Chapter 22
Logan
Later that night, the house eased itself into the kind of calm that only follows a long day: TV muted, rain tapping against the windows, the faint hum of the dishwasher still running in the kitchen.
Harper was asleep in her room, safe and tucked under the covers. Dani, on the other hand, lingered at the edge of restlessness, somewhere between exhaustion and pain. I could feel it, her restlessness pulling at me even before I stepped into the hall.
I felt it as soon as I stepped into the hallway after tossing my clothes in the wash. That soft, uneven breathing, a sound she likely didn’t even realize she was making.
She’d brushed it off earlier, called it “a little pain,” but the color in her face told me otherwise.
When I came back into the living room, she was curled on the couch exactly where I’d left her, one hand pressed to her stomach, the heating pad glowing faintly beneath the blanket.
She looked small there. Too small. And something in my chest tightened the way it always did when I saw someone hurting and couldn’t immediately fix it.
Maybe it was just the way I was wired, loss and blame did things to a man that could never be undone.
I’ve never been good at standing by while someone suffered, not after standing by meant losing Elena.
That urge to take care of things, to push down fear with action, always flared sharpest when it was someone I cared about.
Control has a way of digging in when fear shows up.
“Hey,” I said quietly, stepping closer. “You okay?”
Her eyes fluttered open, glassy from exhaustion. “Hi. Yeah. Just worse than I thought.”
“You sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?”
She shook her head immediately. “It’s not that kind of pain. Just… the kind that makes you wish your insides had an off switch.”
I crouched in front of her. “You take anything?”
She blinked. Then swore softly under her breath.
“I tried Tylenol,” she whispered. “My other meds are at Cami’s. I left them in her bathroom this morning.” She pressed a hand to her stomach, wincing.
“Come on,” I said gently, holding out a hand.
She blinked. “Where?”
“A bath,” I said. “Hot water will help.”
She hesitated. I saw it in the way she measured whether it was okay to need someone, whether she was asking for too much just by accepting help. That look hits me harder than pain ever could.
“C’mon Darlin’,” I added softly. “Let me.”
After a long moment, she sighed and slipped her hand into mine.
Her hand was cool against mine as I guided her down the hallway to my bathroom, keeping my tone light. “You’re supposed to tell people when you’re hurting, you know.”
“Not really my style,” she said with a weak laugh.
“Yeah, I figured,” I murmured, flipping on the bathroom light.
I started the water, adjusting the tap until steam began to rise. I tested it a couple of times, careful to get the temperature just right, because I’ve never trusted it enough when it comes to people I care about.
The mirror fogged from the humidity as I tested the water, waiting for it to reach that perfect, soothing heat. Steam filled the room, curling around us, warming my face in a way that echoed the comfort I wanted to give Dani.
“Alright,” I said. “Bath’s ready. Towels are in the cabinet. Take your time, okay?”
She nodded, leaning on the counter for balance. “You don’t have to take care of me, you know?”
“I know,” I said gently, trying to be mindful of my tone. “But I want to.”
For a second, she just looked at me, and I could see it in her eyes, that mix of pride and gratitude and pain.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Anytime,” I said, meaning it more than I should.
She studied me like she wanted to argue again, and instead nodded and closed the door.
I waited long enough to hear the water shift, then the airy hiss in her breathing when the heat hit her skin, before I stepped back into the hallway and grabbed my keys.
The drive to Cami and Hunter’s was about fifteen minutes.
Halfway there, it hit me, and I found myself tightening my grip on the steering wheel.
She said she’d deal with it. She didn’t ask me to go, didn’t even hint at it. And here I am driving across town in the rain like—
Like what?
Like she’s mine to take care of.
Like her pain is my responsibility.
Like I can’t sit in that house knowing something can be fixed and choosing not to fix it.
This is stupid.
We aren’t together. We skirt around touches, talk like friends, pretend the history between us isn’t loaded with things unspoken. But somewhere between then and now, I found myself overly concerned with how she was feeling, taking ownership of it.
My jaw tightened.
It’s medication. Not a crisis, I tried to remind myself, but the image of her curled on my couch wouldn’t leave my head.
I don’t like people hurting. I especially don’t like it when they pretend they’re not. And I definitely don’t like the way it made my chest feel.
I reached their house, earning a shocked look when they opened the door.
Hunter answered the door in sweats.
“Hey, man. Dani left her meds here today; she needs them.”
“Is she okay?” he asked immediately.
“Yeah.”
Cami appeared behind him, already holding the small pouch.
“Here are her pills. Take good care of my girl, Logan.” While her tone was soft, it was clear how much weight she placed on the implication in that statement.
I nodded once, took them, and left before the conversation could start.
I didn’t want commentary, didn’t want knowing looks. I already knew this was more than practical, and that made the drive back feel longer.
Because somewhere between starting that bath and turning onto Hunter’s street, this stopped being about solving a problem and became something else entirely.
Something that made me uneasy. Something that felt too much like care.
Care that edges into attachment. And I will never forget what that costs.
Because grief doesn’t leave. It settles in, lingers in your bones, reshapes the way you move through everything after.
It teaches you how fragile life is and how quickly it can be taken.
By the time I stepped back inside, the house had gone still, the bathroom silent like nothing had happened at all.
I set the medication on the kitchen counter, grabbed a glass of water, and leaned back against the wall to catch my breath.
The adrenaline from the drive hadn’t burned off. It just shifted shape and settled under my ribs, sharp and restless.
I told myself to stay put. Give her space. She didn’t need me hovering outside the bathroom like some overprotective idiot.
But my feet moved anyway.
Not all the way to the door, but close enough. Close enough to hear the sloshing of water against the walls of the tub. To smell the faint, almost-sweet floral scent of her soap, mixing with steam and rain and something that felt dangerously domestic.
I dragged a hand down my face and forced myself back into the living room before I did something stupid like knock.
It was strange, standing there in my own house but seeing her in it. Dani’s cardigan was on the chair. Her book is on the end table. A half-empty mug of tea next to Harper’s pink cup.
This didn’t just look like someone filling in for me while I was gone.
It looked like life.
The kind of life I hadn’t realized I’d been missing.
I carried Harper’s drawings to the counter and smiled at one that was clearly meant to be Dani. Her hair was drawn in wild yellow swirls, her smile too big, her stick-figure hand holding Harper’s. Above it, in crooked letters, Harper had written: DANI IS MY HERO.
I had to sit down for a second.
Eventually, I heard the drain of the tub.
I grabbed a clean T-shirt from my dresser. An old white one I’d gotten from a game, with the Angels logo on it, soft from years of wear. I made my way back down the hall, trying not to disrupt the tranquility of the house.
The bathroom door cracked open, causing steam to spill into the hallway. Dani stood there wrapped in a towel, damp hair sticking to her cheeks, skin flushed from the heat. She looked better, but the pain was still evident.
I held up the shirt. “Figured you might want something comfortable.”
Her mouth quirked. “Borrowing your clothes now, huh?”
She took the shirt and disappeared back into the bathroom to change before I could respond, leaving me waiting in the hallway, leaning against the door frame, thinking about the fact that this woman was only occupying my thoughts, but now apparently my clothes.
A moment later, she stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in steam and my T-shirt, hair damp and clinging to her cheeks, skin flushed from the heat.
And I had to stop myself from swearing out loud.
The shirt hung off her in a way that shouldn’t have been allowed, soft cotton against bare thighs, the collar slipping just enough to expose the line of her shoulder.
She looked small in it, vulnerable in a way I didn’t like.
Yet despite that, my shirt on her felt impossibly right.
Like she belonged in my space, in my clothes, in my arms.
And all at once, desire punched through me, sharp as hunger, a surge I wanted to lean into and push away in the same breath. I fought the urge to let my gaze linger, to close the distance between us with a touch.
Which was the problem, for many different reasons.
And wanting her like this, wanting anything, felt wrong when she was still fighting pain.
“Better?” I asked.
“Much,” she said, managing a small smile.
I held up the bottle.
Her eyes dropped to it.
Then widened.
“You—”
“Take them.”
She blinked. “Logan.”
I stepped forward, pressed the bottle and water into her hands before she could keep processing.
“You went to Cami’s?”
I shrugged like it was nothing.“You were hurting.”
“I would’ve been fine.”
“I know.”
She sat on the edge of my bed holding the glass in both hands. “You really don’t have to babysit me, Logan.” She tried for her usual stoic tone, but I could see in her eyes the pain hadn’t let go.