"Parked in the public parking down the street from Deliz. It's--"
"I know where it is," he said, cutting me off. "I've been there a lot. They do good meatballs. Anyway, let me throw on some clothes, and I'll be there in fifteen."
Before I could say anything else, he had hung up.
I sat there, blinking in surprise. If someone had told me that morning that my date would be an idiot and Logan would be riding to my rescue, I would have thought they were insane. And yet somehow, knowing he was coming made me feel... better. Logan was an asshole, but he was a dependable asshole, and there was something nice about the fact that he'd asked if I needed help and skipped the lecture on why dating clients, even former clients, was a bad idea.
It was a nice balm at the end of a shitty night, at least, and I settled in to wait for him to show up.
Seventeen minutes later, his car pulled up beside mine.
He was dressed casually when he got out, jeans with a hoodie thrown on over a t-shirt, and he had me pop the hood of my car so he could fiddle a bit.
I held my phone up, using the flashlight to help him see.
"Do you know about cars?" I asked him, peering over his shoulder a bit.
He shrugged. "Enough to know your battery is probably fucked. I could give you a jump if you've got jumper cables."
I shook my head, feeling sheepish. I knew that was something I should have, but in my defense, he didn't have them either.
"Okay, two options then," he said, standing up and closing the hood with a snap. "I can drive you to get a new battery and help you put it in tonight, or I can give you a ride home and you can deal with it tomorrow when it's daylight."
"The second one, please," I said immediately. "My feet hurt, and I just want to drown my sorrows in ice cream."
Logan gave me a slow once over, like he was just noticing my outfit, and I blushed, glancing away from him. He wasn't supposed to see me like this, and I hated myself a little for wondering what he thought of my outfit.
"Come on then," he said, waking back over to his own car.
I locked mine and followed him, climbing into the passenger seat.
It was impossible to resist the urge to look around once I was inside, and it didn't really surprise me that his car was immaculately clean. He was a doctor, and he was anal as hell, so it made sense. There was soft jazz playing on the radio as he pulled out of the lot, and I settled in, surprisingly comfortable.
"Thank you," I said softly. "For coming out here and for not being a dick about it."
He shrugged a shoulder. "Sometimes even I'm too tired to be a dick. And anyway," he said, glancing over at me. "We both know I did tell you so."
I rolled my eyes but laughed anyway. "There is it. I knew you couldn't be civil for too long. It's not in you. But anyway. Still. Thanks."
"You're welcome," Logan replied. "You're just lucky I wasn't working tonight. Otherwise you'd be in Dan's car listening to him talk about the benefits of regular car maintenance. And then you'd wake up to several packages of jumper cables on your doorstep."
"Along with a bunch of other random car things he just decided I had to have." I laughed and shook my head. "He means well, but it's a lot sometimes."
"Yeah," Logan agreed. "Especially when you just want to go home and lick your wounds in peace."
I wasn't sure if he was talking about me or him at that moment, so I didn't press it. Instead, I sat there, watching the streetlights whip by as I directed him to my building.
We pulled up soon enough, and I hesitated before getting out. "I'll buy you dinner or something to say thank you," I said.
"You already said thank you. It's not a big deal."
"I know, I just... I really appreciate it."
He looked at me, and our eyes caught and held for a long moment. It was the first time we'd really been alone together since Greece, and the air was definitely charged. I hadn't been sure if it was the location that had given our affair so much passion, but at that moment, I was pretty sure Logan could fuck me in his car right in the parking lot and it would be just as passionate.
My heart raced a bit at the thought, and I swallowed hard. Even when we weren't arguing, the tension was there.
His eyes went a little dark as he looked at me, and after a second, he cleared his throat, leaning a bit closer. "You know," he said, and his voice was so low I shivered. "If you really wanted to say thank you, you could invite me in."
