Chapter Twenty-Three – Wren
I don’t know what I’m doing. Someone like Logan is probably used to telling girls whatever he has to in order to get what he wants from them…
but that song, what I heard of it, and his declaration after he made his way to me—and the kiss that followed—none of it screamed fake to me. It all felt so real.
He loves me. That’s what he said. As crazy as it is, I wanted to say it back, but it’s too soon for me. I want to make sure this is real before I say it to him, to Reese, to anybody ever again.
Hand in hand, Logan and I leave the bar. He brings me to his car, and he opens and shuts the door for me like he’s a gentleman. Totally insane if you ask me, but I think we’re both riding cloud nine.
It doesn’t feel real. It really, truly doesn’t.
He puts the guitar in the back seat, and then gets in. After tossing me a glance, he pulls out his keys and starts the vehicle, and only when we’re on the road does his right hand reach over the center console and find mine again.
His hand is large and a little rough, just as I remembered it, and so freaking warm.
Here I was worried I’d be cold in this hoodie tonight, but Logan’s a furnace ready to heat me up.
Inside my chest, my heart works overdrive.
If I claim I’m not nervous about this, it’d be a lie, but at the same time, I also feel so stupid for taking so long to come face-to-face with the fact that I do still have feelings for him.
They never went away, not even after the accident. Somehow, someway, Logan had wormed himself into my heart.
During the drive to his place, Logan breaks the silence of the car to say, “I’m really glad you came tonight.” He tosses me a fast glance. “I’ve been going crazy without you, you have no idea.”
The breath that escapes me right then is long and slow. “I think I have some idea.”
“You mean you haven’t been too busy with Reese?”
That gets me to whip my head in his direction. “What? How—”
“Let’s just say Reese and I had a little chat.” Based on the tone of his voice, it doesn’t sound like that chat was all too good, which makes my stomach uneasy. But what he says next makes me feel better, although way more confused: “We came to an agreement.”
I don’t know how far things will get tonight, but if things get heated like in the bar, I suppose it was only a matter of time until I had to bring up Reese. What surprises me the most here is that Logan is the one doing it, not me. “What kind of agreement?”
“An agreement that neither of us are going to stop chasing after you.” His hand tightens around mine. “Until you tell one of us you don’t want us, we won’t interfere with the other. On a side note, he’s kind of fucking psycho, you know that?”
“He… has his quirks.” I don’t know how much Logan knows about Reese, but it definitely sounds like he knows more than I thought. That’s not a bad thing. Still… “What happens if I never pick?”
Now it’s his turn to heave a sigh. “Then I suppose we’ll take it one goddamn day at a time.
Believe it or not, I used to do a lot of things back in my heyday.
Sharing a girl isn’t new to me. Long-term sharing might be, but I’m not going to step aside and let you slip through my fingers again, Wren. ”
This might not be new to him, but it’s new to me. I never, not in a million years, would have guessed I’d be smack-dab in the middle of two men I didn’t want to choose between. Does that make us a throuple?
“Besides, my brother’s sharing his girl with two guys long-term. If they can do it, so can we.” I’m pretty sure I hear him call them losers under his breath, and the way his lips curl into a smirk only bolsters the way he sounds good-natured about it.
It’s good to see him in good spirits when it comes to his ex-bandmates. It’s a new look on him, one I can get used to.
“You sound so different,” I whisper.
“I feel different. Guess I needed a wakeup call.” His thumb runs over my knuckles. “Hate to admit it, but Reese helped with that, too. He really is a psycho, though. You sure you like him that much?”
The smile that forms on my mouth is one I cannot fight. “Yeah, I do. I like him a lot, psycho or not.”
“Not surprising, given how psycho your roomie is.” Logan glances at me again. “She really did say she’d kill me, you know. Totally fucking serious about it, too. You’re a goddamned magnet for freaks.”
“If I’m a magnet for freaks, what does that make you?”
“Touché.”
We reach his house, and together, we head inside.
He brings the same guitar he used at the bar, leading the way to his music room.
When he flicks on the light, I have to squint for a while until my eyes get used to the sudden brightness, and he instructs me to sit on the bean bag chair in the corner of the room.
I sit and watch him pull over a small stool, which he places a few feet away from where I sit. He sets down the case and says, “As much as I want to play it for you like how I played it at the bar, I think, since we’re in private, it’s only fitting I do this the right way.”
I’m about to ask him what he means, but then I watch him plug something in—a different guitar. Must be an electric, and one of his amps? I admit, I don’t know much when it comes to instruments of any kind; I was always the singer. Mike strummed along with me. He knew things about that stuff.
He kneels before the amp and fiddles with a few things, and I wait patiently until he must have everything exactly how he wants it, because then he brings the guitar over to the stool and sits across from me.
He didn’t take off his jacket when we came inside, so with that electric guitar in his hands, he really does look like an ex-rockstar. With his black hair a bit of a mess, his light green eyes full of life; he looks ready to rock.
And sexy. Let’s not forget that. Rockstars have never really been my thing, but Logan does something to me. He always has.
Logan meets my gaze, and without a warning, he starts playing.
It sounds worlds different than it did at the bar, all due to the electric guitar in his hands.
After an intro riff, he begins to sing, and it becomes impossible not to lose myself to the lyrics, to the haunting melody he strums with his fingers.
It’s… perfect, is what it is. Just perfect.
“Once upon a time, I was a villain—” He begins the song, the first verse that I missed because I didn’t get there quickly enough, and as I listen to him, my heart tightens in a way it never has before. “—I cared about nothing but the thrill and—”
He plays the entire song, and it’s as if I’m hearing the song anew, for the first time.
Being alone with him, hearing him sing with his rough, low, scratchy voice; it’s enough to make me want him more than ever.
Listening to the lyrics, really listening to them and not just being in awe over everything he is, makes me realize something.
The song really is about me. He wasn’t just trying to impress me when he made the comment in the bar. It’s me and how I make him feel, what I do to him, everything no other girl has done in his past. I make him feel alive.
The song seemingly lasts for an eternity, but at the same time, it’s over far too soon, and as he sets down the guitar and looks at me, I can’t help but say, “That was amazing, Logan.” And I mean it.
I don’t throw out compliments like that if I don’t mean them, and never before have I meant a compliment more.
He runs a hand through his hair. “You’re not just saying that because it’s about you?
” Even as he asks, he can’t help but smirk.
He knows I’m not that kind of person. “Seriously, though, I… I think it’d be nice to sing with you again, even if we just sing here.
Is that something you’d want to do with me? ”
It’s funny. For a confident guy, when he asks that particular question, he sounds hesitant, unsure, like he believes I’m going to turn him down.
I haven’t sung a word since that night at the karaoke bar. I haven’t even thought about it lately, life has been so busy and hectic, but now that he’s got me thinking about it again… yeah, it would be nice to sing again. It’s the one thing I enjoyed above all else back in the day.
“I’d love to sing with you,” I tell him, and he responds by placing the guitar on the carpet and pushing himself off the stool.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s pulling me up into his arms and planting a heated kiss right on my lips.
I can’t help but giggle. “I said I’d sing with you, not kiss you. ”
“Hmm.” He hums against me, his arms steel vices wrapped around me. He hoists me up so that my feet don’t touch the ground. “Unfortunately for you, if you do one you have to do the other. I don’t make the rules. That’s just how it goes.”
“Ah,” I say, slowly wrapping my arms around his neck. “So you kissed your old bandmates a lot, then? Even your brother?”
Logan chuckles softly. “They aren’t as pretty as you.”
I smile. “So, now that I’ve heard the song in full, are you going to take me home?”
His arms wrap a bit tighter around me. “Do you want me to take you home? Or do you want me to take you across the hall, tear off your clothes, and reacquaint myself with every beautiful inch of that body?”
As he says it, I can’t help but shiver. Letting him take me across the hall and, you know, do those things to me, might be moving too fast. We moved too fast last semester, and look at where we ended up: a disaster zone.
But I think we’re both different people now, and this isn’t my first rodeo.
“Take me across the hall,” I whisper, and it’s all I need to say. The look Logan gives me as he twirls us around and starts walking us out of the room is one of pure hunger. He hits the light switch on our way out, and as he carries me, we move through the dark hallway.
Soon enough we’re in his bedroom, and it’s like déjà vu. I’ve been here before, a long time ago. I blocked out those memories as best as I could, but when he sets me down on his bed it comes flooding back.