10 #2
“Oh, it’s warm in here?” I repeat, rolling my eyes at myself and sidling a little closer to him, until my knee is pressed against his. I’m about to bump the thermostat up a couple degrees.
This is neither the time nor place to climb into Logan’s lap, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I drape my legs over his and put my arms around his neck, delighting in the rigidity of his frame nestled against mine.
Even as I say the words, my fingers card through his hair, and I see the pink spread from his ears to his cheeks. I grin, feeling as though that same warmth travels down into my stomach.
His head tilts back into my palm, he watches me with utter abandon. I can see in his eyes the way he anticipates my kiss as I lean in closer to murmur, “Is the notion of cream pies too much for my good little Catholic boy?”
Logan’s eyes flutter closed, his lips parting to receive mine, when I giggle, inches from his mouth, and turn away.
My laugh turns into a squeak when his fingertips catch my face, redirecting my attention back to him, snatching and devouring what I’d teased him with.
Logan pulls me bodily, possessively, against him, and I melt into it. His fingers splay wide and flat against my stomach. I can’t help but let out a moan against his mouth, happy to let him handle me.
His kiss is greedy, covetous, starved—each time I pull the slightest bit back for a sip of breath, his teeth catch my lower lip and drag me in again.
When I finally pull free, my lips feel swollen, red, and puffy from that exchange. I slump back against the creaky wooden seat, my breathing ragged. “No, you’re right, it is hot in here. Whew.”
Everything in the world disappears for that brief moment where Logan’s eyes hold mine. This is everything I need, right now, crammed into a booth seat at the local dive bar. It’s simple and uncomplicated.
Somehow over the sounds of the crowd, I hear someone that sounds an awful lot like Laura shout, “HOLY SHIT.”
Logan frowns at exactly the same moment I do. My attention swivels back and forth between glancing at his reaction to spotting my friend Laura at the bar, Sophie looking unimpressed from behind her.
A pit sinking in my stomach, I give Laura a sheepish smile and wave as she cuts through the crowd to us. Of course, it’s the one time I blow off our plans to hang out that she decided to leave her apartment.
Her frown matches mine when she reaches the table. I’m surprised that she turns to Logan first. “I hate that you boys keep doing this to me. It feels personal and targeted.”
I blink, fully expecting the fallout to be on me. “What? What’s wrong?”
“That’s my cousin.” Laura sighs, pointing accusatorily at Logan, who holds utterly still beside me. “You are so fucking lucky that we didn’t invite Aunt Dea tonight.”
I don’t recognize the broad-shouldered guy that she turns to as he approaches, saying over her shoulder, “Aiden, I only have so many friends. You’re not allowed to do this to me too. Some of them have to stay just for me.”
There isn’t time to deny that Logan and I are doing anything to her, that we’re anything at all to each other, that we’re even here in the same room together.
Laura is already scooting into the booth seat opposite us, alongside the other guy, Aiden, who sets down four more ales on the table before sitting next to Laura.
A second later there’s Logan’s brother Shawn sliding into the booth, his arm around a plump woman I sort of remember.
I think she was the caterer from the wedding?
“Hey, I know that guy,” Shawn says with the most shit-eating grin, nudging Aiden and Laura to scoot over for him to take the last seat on that side.
“Funny, I have no idea who you are,” Logan replies through gritted teeth.
“You should see your face.”
“Don’t even start with me, man.”
The effect of his stern glare is somewhat lost when Elise reaches over me to poke Logan’s stony cheek. She pretends to grimace at him, but it melts into a smile almost instantly. “Ugh, it’s you again!”
“I was here first. If anything, it’s you again,” he mutters, scooting back into the booth, until he’s shoulder to the wall.
Elise eases into the last booth seat beside me, offering a friendly smile. “Hey, girl, how have you been? I haven’t seen you since the wedding. I totally meant to text you.”
Shawn’s brow furrows as he regards me. “You were at our wedding?”
“The second one,” Elise says confidently, like that clarifies anything.
“Aww, you renewed your vows? That’s cute,” I say to her, then try to jog Shawn’s memory, plucking at the faded logo on my T-shirt. “Palmer’s Gardens, I did the flowers.”
“No, but—” he starts to say, then winces as Logan kicks him under the table.
Aiden waves a hand, gesturing to me, “Sorry, I missed the introductions.”
The breath stalls in my chest, Logan’s stare meets mine.
We’re not ready for this. We’re not a thing, there’s no “this” for us to go through because there is no “us.”
I should have listened to Sophie and asked what happened at the wedding, what that whole deal was. There’s a really good chance this guy’s family is all staring at me, knowing I’m his rebound.
Logan swallows, his dark eyes flicking back and forth between everyone at the table, a muscle working hard in his jaw. After too many heartbeats he offers ineffectively, “This is Ava. My friend.”
“Friend?” Laura repeats, unable to hide her skepticism.
“Yeah, I have . . . friends.”
“Yeah, I didn’t know you did friends,” Aiden says, and Laura immediately elbows him in the side. Aiden winces and quickly corrects, “Like, had them.”
“In any capacity,” Shawn adds unnecessarily, looking like he’s enjoying this too much.
None of them are as subtle as they think they are.
“You know, I’m not actually surprised,” I interrupt, looking at Logan. I bite back a smile. “You’re sooo cuddly.”
“I have friends,” Logan insists, looking betrayed that I’ve turned on him, too, but it twists into one of those smiles he’s fighting against.
“I haven’t seen evidence of that yet.”
In the little space in the booth between us, my fingers thread through his, and he squeezes my hand. Oh, this poor guy. He’s awkward and grumpy and so easy to bully.
“So, when did you two meet?” Elise asks, looking between us with a friendly face.
I’m pretty sure she was in the room when it happened, but still I tell her, “Oh, like a couple weeks ago—”
“Seventeen days,” Logan answers at the same time, not that it sounds any better. I give him a little frown, wondering how he knew that off the cuff.
“Yeah? Where?”
“The wedding,” I answer truthfully, a second before Logan’s hand tightens over mine.
“But you left early,” Laura says almost accusatorily, her eyes darting between me and her cousin.
“Soooooo . . . ” Elise draws out, like she’s trying her best not to come up with a question that isn’t the conclusion hovering in the air, that Logan and I left the wedding together.
“I had another delivery to make,” I start to say, watching Shawn make eyebrows at Aiden.
I have the distinct feeling of what it must be like to be lowered into a shark tank. I might take the sharks over this, actually.
I don’t hear what Aiden says as he leans over Shawn’s shoulder and mutters something, but Logan quickly asks, “What did you say about me?”
“Nothing,” Aiden replies too quickly. “None of your business.”
Logan rolls his jaw before he puts forth, rapping the table with a knuckle, “If it’s being said about me, that’s the definition of my business.”
Aiden scoffs, wrinkling his nose as he protests, “You don’t know what I said. You wouldn’t know it was about you.”
“Yeah I do. I heard you say my name.”
“If you heard what I said you wouldn’t have had to ask what I said,” Aiden returns.
I knew Logan had brothers, but I don’t think I realized what having brothers was like. And as much as he looks like he isn’t enjoying this, I kinda am. I’m learning a lot about him—there’s so much of his demeanor that makes a lot of sense, watching him with his brothers.
Their bickering derails the line of questioning aimed at the pair of us, at least until the TV screen with the night’s trivia questions turns on, and the whole bar starts cheering and pounding on their tables, followed by a round of shushing, the room’s volume falling to a low rumble.
The bar owner stands on a chair with an aged microphone and gathers—at best—half the room’s attention, saying, “With all the misinformation we’ve been seeing in the town Facebook group about wolf sightings, a local member of the Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Office has submitted these questions to tonight’s trivia . . .”
The volume goes in and out as he speaks, and he slaps the microphone against his palm a couple of times.
For the trivia setup, Sophie clicks through the laptop slides from behind the bar, and her boss reads off a creased sheet of printer paper, “What 1970 theory did David Mech . . . .”
The old microphone he speaks into gives out halfway through the question, and I fail to hear the rest of it, but I might be the only one who doesn’t, the way that half the people at the table roll their eyes and scoff.
“They retired that theory! ‘Alpha’ wolves and that kind of pack dynamics only show up in captivity,” Aiden protests, like he’s personally aggrieved by this misconception.
“Write it on your score card,” I tell him, finding one under the stack of napkins and coasters and passing it to him.
Aiden and Laura are both quick to answer the next wolf-related question, so I take the opportunity to turn to Elise and say, “Hey, I gotta, do you mind . . . ?”
She nods quickly and scoots out of the booth seat to let me get up, and I tug on Logan’s rolled-up sleeve. Thankfully he gets the memo to follow me while we can still make our escape.
“Not one of them knows the meaning of subtlety,” Logan mutters to himself as we step outside, the crisp evening air greeting us.