Logan studied me, but only continued to eat pizza. Conversation turned to Chloe asking about the hockey team, and then asking if she could shoot a video of us with Logan in it. “You’re not breaking any team rule to be here or anything, right?”
“Nope. Go for it,” Logan said, looking at me as if for confirmation.
“It’s fine,” I said. Emily and Abby agreed, and Chloe pulled her phone out (I was sure it hadn’t been further than a quick grasp away) and shot us all eating, with a close-up of the pizza with the Bonetti’s name on the box, and even caught Logan dropping another piece of topping on himself. She did on-the-fly commentary about us and Logan and the hockey season coming up (perfectly paraphrasing all Logan had been talking about as we ate), and I knew that it was a live post.
“Pizza, bitches!”
We all held up our slices like we were making a toast. It felt lame, but the pizza was good, so what did I care?
“Tagging, okay?” Chloe asked, her last piece of pizza congealing on her plate as she tapped and swiped.
“Fine,” Emily said. Abby and I both nodded.
Chloe looked expectantly at Logan. “Yeah, that’s cool,” he said.
“What’s your Insta and TikTok handles?”
He told her, and I mentally stored them away to cyberstalk him later. I was surprised it had taken me this long, honestly.
We cleared up our trash and Emily declared she was going to head to the library for a while. Her look was pointed, and I knew I’d have our room to myself for as long as I needed.
Did I need it?
I did.
“Can you stay for a while? Or do you need to get to a team meeting or study or anything?”
“I’m good to stay, if you want me to,” Logan said.
“I do. Let’s go to my room so Chloe and Abby can have this room if they need it.”
He followed me in, and I shut the door behind us. I watched him looking around the room, the two sides different, but equally decorated and tidy. Desks, beds, dressers—basic-issue for college freshmen. Personal touches on the walls, different aesthetics in bedding choices, but Emily and I had texted over the summer about color coordination once we had our room assignments, so that it was all individual, but also cohesive. We’d gone with navy blue and khaki.
He crossed to my side of the room. “Your side?”
I nodded, not asking how he knew, but pleased that he did. Then I saw the picture of my family on the desk and solved that mystery. He sat on my bed, but still looked at the picture where it sat a few feet away. I crossed to sit beside him on the bed. Not quite touching, but it would only take a lean from either one of us to make that happen.
His eyes swept from the photo to the bouquet of roses that was also on my desk. A deep sigh escaped him and he scooched back on the bed so his back was against the wall and his feet were dangling off the side. He kicked off his shoes. I followed suit, kicking off my flip-flops and bringing my knees up to my chest as I moved to lean against the wall too.
“Did you talk with your family after we texted?” he asked. I nodded. “How’d that go?”
“Okay. It was good I called. I’d have felt even worse about forgetting if I hadn’t talked to them at all today. But they seem to be doing okay with the anniversary part of it all.”
“That’s good,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Feel like talking about it? Not necessarily that call, but your mom?” he asked. He was looking forward, not at me, and I found it was a little easier this way.
“Not sure what to say,” I said.
He shrugged, and I smelled the fresh scent of him just like I had during Grief Group. Straight from Practice should be the name of a cologne. I’d buy it for every guy I knew.
“Tell me about her,” he said.
I wasn’t sure where to begin. Or end. Some he knew from group. So I started with why I was here.
“She went to Bribury. That’s how I even knew about it. She wanted me to come here so bad. Said it was the best time of her life.”
