“It’s not,” Logan says, giving me a long look. “That’s reallynotgoing to be the problem.”
A fizzy sensation develops in my chest at the way he’s gazing at me, as though it’s impossible for him to believe we’ll ever get tired of each other.
But I’ve been fooled before, and I’m not letting my heart run full throttle into something my head doesn’t trust. My skull still bears the phantom ache from the last time I ran right into the brick wall of regret.
“Neither of us can know what will happen,” I say. “I’ve become a lot more of a ‘hope for the best and plan for the worst’ kind of person the last couple of years.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I didn’t used to, and I really should have.”
“Why was your last relationship shitty?”
“All kinds of reasons.”
“Stop evading the question.”
“I can evade it if I want to. Why it was shitty doesn’t matter. What happened with him won’t happen to me again.”
He smooths a wisp of my hair that’s fallen on my cheek and tucks it behind my ear. “Am I just your rebound, doc?”
“You might be.”
“Probably honest. But I don’t fucking like it.”
“Because it’s not winning?”
“I’m hypercompetitive. Definitely my best and worst trait.” A hint of a smile tips up a corner of his mouth. “You could call it winning, though. Since anyone could be your rebound, and you’re picking me.”
“Is that enough for you?”
“You don’t make the big plays sitting on the bench.”
“What does that mean?”
He leans back and crosses his arms, putting some distance between us again. “You’re set on casual with a limited timeline?”
“I have to be.”
My favorite scene in the movie between Wyatt and Ellie is playing. A real gut-wrenching one that would have me crying, if that’s what I was focused on right now.
“I can’t do it.” He rubs his face, releases a deep sigh, and looks at me. The internal conflict and determination are clear in his eyes and his expression. “Audibly ticking clocks on personal relationships are a ‘no’ for me. I want to—badly—but I can’t. After the way I grew up being shuffled around foster care houses, I just can’t.”
The credits to the movie are rolling across the huge screen above the fireplace.
“I wouldn’t want either of us to do something we weren’t comfortable with,” I whisper, but even as I say the words all the anticipation that had been bubbling and fizzing inside me is dissolving, leaving behind a surprising amountof disappointment. We’d been headed somewhere. “I should probably go home.”
“I have practice in the morning,” Logan agrees and stands up, holding out a hand.
I take it, but when he draws me up, we’re far too close. Spearmint and peppermint invade my senses, and that familiar awareness crackles in the air. Maybe, like me, he’d been counting on a different outcome.
“Would one kiss really hurt?” His gaze shifts from my eyes to my lips and back again, and his hand settles at the small of my back, easing me a little closer, tighter. “Satisfy our curiosity.”
“We shouldn’t.” But my hands are on his chest, and I’m conscious of how easy it would be to rise onto my toes, loop my arms around his neck, and drag him down, make us both regret that I came here at all. “The line we’ve drawn is important.”
“We can redraw it. Colleagues who kiss sometimes.”
“Sometimes? I thought you said ‘one’ kiss?”
