The silence stretches. Not uncomfortable, just heavy with everything we’re not saying.
Then Logan shifts closer—just an inch. Close enough that I can feel the heat of him along my spine, the way his chest rises and falls. He doesn’t touch me anywhere else, just that hand on my shoulder, but it’s enough to make my breath hitch.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper into the dark.
“Do what?”
“Lose him.” The words taste like ash. “I don’t know how to exist in a world where he doesn’t.”
Logan’s hand slides down my arm slowly, then back up. Not sexual. Soothing. “You won’t be alone in it.”
Something in my chest cracks.
I roll over to face him before I can stop myself.
The room is silvered with moonlight, shadows cutting across his face. His eyes are dark and careful, studying me like he’s afraid I might shatter if he looks too hard.
“I’m scared,” I admit, and the honesty of it burns on the way out.
Logan’s jaw tightens. “Me too.”
We’re close enough that I can feel his breath against my face. Close enough to see the way his throat works when he swallows, the way his fingers curl slightly against the mattress like he’s holding himself back.
I don’t want him to hold back.
Not tonight.
Not when everything else feels like it’s slipping away.
“Logan,” I whisper.
His eyes search mine. “Yeah?”
I don’t have words for what I need. I just know that I’m cold and he’s warm, that I’m breaking and he’s steady, that the space between us feels unbearable.
I reach up slowly and touch his face—fingers tracing the line of his jaw, the rough stubble, the place where his pulse jumps beneath my thumb.
He goes completely still.
“Sloane.” My name is a warning. A question. A plea.
“I need—” I stop, swallow. Try again. “I don’t want to be alone in my head right now.”
His expression shifts—pain and want and something that looks like fear all tangled together.
“I’m right here,” he says, voice rough. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I slide my hand to the back of his neck, fingers curling into his hair. “I need to feel something besides this. Please.”
Logan closes his eyes briefly, like he’s trying to summon restraint he doesn’t have.
When he opens them again, his voice is barely there. “If we do this…I need you to know it’s not just because you’re scared. I need you to want this. Wantme.”
The vulnerability in those words nearly undoes me.
“I do,” I whisper. “I have for a long time. I’m just—I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”
Something in his face softens completely.
