Chapter June 27, 2020—Seattle, Washington—One Year and Nine Months Later #4
Maybe Adrian was sitting by the water, watching the horizon, just as Logan was now. Maybe, against all reason, they were both whispering the same silent prayer.
He went to the search bar, but strangely, Adrian’s name, the first result for so long, was no longer there.
Uneasy, he typed the first three letters of Adrian’s name, expecting the app to do the rest. It should have been effortless; his fingers had traced this same path a thousand times before, his restless mind returning to it like a tide pulled to shore.
After all, he had spent night after night searching, staring at the screen, hoping for some trace of him. By this point, the algorithm was the only one that truly knew Logan.
But tonight, for the first time, his name didn’t appear.
Nothing. Panic bubbled in his chest as he typed Adrian’s full name, his breath hitching. Still, nothing. What? He typed it again, his heart hammering as he pressed the search button. No results.
Had Adrian blocked him?
The thought hit Logan like a punch to the gut, and the panic spilled over, rising like a tidal wave.
His chest ached with a suffocating pressure, and he struggled to breathe.
He knew—he knew—he had no right to feel this way.
He had been the one to block Adrian’s number, to shut him out, to walk away.
But the thought of Adrian severing the last tenuous thread between them was unbearable.
Without thinking, Logan stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor.
He moved to the closest table, where a couple was sharing a quiet dinner, their conversation interrupted by his looming presence.
“Excuse me,” Logan said, his voice unsteady, barely more than a whisper.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, but could I borrow one of your phones? Just for a second. Mine’s dead.”
The man hesitated but eventually handed over his phone, unlocking it with a swipe.
Logan’s hands shook as he opened the Facebook app, his fingers fumbling to type Adrian’s full name into the search bar.
He pressed the search button, holding his breath, but the result was the same.
Nothing. No account. No trace. Adrian was gone.
He stared at the screen for a long moment, his vision blurring. Then, slowly, he deleted the search and handed the phone back to the man. “Thank you,” Logan murmured, his voice hollow. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. Enjoy your evening.”
The couple exchanged polite smiles and returned to their conversation as if nothing had happened. Logan stumbled back to his table, threw down enough cash to cover his untouched beer, and walked out into the night, his legs unsteady beneath him.
He sat in his car for a moment, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Adrian had deleted his Facebook account.
It shouldn’t have mattered; they hadn’t spoken in years, and the account itself had been dormant since Logan left.
But it had mattered. It had been a lifeline, a fragile connection he had selfishly clung to, a flicker of hope that maybe, one day, he could reach back across the divide.
And now it was gone.
The realization tore through him, ripping open wounds he had spent years trying to ignore. Adrian was truly gone. The last tether to him had snapped, leaving Logan adrift in a sea of his own making.
The scream erupted from him before he could stop it, raw and guttural, echoing through the empty car.
It carried everything he couldn’t say—the regret, the longing, the unbearable weight of losing the one person who had ever made him feel whole.
It was the sound of a man breaking, his pain spilling out into the silence of the night.
And when it ended, Logan was left with nothing but the hollow ache of his own breath and the knowledge that Adrian was lost to him forever.
Logan lost track of time as he navigated the winding, shadowy streets, the darkness blanketing him in a way that seemed intentional, easing him farther and farther away, letting the abyss consume him, the fog settling once and for all in his mind, with only the faintest hints of Adrian’s smile clearing the edges, traces Logan would chase for the rest of his days.
The hum of the engine was the only sound in the stillness of the night, and the headlights pierced through the blackness, illuminating fleeting glimpses of the world outside.
When he finally parked his car outside the bar, the clock on the dashboard blinked ominously—four a.m. The bar’s neon sign flickered in the distance, casting an eerie glow that contrasted with the quiet of the hour, hinting at the long night still lingering in the air.
Zack’s bar.
The bar was silent when Logan walked in, the heavy click of the door locking behind him punctuating the emptiness like a gunshot.
The lights were still on, casting a warm glow over the wood and glass, but the usual hum of life and laughter was gone.
Zack stood behind the bar, a towel slung over his shoulder, his head tilted in weary acknowledgment.
“We’re closed,” Zack called without looking up, his voice flat and indifferent.
Logan ignored him, his footsteps deliberate as he crossed the room.
His suit was rumpled from hours of driving, but he straightened it instinctively, a hollow attempt at composure.
He didn’t need alcohol. Not tonight. He needed something else, something raw, something that could drown out the ache clawing at his insides.
“Oh, it’s you…” Zack muttered, glancing up. “A bit late for you, isn’t it?”
Logan didn’t answer. His silence was heavy, loaded with intent. He moved behind the bar, stepping into Zack’s space, his presence electric and unyielding.
“Look, man,” Zack began, raising a hand as if to ward him off. “If you need a drink—”
The words died in Zack’s throat as Logan grabbed the front of his shirt, his fists twisting in the fabric, and crushed their mouths together.
The kiss was brutal, desperate, a collision of need and anguish that left no room for gentleness.
Logan’s lips moved over Zack’s with abandon, his body pressing Zack back against the counter.
Zack froze, breath catching, before his hands found Logan’s face, gripping him with a desperation that mirrored his own, fingers pressing into skin as if trying to carve meaning into something meaningless.
Logan kissed him harder, forcing himself deeper into the moment, into the illusion, chasing a warmth that no longer belonged to him.
When his tongue flicked at the seam of Zack’s lips, Zack yielded, parting for him, letting their mouths tangle in a fevered, clumsy dance. Logan felt the slick heat of it, the way their bodies moved in sync, but it was all wrong.
The taste—wrong.
The shape of the lips against his—wrong.
The breath, the weight, the rhythm—hollow.
It wasn’t Adrian.
When he kissed Adrian, it always pulled at his neck, a gentle strain as he bent down to meet him.
A quiet ache, a necessary surrender. And somehow, he had loved it, the way Adrian’s lips tilted up toward his, the way he had to reach for him, the way it felt like gravity had shifted, and Adrian had become its center.
Zack was taller.
There was no need to bend, no need to reach. Their mouths met too easily, without effort, without struggle, without the ache that had once made kissing feel like a giving of oneself.
No matter how fiercely Zack held him, no matter how deep he drowned in this moment, it was still an empty ocean, a shipwreck of a kiss.
And yet, Logan let himself sink.
Because emptiness was better than nothing.
Because if he closed his eyes, if he let his edged mind and the darkness blur the edges of reality, he could pretend. Pretend it was Adrian’s mouth against his, Adrian’s warmth sinking into his skin, Adrian’s breath tangled in his own.
Pretend he hadn’t ruined everything.
For a fleeting second, he let himself believe… but the lie shattered the moment it touched him, sharp and cold against his skin.
It wasn’t Adrian.
It would never be Adrian.
Logan moaned into the kiss, a guttural sound, as his hands roamed over Zack’s body, anchoring himself in the heat of him.
Their bodies moved together, a frantic rhythm of friction and longing.
Logan felt Zack’s hands slide down his back, gripping him tightly as their hips aligned.
The hard press of Zack’s cock against his own sent a bolt of pleasure through him, and he gasped, his hands fumbling with the buttons of Zack’s shirt.
Logan felt himself unraveling, the fragile thread he’d been clinging to fraying with each passing moment.
It wasn’t sudden, it never was. It was a slow, merciless descent, like the tide receding inch by inch, leaving him exposed and empty on the cold, barren shore.
His thoughts drifted, slippery as seawater, too scattered to hold, too heavy to release.
He had come here tonight not to find anything, but to lose himself; to drown in the chaos, to sink beneath the weight of it all, to numb the aching hollow where Adrian used to be.
His lips moved, but the sensation felt borrowed, like it belonged to someone else. Heat pressed against him, skin on skin, Zack’s breath ragged in his ear, the crush of mouths clashing, seeking, taking.
Logan floated above it.
Adrian’s face burned behind his eyelids—sharp at first, so vivid it ached, then blurring at the edges, dissolving into smoke no matter how hard he clung to it. He tried to chase it, tried to hold him in place, but each frantic kiss, each hollow motion, stripped another layer away.
Zack’s hand gripped his hip. Logan didn’t feel it.
Somewhere inside him, a voice screamed Adrian’s name, begged him to turn around, to come back, to hear him. He wanted to tell him everything, to confess, to explain, to say the words he had swallowed for years: I love you, I love you, I love you.