Chapter 49
LOGAN
The porch light is still on when I pull into the driveway, throwing a soft, tired glow across the Rhodes’ house like it’s been waiting up.
It makes my chest tighten in a way I don’t have time to deal with.
Because the last place I want to be is in my own head tonight—stuck in that diner booth, stuck in Carter’s voice, stuck in the words two weeks like they’re tattooed to the inside of my skull.
Two weeks to decide what kind of man I am.
Two weeks to decide what I’m willing to lose.
I kill the engine and sit there for a second, hands still on the wheel, listening to the quiet. Not the peaceful kind. The kind that feels too big for a house this small. The kind that means the person who used to fill it is gone.
I should go inside.
I should walk in like everything’s normal. Like I didn’t just agree to meet an offensive coordinator who looked me in the eyes and spoke about my future like it’s still mine to take.
Like I didn’t want it.
I swallow hard, then force my body to move.
The front door is unlocked, like it always is here. Like this place still believes in safety and open arms, even when the world has proven it can rip everything out from under you.
I step inside, and the smell hits me immediately—lavender detergent and chamomile tea and the faintest trace of whatever dinner was, something warm and simple. The lights are low. The TV is on but muted, blue flickering against the walls like a heartbeat.
Jade and Blakely are on the couch.
Not sprawled out like they own the place the way they usually would be if Sloane were okay. Not laughing, not loud, not catcalling an invisible ref from the comfort of the Rhodes’ living room.
They’re sitting up straight, knees turned toward each other, bodies angled like they’re bracing for impact.
Sloane is in the middle.
She’s under a blanket, curled into herself, eyes on the screen like she’s watching a movie, but I can tell she isn’t seeing any of it. The remote rests in her lap like she forgot it was there.
Her hair is up in a messy knot. One of her socks is missing. Her face looks…steady.
But steady isn’t the same thing as okay.
All three of them look up when I close the door, and for a second, the room feels like a scene I walked into mid-sentence.
Blakely’s gaze flicks over my face like she’s checking for cracks. Jade’s eyes soften. Sloane’s expression doesn’t change much at all—just a tiny shift in her focus, like her brain has to climb back into her body before it can register that I’m real.
I keep my voice low. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Jade says back, equally quiet. Like we’re in a hospital. Like the walls might shatter if we speak too loudly.
Blakely stands first, grabbing her tote bag off the floor. “We were just leaving.”
Jade shoots her a look, but Blakely doesn’t care. She never has.
She steps closer to me and lowers her voice. “She ate half a grilled cheese.”
My chest tightens again, this time from something like relief.
“Good,” I murmur. “Thank you.”
Blakely’s eyes narrow. “Don’t let her tell you she’s fine.”
I almost laugh, but it doesn’t come out right. “Yeah. I’ve noticed she’s got that in common with someone.”
Sloane doesn’t even look at me when she says, flatly, “I can hear you.”
Blakely’s mouth twitches. “Good.”
Jade moves in behind her, squeezing Sloane’s shoulder softly before she passes. “Text us if you need us, okay?”
Sloane nods once, small and contained.
Then Jade leans closer and whispers something I don’t catch, but I see it in Sloane’s eyes—the faintest softening, like a thread loosening around her ribs.
Blakely brushes by me on her way out, shoulder bumping mine, and for anyone else it would look like an accident.
For Blakely, it’s affection.
“Don’t be stupid,” she says, like a warning and a blessing in the same breath.
Then the door closes behind them, and the house exhales.
It’s just me and Sloane now.
The quiet presses in immediately.
Sloane doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. She just keeps staring at the screen, the movie still rolling with the volume low, actors moving their mouths without sound.
I stand there for a second too long, not sure what version of me she needs tonight.
The man who can make her laugh.
The man who can hold her when she breaks.
The man who can pretend he isn’t carrying a phone call in his pocket that could shatter everything.
I clear my throat softly. “You okay?”
She lets out a breath through her nose—almost a laugh, almost not. “That’s the dumbest question in the world.”
I nod. “Fair.”
I move closer, careful. Like she is a wild animal. Like she’s glass. Like she’s both.
I sit on the edge of the couch, leaving space.
For a second, she doesn’t look at me. Then her eyes shift sideways, landing on my face like she’s checking to see if I’m actually here.
“You were gone a while,” she says.
“Just a couple hours.” I keep my voice casual. “But Carter talks like he gets paid by the word.”
That earns me the tiniest twitch at the corner of her mouth.
It’s not a smile.
But it’s the first sign of life I’ve seen in her tonight, and it hits me like a punch to the sternum.
I swallow. “How was…today?”
She stares forward again. “I cried in the shower…before you left.”
My throat tightens.
Not because I didn’t hear her earlier, but because she says it so plainly, like she’s listing a task she completed. Like grief is something she can schedule between brushing her teeth and putting her hair up.
Then she adds, quieter, “And then I stopped.”
I nod slowly, like that makes sense. Like I understand how she can just turn it off.
I don’t. But I’m learning not to argue with the things she has to do to survive.
“Did you eat?” I ask.
Sloane huffs, adjusting the blanket in her lap. “Half a grilled cheese.”
“Proud of you.”
“Don’t,” she says immediately, sharper.
I hold up both hands. “Okay. No being proud allowed.”
Her gaze slides to me again, less sharp now, more tired. “I don’t need you to—” She trails off, jaw working like she’s swallowing something hard. “I don’t need you to act like I’m a toddler.”
“I’m not,” I say softly. “I’m acting like you’re someone I care about.”
The words hang there.
They’re not a confession. Not a declaration.
Just truth.
Sloane looks away first.
“Are you staying tonight?” she asks, voice low.
I’ve moved most of my stuff back to the football house, just because I keep feeling like I’m in the way sometimes, but she hasn’t wanted to sleep by herself a single night yet. “If you want me to.”
She nods once, barely there. “Yeah.”
I shift closer without thinking too hard about it, letting my thigh brush hers under the blanket.
Sloane doesn’t flinch.
Instead, she lets her head tip back against the couch cushion, eyes closing like she’s trying to remember how to rest.
I watch her for a second too long.
Her lashes are still damp. The faint dark circles around her eyes don’t belong to a girl who’s supposed to be finishing out her junior year of college.
It belongs to a girl who held her father’s hand while he disappeared.
A girl who screamed until she couldn’t anymore.
A girl who’s been hollowed out and is somehow still standing.
My hands curl into fists on my knees.
I want to fix it.
I can’t.
So I do the only thing I know how to do.
I get up.
Sloane’s eyes flick open, instantly alert. “Where are you going?”
“Kitchen,” I say. “Tea?”
She hesitates, like she wants to say no on principle, then quietly, “Okay.”
I keep my movements steady, calm. Like the house isn’t still haunted by an absence. Like I’m not terrified of the wrong sound breaking her open.
The kettle goes on. I grab the chamomile she keeps in the cabinet because she pretends it’s for “stress,” but it’s really because Pops used to drink it at night and call it his old-man tea.
My chest tightens again at the thought, but I shove it down.
Not tonight.
I pull a mug down—one of the mismatched ones Cameron always makes fun of. I set the tea bag in, pour the water, watch it bloom into gold.
Behind me, the floor creaks softly.
Sloane appears in the kitchen doorway, blanket still wrapped around her shoulders like armor. She looks smaller like this, barefoot, hair messy, face pale under the overhead light.
She leans against the frame and watches me like she’s not sure what to do with a person who stays.
“Come sit,” I say gently, nodding to the stool at the island.
She doesn’t move right away.
Then she drifts in, slow, and climbs onto the stool with a careful heaviness, like her bones are tired.
I slide the mug toward her and add honey without asking. Because I know she likes it. Because the small things are the only ones I can control.
Sloane cups the mug with both hands, letting the warmth soak into her fingers.
For a moment, she just stares into it.
Then she says, barely above a whisper, “Do you ever think about how weird it is that the world keeps going?”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
“Like…the sun still came up,” she says, and her voice cracks on the last word. “The day after. And people still—” She shakes her head, eyes wet now. “People still posted pictures of their breakfast.”
My throat burns.
I lean my hip against the counter, close enough to matter, not so close I crowd her.
“People don’t know what to do with someone else’s grief,” I say quietly. “So they keep living around it.”
Sloane’s mouth trembles. She presses her lips together hard, like she’s trying not to fall apart right there.
I don’t say anything else.
I don’t fill the silence with comfort phrases that bounce off.
I just stand there and let her breathe.
After a long beat, she takes a sip of the tea.
Then another.
Progress, in the smallest way.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Once.
I freeze.
Sloane’s eyes flick up. “You can answer it.”
“It’s nothing,” I say too fast.
Her gaze sharpens, like she can smell a lie even through chamomile and honey.
“Logan.”
I force my hand out of my pocket slowly, pulling the phone into view.
The screen lights up.
I quickly send Carter to voicemail, not wanting to talk just yet.
My stomach turns, cold and heavy.
Sloane watches my face, watching the way my jaw locks, the way my thumb hovers without moving.
“What is it?” she asks, soft now, careful.
I look at her—at the blanket draped over her shoulders, at the mug in her hands, at the way she’s holding herself together with threads and stubbornness.
I think about Carter’s voice.
About the coach’s eyes.
About two weeks that are ticking by faster and faster with each minute that passes.
And then I think about Sloane on the bathroom floor, knees to her chest, crying quietly so no one can hear.
I can’t bring that call into this kitchen right now.
Not tonight.
So I do the cowardly thing.
I turn the phone face down on the counter.
Sloane stares at it.
Then at me.
Her voice is barely audible. “Are you…okay?”
I inhale slowly, forcing air into lungs that suddenly feel too tight.
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just tired.”
Her expression says she doesn’t buy it.
But she doesn’t push.
Instead, she reaches out—hesitant, almost shy—and hooks her pinky around mine where my hand rests on the counter.
A tiny touch.
A quiet request.
Stay.
My throat burns.
I lace my fingers through hers fully, holding on like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“I’m here,” I say, and this time it isn’t a lie.
Sloane closes her eyes like the words hit somewhere deep.
She squeezes my hand once.
And in the silence of the kitchen, with my phone still face down like a loaded gun, I realize something I don’t want to admit yet:
Two weeks isn’t enough time to choose between two lives.
But it’s more than enough time to lose the one that matters.