“What!” Mackenzie screeched. “Amelia, you broke up with Noah five days ago, and we’ve had, like,Thanksgivingsince then. How in the world are you already pulling men?”
Her response was so ridiculous that I giggled before taking another long sip of champagne. Mackenzie was locked in on me and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep it in any longer, so I closed my eyes and just blurted it out. “I slept with Logan.”
After a few seconds, I squinted open my right eye to see Mackenzie staring at me, frozen, before she finally reacted. “I’m sorry, Amelia . . . Did you just say youslept with Logan?”
“Yes,” I confirmed, opening my eyes back up in surrender.
“As in, Logan Davis?”
“Yes,” I repeated.
“As in, the third Campbell sibling?”
I scrunched up my face in a flair of annoyance. “Okay, Mackenzie, don’t make it weird. He’s obviously not my brother.”
She threw up her hands in mock surrender, a sudden burst of energy bounding out from within her. “I know, I know, but . . . damn! Amelia! You can’t expect me not to be completely shocked by this. How did it even happen?”
I paused for a moment, trying to figure out an adequate way to explain how we’d gotten here. Logan found me in a snowstorm outside of my parents’ house in the middle of the night and proceeded to sweep me off my feet and into his bed? Itwasthe truth, but it left so many holes—there was a pretty extensive history that I’d always kept secured inside of a steel trap within my heart. I didn’t want Mackenzie’s first impression of this potential relationship to be that it was some sleazy, drunken hookup. A fierce protectiveness was already welling up inside of me.
I took a deep breath before I spoke. “Truthfully, this thing with Logan goes back really far. I’ve . . . I’ve been in love with him for as long as I can remember.” I kept my eyes down at the table. “I don’t know when or how it started, but for a long time I dealt with it by shoving the feelings as far down as I could and convincing myself that he didn’t feel the same way.”
“Wow,” I heard Mackenzie expel through a breath. I finally looked up and met her eyes, seeing so many conflicted emotions staring back at me. “What changed? Does he have feelings for you too?”
I felt the pull of a smile on my face.
“He admitted that he thought he was doing the right thing this whole time by ignoring what he felt between us. And that he wants to give it a real chance.”
Mackenzie’s face softened and she tilted her head as she continued to watch me. “Wow, Millie . . . that’s one of the most incredibly tortured but amazing love stories I’ve ever heard. You both have really been pining for each other this whole time?”
“Yeah, it looks that way. But you really can’t say anything to anyone.” I threw a small thread of authority in my tone, which was so unlike me. “In order for this to work, we need to keep my family out of it, and if Eric knows . . . I feel like it would only be a matter of time before Adam found out.”
Mackenzie huffed. “You’re right about that. Eric is the worst gossip.” She shook her head before smiling at me. “This is such crazy news, Amelia. I’m literally speechless. Wait . . . why don’t you want to tell your family? Isn’t this a good thing?”
I hesitated for a second, wanting to adequately explain the fear that was so deeply rooted in Logan without jeopardizing his trust. “It’s a chance, but we don’t know for sure where it’ll lead us. And if for any reason it didn’t work out, Logan would be really affected by something like that if my whole family was involved. He’d worry about losing us, and he doesn’t have any other family. It’s what’s kept him from acting on this for so long, and I would hate for the pressure from a fear like that to get in the way of this opportunity to be together. It’s just better for us to wait until we know for sure, and then we’ll tell them.”
I watched a golden clump of hair fall in front of Mackenzie’s face as she nodded in understanding. “Makes sense, and it gives you guys room without feeling any pressure from anybody.”
“Yeah,” I said breathily. “Low pressure all around.” My voice was confident, but inside I felt a sudden wave of nausea as I realized how desperately I needed this chance to work. I needed Logan more than I cared to admit.
Mackenzie lifted her champagne glass and held it up toward me over the table. “Cheers to you and Logan, and to your happily ever after,” she said with an encouraging smile.
My heart welled up at her words as I picked up my glass as well, softly clinking it against hers. “Thank you, Mack.”
We both sipped our champagne, Mackenzie watching me through the side of her glass. After setting our glasses back down on the table, she began talking again. “You know, Amelia, love is the easy part. Falling in love, being in love—it’s one of the easiest things to do if you’re with the right person. I can see the worry on your face, and I get it. But Logan is a good man. He’s always been the responsible, guarded one. He’s smart. And the way he used to look at you—it all makes sense now. Trust him. He’ll see it through to the other side. Don’t worry about it all so much that you forget to enjoy the fall.”
“The way he used to look at me?” I asked, caught on those words. “What do you mean?”
“Like . . .” she started, pausing to find the words. “He was always watching you. No matter what he was doing, or what was going on around him, his eyes were always searching for you. He would visibly settle when you were in his line of sight. I always thought it was just a protective urge. Brotherly, like something that Adam would do. But now . . . I don’t know. I think it was something more.”
We both stayed silent for a moment as I absorbed her words. I’d always felt Logan’s eyes on me in the same way that I was completely aware of him, a magnetic pull between us that I thought only I felt.
This realization caused a bout of frustration to ignite within me. I felt anger at his father for hurting him, for crushing his soul as a little boy. If Logan hadn’t been so fearful, so careful, perhaps we could have had this chance so much sooner.
We could have had so much more time.
“Okay, Millie, I have news.” An air of excitement suddenly surrounded Mackenzie, and I remembered her text the other day mentioning that she had something to share.
“What is it?” I asked curiously.
