Chapter - 26
ELOISE
“I have something to tell you and I am super nervous about it because I have definitely waited too long to do so,” I spat the words out in a rush, sinking back into my seat as the airplane finally reached its altitude and flight attendants started serving snacks and drinks.
Logan just turned to look at me, his grip on my thigh tightening a little as he visibly tried not to look too concerned from my sudden build up to a confession he clearly wasn’t anticipating.
The rest of the team flew back to Orange County early this morning, but Logan and I slept in and took a later flight out. I didn’t want to rush getting up and packing for the airport, and neither did he. Thankfully, neither did Taylor or Courtney, who sat in the two seats in front of us.
“Are you ready to hear it?” I asked, sucking in a breath, and tucking my lips in between my teeth in clear nervous anticipation. His brows scrunched at my expression, and he shifted in his seat to face me as he kept one hand on my thigh, almost like it comforted him more than me.
I inhaled a deep, dramatic breath before holding it for a few moments. The way Logan leaned into me was almost comical, his eyes were wide and he was clearly struggling to keep calm about this. I just needed to get it out.
“The voice memos I sent all those months ago weren’t about you.”
Logan was frozen, except for one slow blink as he stared at me.
I sat there in silence, waiting for him to say something.
After a few very painful seconds, he finally lifted his hands, What do you mean?
“I mean the voice memos that I sent you in the middle of the night,” I inhaled another nervous breath, but I was also smiling because the whole thing was just so ridiculous to me now, “The ones where I was clearly tipsy and rambling about attractive men.”
Logan nodded, I asked you if you meant what you said, he even shifted his hip to pull his phone out to set on his thigh, like he was getting ready to show me the text messages as proof, and you said yes.
“Um, no,” I giggled, giving his leg an encouraging squeeze, “You asked me if I meant what I said in the voice messages, and I said that I didn’t mean to send those to you. But that I did want you. I never specifically said those messages were referring to you at all.”
Logan was staring at my face, seeing the smile there and noticing the intimate touches I was giving him on his arm and leg, a little bit of relief touching his features when he realized that I was still very much into him. If they weren’t about me…who were they about?
“I was reading some pretty explicit alien erotica that Josh and Beck had told me about during your game.” Logan’s eyes widened a little, and he huffed a laugh before he reached a hand up and rubbed the side of his neck that had the scars. He sat back in his seat a little bit as he thought about my words, the face of a man who was probably reevaluating every conversation we had about the whole ordeal. This was proven when he sat straight again and turned to me to sign his next question.
At the gym, when you said you read alien erotica…Logan let his sentence trail off as I laughed.
“I almost told you then, but the thought of you making fun of me for what I chose to read for fun didn’t seem worth it. I was still a little sensitive and bitter about your teasing then.” I shrugged, pulling his arm closer to me so that I could snuggle into his side some more, “But I’m not so easily offended now.”
Something flickered across Logan’s expression, before a small pinch formed in his eyebrows as he stared at me intently.
“What?” I asked, lifting my head up from his shoulder to look at him. That was the face of guilt. I hadn’t seen Logan looking guilty before, so this was both new and mildly concerning. Sure, I kept a secret for a while, but it wasn’t a harmful one. It was mostly nonsense at this point.
I… Logan paused, before lifting his phone from his lap and thumbing through it. I expected to find another message from him on his note app, but when he handed his phone to me, I was looking at something else.
It was his ereader library, which was unexpected.
Mostly because it was filled with romance novels.
I knew that they were romance novels, because I had personally read every single one.
“What am I looking at right now?” I asked him as I scrolled. He had dozens of e-books downloaded. And I could see that he had either read some of the books entirely, or he was at least eighty percent of the way through the others.
I pulled back from my grip on his arm so that Logan could sign to me, I took the book.
I stared at him before finally signing back, What book?
Courtney’s book, Logan explained, his eyes flicking to the seats in front of us where she sat, The one you bought at the bookstore with Beck. I have it.
I widened my eyes at him, “You stole her romance novel?”
I thought it was yours. Logan shrugged as if that explained everything.
“Wh-what?” I shook my head once, setting his phone down to sign clearly, When did you take the book?
A small secretive smile touched Logan’s lips, his handsome face making my heart flutter before he replied, Our first night together. You fell asleep, and I saw it on the floor. I took it.
My mouth was parted, still just flabbergasted as I stared down at his phone in my lap, all those romance novels on there, while processing the knowledge that he stole a paperback of a romance novel as well.
Because he thought it was mine.
“But…” I shook my head and signed the rest of my question, Why?
Logan gently cupped my chin with his hand and tilted my face up towards his. He brushed his lips over mine, once, twice, before pulling back and lifting his hands, I wanted to get to know you. What you like. He pressed his lips to mine again, his tongue gently tracing my bottom one before pulling back enough to continue signing, I was scared I would do something to make you hate me again, and I thought maybe reading your favorite books would help me…out.
I felt my lip trembling from the vulnerability Logan was sharing with me on this flight. I remembered feeling similarly sentimental the night he came over from the bar to rub my legs and cuddle with me on the couch because my period was so bad that day. He had been just as supportive and soothing every cycle I had after that moment.
This man read romance novels because he knew I liked them.
Because he didn’t want us to go back to that place that I put us in when we first met.
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore, I think.” I smiled up at him, swiping away a sentimental tear that escaped my eye and rushed down my cheek. Logan leaned forward to kiss my forehead gently, and I pulled back to continue my thoughts.
“I love you.”
Logan froze, one of his hands on my jaw, as his dark eyes locked onto mine.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I added, smiling, “But that’s where I’m at. I just…thought you should know.” I bit my bottom lip a little, before releasing it and smiling up at him instead.
Logan looked wrecked.
I couldn’t tell if it was a good wrecked or a bad one, but his face had gone slack and it looked like he was trying to control his breathing to make it stay even.
“…Seriously, you don’t have to—” I was cut off with his tongue immediately entering my mouth. I giggled against his sudden kiss, thinking that this was a funny way to move past the awkward, “I said I love you but you aren’t ready to say it back” moment. I didn’t want him to feel guilty or embarrassed or nervous about my declaration. I wouldn’t hold it against him because I realized how fast I had developed these feelings. That we had only been officially dating each other a month or so. I wasn’t worried about it. I knew Logan had no interest in anyone else. A man didn’t read dozens of romance novels because the woman he was dating likes them, if he was only casually interested in her.
After kissing me way more aggressively than was appropriate on a very public flight (thank god no one had the aisle seat on the other side of Logan), he separated our faces and I could feel just how ridiculously swollen and plump my lips were from his.
I blinked a few times, trying to compose myself as I remembered where we were, and pulled back to smile brightly at him.
It’s okay, I signed.
I love you, Eloise, Logan signed back, a smile pulling on his own lips as he cupped my face with both of his hands, pressing another smacking kiss on my mouth, then lowering his lips to my ear to whisper in his low, scratchy voice, “I love you.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep myself from sobbing, or whining, or releasing whatever noise was about to come out of my throat from the sound of Logan’s voice whispering those three words.
I pulled away enough for me to sign back to him, I love you.
I love you, He immediately signed again, grinning as if he was a person who had just discovered the words.
“It’s not like, a get-the-last-word-in thing.” I laughed, “You don’t always have to say it when I do.”
I love you, Logan signed anyway, touching the tip of my nose with his index finger before I grabbed it and kissed it.
I love you! I signed more enthusiastically, as if I was trying to get the last word in.
Logan grabbed my hands to kiss them on the knuckles, and I was immediately brought back to the memory of us at Josh and Courtney’s engagement party. Where Logan once again tried to call a truce between our childish bickering, and I was too stubborn and prideful to take him seriously. I had tried to storm off, and Logan had grabbed my hands to press a quick kiss on my knuckles.
Based on the look Logan was giving me as he kept his lips on my hands, I knew he was remembering the same moment.
“When you did this at the engagement party,” I whispered, “I thought it was the hottest thing a man had ever done.”
Logan’s smirk pulled on the scars marring his cheek, his eyes lit up with mischievousness as he lowered my hands so he could sign, I know you like my lips better when they—
I gasped and slapped his hands down, making him huff his laughter as he pulled me against him to kiss me once again.
“Are you two just going to make out this whole flight?” I heard Courtney ask from her seat in front of us. She was peeking between the seats and wiggling her eyebrows when Logan lifted his middle finger at her and kissed me harder, messing up my hair as he pushed my head back against my seat.
When he pulled back, I was positive I had a dopey lovesick expression on my face, like in the cartoons I used to watch on Saturday mornings as a kid.
“Courtney?”
“Yeah?”
“Shush.”