Chapter 13 – Logan
Thirteen
LOGAN
Leaning back against the counter in the kitchen, I pull up Nalia’s number on my cell.
Between work, dealing with Kristy, who I called to talk to about Coop, dinner, and Kristy showing up to talk to our son, I haven’t had a minute to check in with Nalia since texting her this afternoon to let her know what happened.
Or the watered-down version of what happened, since there wasn’t enough time to get into the details.
“I was just thinking about you.” She answers on the first ring, and if my head was in a better place, I might ask her what she was thinking about, but honestly, I can’t pull up the energy right now. “Is Cooper okay?”
“He’s already asleep.” I drag my fingers through my hair.
“Zuri told me a little more about what happened. She said that Matthew came back to class and was happy to tell everyone that Coop got suspended for hitting him.”
“This doesn’t shock me.”
“Yeah,” she agrees softly, and the phone goes quiet for a long moment before she whispers. “If you were here, I’d offer you a drink. I’m sure you need one after today.”
“You got beer?”
“No, but I have a bottle of bourbon that was given to me by a client a week ago. It’s supposed to be good, and they have a huge following around here.”
I glance at the clock on the microwave, it’s a little after eight thirty, not exactly early, but it’s also not late. “Is Zuri up?”
“No, she’s in bed.”
“Let me go up and tell Billie to watch out for her brother, and I’ll be over.”
“Really? It’s after eight.” I smile. Only she would sound shocked that I’d take her up on her offer.
“Are you going to bed?” I ask, and she hesitates for a second before she murmurs.
“No.”
“Alright, then I’ll be over.”
“Okay, send me a text when you get here so that you don’t have to ring the bell.”
“Will do, baby.” I hang up with her then head to the stairs dodging the shit that I put on the steps for the kids to take upstairs. Shit they ignored taking up to their rooms and stepped over when they went up after their mom left.
“Yeah,” Billie calls out after I knock on her door.
I push her door and find her lying in bed with a book she was reading open and resting on her chest with music playing softly in the background.
Her room is not your typical girl’s room; there isn’t a drop of pink anywhere to be found, but somehow, it’s still girly.
She asked that her walls be painted black when we were picking out paint colors, and even though I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea and honestly a little worried about the darkness of the color, I knew she had a vision, so I let her do her thing.
I’m glad I did. With pops of color added from the gold-framed Broadway show posters she has hanging on the walls, stark white curtains, fluffy bedding, and a makeup station with a huge mirror that has those screw in lightbulbs, it screams old Hollywood.
“You gonna be up for a while?”
“Yeah, I have a lot of reading to do, then I need to study my lines for the show.”
“You mind keeping an ear out for your brother for an hour or so?”
“Sure.” She looks across the room to where I know there is a clock on the wall. “Are you going to see Uncle Hector?”
“No, Nalia.”
“Okay.” She sits up and rests back against her pintucked headboard, bringing her knees to her chest, dropping her eyes to her book.
“We good?” I ask after a moment, and she looks up at me with a frown.
“Yeah, why?”
“No reason.” I walk across the room and then lean down to kiss the top of her head. “If you need me, I have my cell.”
“Okay, have fun.”
What the fuck? No attitude, no questions. Just have fun.
Shaking my head, I leave her room to head down the hall to Coop’s bedroom, crack the door open, and peek inside.
He’s still asleep, his arm hanging over the side of the bed, and his blankets have kicked off onto the floor.
Unlike his sister’s room, he chose a black and white geometric print wallpaper for the wall his bed is up against. Then he left the rest of the walls white so that the wallpaper wouldn’t take away from the large canvas prints with different sneakers and random items covered with graffiti he had picked out.
Walking across his room, I grab his blankets off the floor and place them back over him, then lean down to kiss the top of his head. He doesn’t even twitch, proving just how exhausted he is. Leaving his small night light on, I close his door, then stop back by Billie’s room and poke my head in.
“Love you, I’ll see you when I get home.”
“’Kay, Dad, love you too.” She doesn’t even look up from her book.
Going downstairs, I grab my keys and give Dozer a head rub before I head out of the house.
The drive to Nalia’s takes less than five minutes, and the moment I pull into the driveway, the front door opens, and her shadowy frame fills the doorway.
Shutting down the engine, I get out and walk up to the porch where she’s waiting, wrapped in an oversized sweater.
I can’t make out what she’s wearing underneath, but I can see her long tan legs and bare feet.
“Hey,” she says quietly, shifting from foot to foot as I walk up the steps and close the distance between us.
“Hey.” I lean down, touching my mouth to the edge of hers, and hear her swift intake of breath before I place my hand against her soft stomach and walk her backwards into the house.
Closing the door behind myself, I watch her back up and latch onto her bottom lip before she tips her head towards where I know the kitchen is.
“I figured we could sit out back on the deck, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sure.” I follow her into the kitchen that is small but tidy, and like the rest of the house there are lots of pops of bright colors here and there.
Not one piece of pottery or art seems to match but it all still somehow seamlessly works together and fits the space and the personality of the woman who lives here.
“This is the bourbon I was telling you about.” She passes me a bottle from the counter, the label looks familiar with its gold font and deep green background.
It’s not a brand that is popular in liquor stores, but I have seen the small bar a few towns over advertise their bourbon and location in our local magazine and on social media.
“Did they buy a house from your brothers?” I ask her as I start to unwrap the plastic from the top of the bottle.
“No, they’re remodeling their current house, which sits on about three hundred acres right outside of Franklin.
I guess it’s been in their family for a few generations, and it needs a lot of updates.
” She wanders across the kitchen and gets down two glasses from a cabinet next to the sink.
“The guys are also going to build a space on the property that they can use to host parties and weddings, but they won’t start work on that until sometime next year. ”
“They’re always busy.”
“Always.” She walks back towards me with the glasses, then scoots around me to go to the back door. “Ready?” she turns to look at me.
“Yeah,” I carry the bottle outside. The deck is small with just a single loveseat and coffee table that doubles as a fire pit, but the yard is large with full grown trees surrounding the perimeter.
After putting the glasses down, she opens up a door under the coffee table, and two clicks later flames appear in the she takes a seat.
I sit next to her and twist off the lid on the bottle then pour us each a glass.
“Have you had bourbon before?” I ask after passing her one of the glasses and watching her sniff the top.
“No, but it smells dangerous.”
“It can be,” I laugh, and she smiles. “Just take small sips.” I take a mouthful and watch her do the same. Her eyes widen a second later, and a second after that, she starts to cough.
“Wow.” She wipes her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater. “This is…”
“Not bad,” I mutter.
“Disgusting,” she counters, putting the glass down and getting up. “I’ll be right back.” Scooting around me, she walks back into the house and comes out a minute later with two wine glasses and a bottle of red wine. “I brought you a glass in case you want wine instead.”
“I’m good with this.”
“Suit yourself.” She pours herself a glass, then sits back down and rests her feet on the coffee table, and I notice that her toes are painted the same lavender color as her nails. It’s cute, she’s cute. “So, what happened today?” she asks with her glass to her lips.
Without hesitating, I dive into what the principal explained to me, then what Coop told me about the situation, and as I talk, her eyes narrow, and her lips press into a hard line.
“At the end of the day, Coop knows not to put his hands on someone else unless he’s defending himself, so he fucked up.” I end before taking a sip of my drink.
“Yeah, but it sounds like Matthew kind of deserved the black eye he got,” she mumbles.
“Probably.” I smile. “But it didn’t change anything, and now Coop has in-school suspension for the next two days, and that shit is going to be in his school records, so it could come back to bite him in the ass if something else happens.”
“Yeah, that sucks.” Her face softens. “I wish that the teacher would have heard what was being said so that there would have been some type of repercussion for Matthew’s role in that whole situation.”
“I agree with you, baby.” I lean back in my seat and rest my boots on the coffee table, crossing my ankles. “Which is why I’m not more pissed at my kid for what he did.”
“Being a parent is hard.” She sighs and murmurs, “I can totally understand why some people decide to homeschool their kids. It’s hard at this age to send them off every day with just the hope that people will treat them with kindness.”
“I imagine that will never change, babe, even when Billie graduates in a few years and heads off to college, it’s going to be difficult to trust her care to this world.”