“Right. Most of the people who went to Kennedy grew up pretty different from me, but Tinsley was the most extreme. She was from this old Connecticut family, generations of Harvard legacies. I was the first in my family to go to college. She fascinated me, and for some reason, I fascinated her. Wrong side of the tracks allure, I guess. We were inseparable through grad school.”
I tried to let go of the soreness that bubbled up. It wasn’t from picturing Logan in love—though that was a little tender. It was the easy way he spoke about grad school. I’d wanted to go quite desperately, to keep following in Lee’s footsteps. The plan had been to get my master of library sciences at UT, then apply for one of those higher-paying library jobs that only took people with advanced degrees. But I’d been rejected. The only person I knew who was. All of Lee’s friends had gone to grad school. In fact, her friend Mac, who did something important in finance (no one knew exactly what), had what, nine degrees by now?
My mom had assured me life simply didn’t go our way sometimes, but I’d always attributed the rejection to the lacking in me that I couldn’t put a finger on. I felt the pang every time budget cuts rolled around and I was reminded it wasn’t only Muriel’s experience but her MLS degree that made her more valuable. Now, looking across the table at Logan, who’d gone to Harvard twice, all I could think was,boy are we cut from different cloths. He’d said this story didn’t show him in a good light, but I couldn’t look at him and see anything but a top-quality human. Golden-auraed, in Zoey-speak. Laurel-ringed, in Harvard. We were so different. What a comedy of errors for our paths to have crossed the way they did.
“After graduation,” he continued, “Tinsley followed me back to Texas. We had all of these plans. She wanted to work politics behind the scenes, and I was going to be the person out front. She was gunning for me to run for a state position right away, but I didn’t think I was ready. When I found the race for Harris County commissioner, I thought it was perfect. Tinsley cared about elections, but I was more worried about doing the job right if I won. I thought commissioner would give me good executive experience, but she was disappointed. I asked her to be part of my campaign, one of my advisors like we’d planned, but suddenly she wasn’t interested. Commissioner wasn’t ambitious enough, I guess.”
I didn’t say it, but Tinsley sounded like a real Lady Macbeth.
“I’m not proud of this, but I started to shut her out. She didn’t want to be part of my campaign, so I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of hearing about it, or invite her to events. And you know how time-consuming a campaign is: pretty soon we were living two separate lives. The week before the election, she told me she was leaving me and moving back to Connecticut. It crushed me. Thank God I was so far up in the polls, because I could hardly function the last week of the race. We barely edged it out. The night I won, after all that work, I couldn’t summon a flicker of happiness. I just kept thinking,I won, but I lost.”
“Where is she now?”
“Married to a US senator. Lives in a big house in Greenwich with two kids. She got what she wanted.” He gave me a hesitant look. “That whole...playboy thing. You might remember.”
“It rings a distant bell.”
“The problem is, it’s true. After Tinsley left, I threw myself into flings. It was...misguided, but it felt better than being sad. I had a string of meaningless hookups and got a reputation. When I started eyeing the governor’s seat and hired Nora, the first thing she told me was my personal life was going to undermine my career, and I needed to get it together. I thought, wouldn’t that be the kicker, if Tinsley left me and then my dumbass reaction was the reason I lost my dream. So I quit dating cold turkey. It makes sense anyway. I barely have time and it’s hard to trust people. Right now, I’m focused on my career.”
The message couldn’t be clearer: even if I’d wanted it, Logan’s heart was unavailable. Broken, then closed. But because I was a masochist, it took all of my willpower not to reach out and brush his hair off his forehead. It had curled in the rain, and he looked boyish and nervous sitting across from me, waiting for my reaction. I didn’t know how else to assure him his story was safe with me other than sharing one of my own.
“You were right about the night we met. Iwaslooking for someone to have a one-night stand with. That was the plan. Meet you, use you, ditch you.”
Logan’s eyes grew darker.
“The reason—and this is mortifying, but I’m going to say it anyway—is because when Chris and I broke up, he told me I was bad in bed. Too timid and boring.”
Logan’s eyebrows shot so far north they almost touched his hairline. But he didn’t say anything, just waited for me to continue.
“So that...rattled me. And I started thinking he might be right. That night at the Fleur de Lis, I’d promised myself I’d be bold for once, act outside my comfort zone. It was supposed to be the start of a new chapter. And then you came along, and...the storm had other ideas.”
I looked at him anxiously. After a long minute, he blinked. “Is that all?”
“Yes?”
“Good.” He stood up. “Because I have to go punch a man in the face.”
I tugged on his wrist. “Sit down.”
“Call Nora and tell her we’re going to have a crisis comms situation. And bail me out, please.”
“Logan,” I groaned, pulling his wrist so hard he had no choice but to fall back into his chair.
“I can’t believe he said that to you. First of all, what a dick. Second, for whatever it’s worth, and not to make things awkward, but he’s wrong.” Logan’s voice grew husky. “You are—well, you’re the opposite of boring. Trust me.”
I could feel myself turning red. “Thank you. But I’m not mad about the way things turned out. Therearesome things I need to be more adventurous about. As for relationships, our whole—” I lowered my voice “—fake dating thing has made me realize I need to work on some of my toxic patterns. Casual relationships aren’t the answer. I’ve got some growing to do, but once you and I are over, I’m going to look for someone real. No offense,” I added, chancing a look at him.
His jaw was tight. “Yeah.” He idly crushed his cup. “That makes sense.”
There was a beat of silence, then he finally dropped his ruined cup. My throat thickened.No fair, a small voice whispered.His whole face is simply unfair.“Do you want to keep playing darts,” he asked, “or we could just...talk. I could get you something different to drink. Whatever you want.”
What I wanted was to stay here with him, in this tiny, candlelit bar in the middle of a blackout, asking questions and inching closer to him until Jimmy kicked us out. I wanted it so bad I knew it was exactly what I shouldn’t do. Toxic patterns and all. “I should go.”
“Really?” Logan straightened. “I mean, of course. If that’s what you want. Let me text Nigel.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Don’t be silly. He’s just around the corner. I’ll take an Uber.”
