Chapter 14 Logan #2
Because if Pops needs her to be okay, then someone needs to make sure she gets home with her skin still on.
And because I’m a selfish asshole who can’t stop thinking about her mouth.
The front door clicks.
Soft. Careful.
The smallest sound of shoes being set down like she’s trying not to wake the house—or the grief.
Then footsteps down the hall. Light. Tight. Like she’s carrying a storm in her ribs and refusing to let it spill.
Sloane appears in the kitchen doorway and stops dead when she sees me.
For one heartbeat, her face isn’t armor. It’s startled. Raw.
Then it shutters.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, like I’m the problem that followed her home.
I keep my voice even because if I don’t, I’ll say something that can’t be taken back. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Liar,” she says immediately.
I give her a small, humorless shrug. “Okay.”
She blinks, thrown off by the lack of a fight. Then she steps into the kitchen anyway, moving like she has somewhere else to be—like if she keeps moving, she won’t feel.
She opens the fridge, stares into it like there’s an answer on the top shelf, then closes it without taking anything. Her hands don’t know what to do, so they fold into her sleeves.
Her gaze slices back to me. “Were you waiting for me?”
I hate how quickly my chest tightens at the question.
I hate that it feels like a confession just to be standing here.
“I was making sure you got home,” I say.
Sloane’s laugh is sharp and ugly. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t use my dad as your excuse,” she bites, stepping closer. “Don’t act like this is about Pops.”
Heat flares in my chest. “It is.”
“It’s not,” she snaps, eyes bright like lit matches. “Because if it’s about Pops, you don’t have to admit you’re being weird.”
“I’m not being weird.”
Sloane tilts her head, cruel and pretty. “Right. Because you always stand in a backyard staring at me like you’re about to bite someone.”
My jaw tightens. “I wasn’t going to—”
“You were,” she cuts in. “I saw you. You looked like you were one second away from dragging Ethan into the street.”
My mouth opens before my brain can stop it. “Did he kiss you?”
The question hits the air like a slap.
Sloane freezes.
Her eyes sharpen. “Excuse you?”
I push through the shame because it’s too late now. “Did he kiss you?”
“How is that any of your business?” she hisses.
“It’s not,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I want. “Just—answer it.”
“No.” Sloane’s chin lifts. “He didn’t kiss me, not that it’s any of your fucking business.”
Relief punches through me so hard it makes me dizzy—and right behind it, disgust. At myself. At the way my jealousy came out wearing teeth.
Sloane takes one step toward the hall like she’s done with me. “Goodnight, Logan.”
She turns away.
And panic—pure, sharp panic—snaps through my spine.
Because if she walks away right now, she’ll lock this up. She’ll swallow it. She’ll carry it. She’ll pretend she didn’t hear my voice crack on that question.
And I’ll keep being the worst thing that happened to her at nineteen.
“Sloane.” My voice is low.
She doesn’t stop.
I move.
Fast enough that my knee protests, fast enough that my palm hits the counter with a hard crack that slices through the quiet.
Sloane whips around, startled, then furious, just as I plant myself in her path.
Not touching her, just blocking, because I don’t know how to do this without being a wall.
“What are you doing?” she whispers.
My pulse is a drumbeat behind my eyes.
I set my hand on the counter beside her, then the other on the opposite side—boxing her in without laying a finger on her. A cage made of me, and I hate myself for it even as I feel her breath catch.
“Move,” she snaps, but the edge of her voice shakes.
“I will,” I say immediately, because she needs to know she can leave. “If you tell me to. If you want out, I’ll back up right now.”
Her eyes burn into mine.
She doesn’t say out.
She stays.
The choice, small, furious, hits me harder than any shove.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispers.
Because I can’t watch you disappear again.
Because I’ve been jealous for years, and I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t own me.
Because time is running out in this house, and I’m sick of being a coward.
I swallow hard. “I owe you an apology.”
Sloane’s mouth tightens. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I grind out.
“Don’t do the ‘I’m a good guy now’ thing,” she says, voice shaking with anger. “You don’t get to show up two years later and—”
“I know,” I cut in. “I know I’m late. I know it doesn’t fix anything. But I need you to hear it anyway.”
“Fine then.” Her chin lifts, defiant. “Say it.”
The challenge in her voice drags me backward in time—beer, music, her mouth on some idiot, my jealousy turning me mean.
My throat burns.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Sloane stills like she didn’t expect the direct hit.
I push anyway. “I’m sorry for what I said to you. After that party.”
Her eyes narrow. “The attention comment.”
I nod once, jaw tight. “Yeah.”
“You meant it,” she whispers.
“I did,” I admit, and honesty tastes like blood. “And I didn’t.”
Her brows knit. “What does that even mean?”
It means I wanted to hurt you because I couldn’t admit I wanted you.
I take a shaky breath.
“I said it to hurt you,” I confess.
Sloane flinches like the words land physically.
Guilt claws up my chest. “But I didn’t say it because you deserved it,” I add fast. “I didn’t say it because I actually thought you were trying too hard for attention.”
“Then why?” she demands, voice hoarse.
I force it out. “Because I was jealous.”
The room goes razor-thin.
Sloane’s lips part. “Jealous?”
“Of him,” I say. “Of anyone who could touch you. Of anyone who could make you laugh and not have to earn it.” My breath shakes. “Jealous that you were trying to get my attention, and I—” I swallow hard. “I wanted it.”
Sloane’s eyes flash, wet and furious. “So you punished me.”
“Yes,” I say immediately. “I did.”
Her voice drops to something small and devastating. “You made me feel disgusting.”
The words punch straight through me.
“Because you wanted me,” she adds, quieter, like she hates that it’s true.
My throat tightens so hard it hurts. “I know.”
“You don’t get to say that like it’s romantic,” she whispers.
“It’s not,” I say, voice breaking. “It’s ugly. It’s the worst part of me. But it’s the truth.”
Silence hangs between us, heavy as a storm cloud.
Sloane’s breathing is uneven. Mine is worse.
Her gaze flicks to my hands braced on the counter, then back to my face.
“Why do you care?” she whispers.
I stare at her, and the answer sits right there—burning and obvious.
Because I want to kiss you.
Because I’ve wanted to kiss you since I was seventeen.
Because I’m jealous in a way that makes me dangerous, and I hate it.
My eyes drop, just for a second, to her mouth. Then back up.
Her gaze flicks to mine. Then down to my mouth.
Damn it.
My pulse stutters.
I don’t move. I don’t get to.
So I give her the one thing I can that isn’t selfish.
An out.
“Tell me to stop,” I say, voice low. “And I will.”
Sloane’s throat works, but she doesn’t tell me to stop.
The air between us feels electric, tight, alive.
Slowly, deliberately, I shift closer, not rushing, not stealing. My hands stay on the counter, not on her. Not touching. Not taking.
Her breath catches.
Her eyes flick to my mouth again.
And when I lean in that last inch—
She meets me halfway, and goddamn.
The kiss isn’t soft.
It isn’t gentle.
It’s years of anger and denial and heat colliding in one breathless, reckless moment.
Her hands fist in my hoodie like she’s furious at herself for wanting this, and I kiss her like I’ve been starving, like I’ve been holding my breath for two damn years.
Because I have been.
Since the first time I saw her walk into the room my junior year of high school and realized Cameron’s annoying little sister had grown into someone who made my chest tight and my brain short-circuit.
Since I learned what it felt like to want someone I had absolutely no right to want.
Mine in every way that mattered except the one way I actually wanted.
And now, she’s kissing me back like she’s been waiting just as long, like she’s just as furious about it, and every single rule I’ve made myself follow for years disintegrates.
For half a second, the world narrows to her mouth and the taste of her and the sound she makes when I deepen the kiss—something between a gasp and a surrender that goes straight through me.
This is dangerous.
This is stupid.
This is Cameron’s sister, and I should stop, and I should pull back, and I should—
She bites my bottom lip, and every coherent thought evaporates.
Fuck pretending I don’t want this, want her, more than I want my next breath.
Then she pulls back just enough to breathe, eyes wide, lips parted, looking at me like I’m a problem she doesn’t know how to solve.
My forehead hovers near hers.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Sloane laughs—shaky, broken. “You’re the worst.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “I know.”
Her eyes flash, panicked now. “This doesn’t fix anything.”
“I know,” I say again, because it’s the only truth I can hold onto without breaking her.
Sloane swallows hard, then whispers, voice full of raw emotion. “Move.”
Not angry, just overwhelmed.
I step back immediately. Hands off the counter. Cage open. Space given.
She slips past me fast, like if she stays one more second she’ll do it again.
Her door clicks shut down the hall.
And I’m still standing there in Pops’s kitchen with my heart in my throat and the truth finally out in the open where it can’t hide.
From down the hall, Pops coughs once in his sleep.
A small sound but a brutal reminder.
I close my eyes, swallowing hard.
Because time is running out in this house.
And I just crossed a line I can’t uncross.