Chapter 19
Savannah
Logan isn’t at his apartment this morning, which is weird for him. Especially lately. I’ve gotten used to having him around all the time, so his empty living room is jarring after I punch in his door code and walk inside. Almost creepy.
“Logan?” My voice practically echoes through the apartment, followed by stark silence.
There’s a chance he’s in the shower or something, and my heart rate spikes at the thought of him suddenly appearing in just a towel, but I tell my body to calm down as I slowly step deeper into the apartment.
“Logan?” I call again, setting my bag on the floor in the kitchen.
I tiptoe down the hall to his bedroom and poke my head through the open door, but the room is empty.
I peek into the bathroom next, frowning when I catch some lingering steam in the air.
He was here. Recently. And he knew I would be showing up at eight because this is when I come every day.
So where did he go?
Did something happen at practice last night? He was so reluctant to go back, though he never told me why. I figured it had something to do with how his team might or might not welcome him back, even if he pretends not to care what they think of him.
As I’ve learned, Logan cares about a lot more than he says he does.
Grabbing my phone, I head back to the kitchen and type out a text.
Savannah:
How did practice go last night? I was hoping to hear all about it this morning.
I read through it without hitting send, wondering if it sounds too much like I’m prying. He’s open when it comes to his interest in me, but he’s still incredibly private with everything else. He might not want me to know about his practice if it went poorly.
What do I have to lose? Just this amazing kitchen and my cat’s favorite human.
Before I can think better of it, I send the text and start gathering what I need for today’s meals, telling myself not to check my phone until I’m done prepping. Do I listen? No. I keep my phone screen on, growing more agitated every minute my text goes unread.
“He has his own life,” I say out loud as I work. “He’s allowed to go places without telling you, and what happens during his practices is none of your business.”
Except, I’m worried about him. After so many days of having him around, his absence and silence feel worrisome. He’s softer than he lets people believe, and with the way he looked at me before he left my apartment yesterday, it was almost like he…
I groan. I need to focus. My new client, one of Cole’s best friends, is famous enough that I have several of his albums on my favorites playlist. I nearly died when Cole told me Liam Connolly was interested in ordering meals from me.
It was worse when I brought a meal to Liam’s house last night, completely starstruck, and he hired me after the first bite.
But that means I can’t mess this up. I’m lucky that Cole contracted meals for the team for the rest of the season, even luckier than he gave me access to someone in his inner circle.
I’m not about to rock the boat when it comes to this referral.
I’m clinging to this luck with everything I’ve got.
Unable to help myself, I glance at my phone, gasping when I see that my text has been marked as ‘read.’ I freeze and stare at the screen, waiting for it to show him typing.
It never does.
“Logan!” I growl out, clenching my hands into fists as my frustration rises. Yes, we’re only friends, but he has to know I care about him enough to worry. Right?
He’s obviously on his phone, so I strip off one of my gloves and hit the call button, tapping the speakerphone icon next. It rings over and over, and I hold my breath until finally the call connects.
Logan’s voice is hesitant, and there’s something off about it. “Er, hey, Sav. Did you get into the flat okay?”
“Where are you?” That question is blunt, but I’m too worried to be tactful.
“Out.”
A seagull screams in the distance, giving me a clue. But there are a million beaches in LA. He could be anywhere.
“How was practice?”
“It was…” He sighs. “Really good. Better than I could have hoped for.”
“Oh.” Slipping off my other glove, I grab my phone and press it to my ear after taking it off speakerphone, hoping I’ll be able to get more clues if I listen that way. “That’s good, right?”
“Obviously.”
I want to ask him right out why he’s not here, but I worry that will make him hang up. He’s always evasive, but this feels bigger. “Everything okay, Logan?”
“Brilliant.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.” I wince as those words slip out of my mouth.
Thankfully, he chuckles as more seagulls cry in the background. “Course you don’t. It’s a lie.”
Swearing under my breath, I stare at the half-made meals sitting on the counter.
I’m supposed to deliver these before noon because Liam and his wife will be away from home the rest of the day, and after that I need to get started on the team meals.
I’m just getting my feet under me and feeling like I can do True Fuel long term.
Like I’m on the verge of having everything I’ve ever wanted.
But as I stand in Logan’s kitchen, listening to him breathe on the other end of the line, it feels like something is squeezing my heart.
Whatever he’s going through, he’s going through it alone.
I know all too well how painful that loneliness can be.
How can I focus on myself when he’s hurting?
What good is a thriving business when someone else is suffering?
I can’t let him deal with this on his own.
With a groan, I tuck my phone between my ear and shoulder and start stuffing everything back into the fridge. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be lucky. “Where are you, Logan? Which beach?”
“You have work to do, Sav.”
“Yeah, I do, so tell me quickly so I don’t have to check every freaking beach in Los Angeles.”
He grumbles something under his breath, followed by my name on a sigh. “Sav.”
“Logan.”
“I’m fine. Don’t turn this into—”
“You didn’t go to Venice or Santa Monica,” I say, more to myself than to him. I shove the last package of chicken in the fridge and grab my keys. “Too many people. Manhattan?”
“Savannah Blair, don’t even think about—”
I take the stairs rather than the elevator, wishing I’d spent more time at the beach since moving to California so I’d be more familiar with the different places he might have gone. It’s not like I’ve had all that much free time. “You wouldn’t go all the way up to somewhere in Malibu, would you?”
He growls, then exhales. “Dockweiler.”
Pulling up the beach in my maps app, I can’t hold back a grimace when I see how long it will take me to get there. But it’s probably the first beach he came to. It’s not like he lives right on the coast. Then my stomach flips when I realize how close the beach is to LAX.
He wasn’t going to the airport, was he?
“Wait there. Okay, Logan? I’m coming.”
“Yeah,” he sighs and hangs up.
It’s a testament to how much he’s hurting that he stopped fighting me.
When I get to the beach and see Logan sitting in the sand just beyond the parking lot, a wave of relief sparks tears in my eyes. He’s exactly where he said he was; I half expected him to lie so I wouldn’t find him.
“Logan?” I call as I struggle toward him, sand filling my shoes. A descending plane flies overhead, and I wince at the noise. How long has he been here?
He doesn’t move until I collapse to my knees in front of him, and even then he only shifts his head to look at me. With his face void of emotion and dark circles under his eyes, he looks like he’s having an awful morning. “You shouldn’t have come,” he says, softer than I expect.
“I’m worried about you.”
“No need to fret, love.”
Reaching forward, I warily place my palm on the fist he’s resting on his knee. “Are you sure about that?” He’s completely tense, and it looks like he barely slept.
Swallowing thickly, he dips his chin down to stare at the sand between his legs. “No,” he admits, his voice breaking. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he stares at the screen for a second before handing it to me. “Got this last night.”
It’s an email from one of those companies that does DNA testing, and I skim through it.
When I read the word ‘parent,’ my heart jumps into double time.
“Your dad?” I guess as things start to make more sense.
Logan has never brought up his birth dad, despite his determination to have a conversation with Lola.
“Were you hoping to figure out who he is?”
“Didn’t care to.” His words are clipped, and he keeps his head down. “Reckon he would have fought against the adoption if he’d wanted me.”
Oh, this poor man. It was one thing to need closure from Lola, and now he has a name to put to the other side of his origins.
“Do you want to find him now?” I ask, wondering how hard it would be to track this guy down.
His name isn’t unique, and there’s no telling if he’s in the state, let alone nearby.
“No.” Logan grimaces, tilting his head. “Maybe. I don’t…”
Ever since that first night I made food for the Thunder, Logan and I haven’t talked about Lola. I would have brought her up if I had any ideas for getting the two of them in the same room again, but Logan hasn’t seemed nearly as interested in talking to her as he was when I first met him.
I wonder if he’s as confused about Lola as he is with this new development.
Shifting my hand so our fingers are laced together, I scoot closer to him and wait for him to look at me. “You don’t have to talk to either of them. Not if you don’t want to.”
He sighs. “The whole reason I came was to get answers so my parents stop worrying about me.”
“Answers to what, exactly?”
Frowning, he looks down at our hands for a long moment. “Why.”
“Why what?”
“Why I wasn’t good enough.”
“Logan.” His name comes out of me with so much sadness and sympathy that my eyes start welling with tears again. “That was never the problem.”
“Then what was it?” he snaps and narrows his eyes. “If I wasn’t the problem, why wouldn’t Lola talk to me when I first reached out? Why didn’t Braden step up and take responsibility for making me exist? Why didn’t they try?”
He runs a hand through his hair, every moment full of agitation.
“And then my dad gets sick and makes me realize he and mum are all I’ve got and I’m going to be entirely alone when they’re gone, and I can’t…
” His shoulders slump in exhaustion. “Coming here was a bad idea. I don’t know what I expected, but I’m an idiot for thinking it would be anything but a waste of time. ”
I know he’s hurting and feeling lost and abandoned, but his words sting. He once told me that if he couldn’t talk to Lola, coming to California wasn’t a waste because I…
Stomach twisting and leaving me queasy, I push those feelings down.
This isn’t about me. “I’m sorry this is all so hard,” I whisper and slip my hand free from his.
Maybe I should have listened to him when he told me not to come.
“I’m here if you want to talk about it, but if you’d rather be alone, I can—”
He swears and meets my eyes. “Don’t go,” he says, almost begging. Those two words are heartbreaking.
I smile softly. As if I could leave him when he looks so vulnerable. It’s Beef Wellington at the shelter all over again. “I won’t leave you alone, Logan.”
Furrowing his brow, he studies me for a long time, like I spoke in a language he doesn’t understand.
Technically I meant I wouldn’t leave him alone right now, but I’m not sure I want to leave him alone ever.
The only problem is the little fact that he’s going back to Australia when his season with the Thunder is over, and I’ll be here, chasing dreams that will never win my family’s approval and might not come true in the first place.
Not if I keep letting my bleeding heart make my decisions for me.
Logan slowly takes my hand again, his movements wary, like he’s waiting for me to run away. A breeze ruffles his mussed hair, carrying the smell of brine and seaweed, but though I shiver from the coolness of it, Logan doesn’t seem to notice the chill. His full attention is on me. Don’t go.
Gulls cry and waves crash and a child squeals at the edge of the surf, but all of that fades away because all that matters is him. The way he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing that can heal the wounds he’s been suffering from for years.
“Sav,” he whispers.
Don’t go, my heart beats back.