
A long sigh escapes her mouth, and her hand flies to her forehead, massaging the space between her eyebrows. I know I’m a headache, but I can’t do as she asks. “And if she tells you to leave her be?”
“Then I will.” But the thought makes my chest constrict. “She’s stronger than you think. Please tell me where she is.”
Mrs. Lang studies me for a moment. The tension in her shoulders doesn’t ease, but the fight in her eyes ebbs. Finally, she says, “Maisie went back to her place in Unity Grove. Cottonwood Flats. Apartment 5E.”
I jump off Mrs. Lang’s porch and run to my Camaro.
The engine roars to life, and I peel out of the quiet suburban street with a squeal of tires that’ll probably earn me another glare from Mrs. Lang if I ever dare to show my face again.
Three blown red lights and a sharp turn at Halloway Drive later, the wheels screech into the entrance of Cottonwood Flats, coming to a stop by the curb in front of Maisie’s building.
That’s when I see them.
A thicket of reporters clogs the sidewalk, hunched behind bushes and slinking around parked cars like predators in a nature documentary on PBS. Cameras flash like lightning in a summer storm. Microphones extend like accusatory fingers. And there, at the center of the feeding frenzy—Maisie.
I barely throw the Camaro into park before I’m out the door, weaving through the chaos. First come the gasps, then every camera turns on me, each flash of light sending a spike of anger through my chest.
“Logan! Over here!”
“Is she pregnant?”
I keep my eyes locked on Maisie, afraid if I look at any one of these vultures, I’ll knock their teeth out.
She stands terrified in the middle of the pack, knuckles white as she grips the strap of her duffle bag.
Her chest rises and falls too rapidly, eyes wide with that deer-in-headlights panic that makes my heart feel it’s in the grip of a vise.
But the second she sees me, something shifts. Her shoulders drop a fraction. She exhales, barely perceptible.
I reach for her hand. “Come on.”
Her fingers are ice against my palm, and I want to warm them, protect them, protect her. We push through the crowd shoulder-to-shoulder, my arm around her back creating a barrier between her and the shouting mob. The reporters close in like the tide, firing off question after question.
“Are you engaged?”
“Is it true you bought a house for her?”
“How long have you been together?”
Like I’m gonna answer. It’s none of their business what Maisie and I are to each other. And where are all these wild rumors about us coming from?
We make it to my car, and I open her door, help her in. With Maisie safely in the passenger seat, I slide across the hood—a move that would’ve looked cool if my jeans hadn’t caught on the wiper blade, nearly sending me face-first onto the concrete. Smooth, Humphries. Real smooth.
What are the chances of that headlining tomorrow’s newspapers instead of Maisie? Slim, at best.
Back behind the wheel, I click Maisie’s seat belt into place, then slam on the gas and leave the vultures behind us in a cloud of smoke and dust.
“Are you okay?” I chance a glance at Maisie, who sits ramrod straight, staring out the windshield. Her face has gone pale, lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m so sorry about this. I never meant for any of this to happen.”
She just sits there, still as a statue, like she’s afraid moving might break her to pieces.
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel until my knuckles match the white of her own. “Will you say something? Even if it’s to tell me what an absolute jerk I am.”
Maisie turns toward me slowly. “I don’t think we should continue this.”
Those exact words are what I was afraid of the most on my way here. I downshift, forcing the engine to slow, though my heart’s kicking into high gear. “I know you’re scared, but—“
“It’s not just that.” She exhales, a long, tired breath that seems to deflate her whole body. “How can I trust you if you won’t even tell me the truth?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, tasting copper. What can I say that won’t sound like another performance? “Then ask me—anything you want to know. I’m an open book. A slightly damaged, occasionally inappropriate open book.”
“For starters,” she says, fingers fidgeting with the seat belt strap, “what’s really going on with you and Victoria?”
I look at the road ahead, the yellow lines blurring together. “Victoria . . . she has a thing for me, but I’ve never felt the same.”
Maisie waits for me to continue, silent, patient. It’s one of the thousand things I like about her.
“She convinced our record label that we’d be a goldmine together—two big names, one big lie.” Just saying it out loud makes me wanna vomit. “Romantic duets. Promo appearances. Manufactured chemistry. The label ate it up like a bag of Hershey chocolates.”
“And you went along with it?” No judgment in her voice. Just curiosity.
“I resisted at every step. Acted out in public. I thought if I became enough of a liability, they’d cut me loose.”
“Is that the truth behind all the bad rumors?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “Just like when we were kids, remember? My parents were always off somewhere—business trips, important meetings. And I thought . . . maybe if I got in enough trouble, they’d come home. Punish me. Yell. Anything.”
The memory stings more right now than it did back then. Funny how that works.
“You should’ve told me when I first asked you,” Maisie says quietly.
“I was afraid you’d think less of me. That you’d lump me in with all the rumors, all the worst headlines.” It feels good to be honest with her.
Her eyebrows lift. “Reject you . . . for being human?”
“For being a screwup,” I correct, a humorless laugh escaping. “For never figuring out how to be a grown-up.”
“Like when we were kids?” The corner of her mouth curves ever so slightly.
She might be the only woman who truly knows me, who saw the beginning of my down spiral to infamy and still hasn’t run away. “Yeah, I was afraid you’d think I never grew up.”
“You were pretty mean to me back then.”
“I know.” I pause, checking for a reaction. “You never thought about why?”
“You said it yourself,” she reminds me. “You were a jerk.”
Coming from her, that stings a lot more than I would like.
I slow the car, veering onto the shoulder of a quiet stretch of road.
The tires crunch softly on gravel as we come to a stop.
To our right, tall trees sway in the afternoon breeze, casting dappled shadows across the dashboard.
The only sound is the ticking of the cooling engine.
I shift in my seat to face her. I wasn’t this nervous even when performing in front of tens of thousands of people. “I was also just a kid trying to get your attention.”
“What?”
“You were the smartest girl in class. Kindest. And you dressed really cute.”
“I was a nerd,” she proclaims, but there’s a hint of pink in her cheeks.
“Not to me.”
Maisie looks a little flustered. I love that about her—how easily I can read her emotions.
“Why do you think I moved into your old neighborhood?”
She stares at me, lips slightly parted, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I didn’t know you lived with your parents, but I had hoped to run into you eventually.”
“What about the contract you insisted we sign?”
“That was me panicking you’d say no to us hanging out. With all the bad rumors about me swirling . . .”
Maisie looks away, focusing on something beyond the windshield. “Logan, we’re from different worlds. I’m just a small-town girl who likes peace and quiet. I can’t be trending.”
“It’ll pass,” I say softly, hoping I’m right. “The attention. The headlines. But us? We could last.” She doesn’t look convinced, her fingers now worrying at a loose thread on her blouse. I gotta do better. “Come away with me.”
Her head whips toward me. “What?”
“Just for a while. Let’s disappear. Just you and me.” This is it. My last chance to quell her doubts. “Let me show you how we could make it work.”
I reach for her hand. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t say yes either.