He was on his front porch, feet bare, dressed in jeans and a white Bribury Hockey tee that pulled tight against his broad chest. His hair was disheveled.
“Hey, Megan. Come back.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude if you want to be…” I was going to sayalone, but maybe he wasn’t. Maybe his parents had circled back and were in his house. Maybe a party was forming, though it didn’t look like lots of silhouettes through the curtains, and no one was on their lawn.
Maybe he had a girl in his room.
He wouldn’t have had a lot of time to arrange that, but given the girls that had hung around the arena, and how surely Ches (or others) would break speed records to show up if he texted her, I couldn’t be positive.
“Please. Come in,” he said, loudly enough to hear across the Sturgess traffic. He held my eyes as I waited to cross the street and walked up to his front porch. He came down the steps and took my hand when I got to him. “I’m so glad you texted. I was going to text you when I got back, but I didn’t want to…”
“Seem desperate? Yeah, leave that to me,” I said, trying to show I was kidding, when I wasn’t.
He pulled me tight against him. “Desperate? You? When I’ve been doing all the chasing? Hardly.”
I would not even remotely call Logan’s behavior chasing, but I allowed myself a second of internal preening that he might think so. Clearly chasing was so out of his realm that mild interest must have felt like a full-court press to him.
Only Dex and Philly were in the living room. They both did not seem surprised to see me, and they both looked pointedly at Logan holding my hand. Firmly and tightly.
“Join us?” Philly asked, pointing at one of the empty couches.
I was afraid to look at the TV in case in some odd, alternate universe,The Hunt for Red Octoberwas playing again. Logan had been triggered enough tonight.
But it was just a hockey game.
“West Coast games. Works perfectly for late nights here,” Dex explained.
I looked to Logan to take his cue on if he wanted to watch the game with his friends or—
“Thanks. But we’re going to head to my room.” He didn’t ask if that was okay with me. He knew that would be my preference.
“Cool, cool. What’d you think of your first college hockey game, Megan?” Dex asked.
“I loved it,” I said, surprising myself with the fast answer, and even more so when I realized it was absolutely true. “The speed really surprised me,” I added.
Philly pointed to the TV. “College hockey is fast, but nothing compared to the NHL. Those guys canskate.”
“Hey!” Dex said, slightly offended.
“Oh, you know it’s true. You’re fast, Dex, but come on.”
Dex grimaced but then relented and pulled Philly closer into his body. “You’re not wrong,” he grudgingly said.
“But you’re cuter,” Philly said, burrowing into his side. “Much cuter.”
“Damn straight,” Dex said.
“Okay, that’s it for us. See you guys tomorrow,” Logan said, tugging on my hand.
“Night,” I said, and Dex and Philly both answered with the same, their eyes on the TV and their arms wrapped around each other.
When we reached the top of the stairs, I noticed that half the doors were open. There were six identical wooden doors spaced evenly down the long hallway, three on each side. The two middle ones were bathrooms and both were open, as was the last one on the right, which I remembered was Logan’s room.
“I need to stop in here first,” I said, much like I had when I’d come to their first party of the year.
“Take your time,” he said, and continued on to his room, though he seemed reluctant to let go of my hand.
As I took care of business, my thoughts ran to that night five weeks ago. Five weeks was such a short amount of time, and yet it felt like a lifetime ago. Both in the new friendships I’d made with Emily, Chloe, and Abby, and in classes and college life.
