Logan is still sitting at my kitchen table, stirring vanilla ice cream into his coffee like it’s a completely normal thing to do. All while I try to ignore the wreckage of my apartment.
I watch him stir lazy ripples in his coffee, and the question I’ve been swallowing for weeks finally surfaces.
We’re always here. My apartment, my bed, my shower with the wonky water pressure. In five weeks of dating—three of them involving very regular sleepovers—I’ve never once seen the inside of Logan Whitman’s home.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it—or even hinted at it. Honestly, I’ve done everything except outright demand it. But we always end up back here.
Layla practically moved into Bennett’s penthouse by week two. Serena had a drawer at Caleb’s place before they’d even made things official. And here I am, a biomedical engineerdating a tech billionaire, and the fanciest thing in my apartment is a KitchenAid mixer I got on sale.
I know every relationship has its own pace. I know comparing is pointless. But still—three weeks of waking up tangled together, and he’s never once suggested we stay at his place. Never even mentioned it.
Is there something he doesn’t want me to see? Some part of his life he’s keeping separate?
Or am I reading too much into this, the way I read too much into everything?
“I told you we should have stayed at your place last night,” I say when the silence stretches a little too long for my comfort.
His mouth kicks up at the side as he takes a sip of coffee. “I don’t know. I think it worked out fine. Besides, I like your place. It’s cozy, and it smells like you.”
There it is again. The pivot. The redirect.
I wait, giving him space to say more. To offer. To explain why, in five weeks, he’s never once invited me into his world the way I’ve let him into mine.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he reaches for a napkin and starts wiping up a smear of strawberry syrup Tony left on the table, his focus suddenly very intent on the cleanup.
I could push. I want to push. But the easy warmth between us feels fragile right now, and I’m not ready to test its limits. Not today. Not on my birthday, with the ghost of my mother already hovering at the edges of the morning.
So I file the questions away. Add them to the growing list of things I don’t understand about Logan Whitman.
“My family likes you,” I say instead, letting him have the out.
“I like them, too,” he says. He looks up, and there’s something vulnerable in his expression. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?”
I wrap my hands around my coffee mug, letting the warmth seep into my palms. “I don’t really celebrate anymore. Haven’t for a long time.”
“Why not?”
The question is gentle, curious. Not pushing, just... open. Waiting.
I take a breath. “My mom died when I was six. Brain aneurysm. One day she was there, making pancakes and braiding my hair, and the next...” I shrug, like the motion can shake off twenty-plus years of grief. “She used to make birthdays magical. Homemade cakes, treasure hunts around the house, the whole nine yards. After she was gone, Dad and the boys tried to keep it going. They still do, obviously.” I gesture at the cake-smeared plates. “But it never felt the same. So I just... stopped wanting to celebrate. It felt like rubbing salt in a wound, you know? Marking another year she wasn’t there for.”
Logan is quiet, his coffee forgotten. When I glance up, his expression is soft, aching.
“Audrey...”
“It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, but it’s... old.” I trace the rim of my mug. “I’ve made peace with it. Or at least I’ve channeled it into something productive, which is basically the same thing, right?”
I hear myself and wince internally. That’s not peace. That’s sublimation with a PhD attached.
“The aneurysm is actually why I got into biomedical engineering. I was twelve when I learned what had killed her—really understood it, beyond ‘Mommy’s brain got sick.’ I became obsessed with understanding how the body could just... betray you like that. How something so small could take someone so quickly.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I thought if I understood it well enough, I could fix it. Prevent it from happening to someone else’s mom.” I smile, hearing myself.“Classic Audrey, right? Can’t accept that some things just happen. Has to turn grief into a research project.”
“Is that what drew you to neural implants?”
“Partly. The technology we’re working on—the real-time monitoring, the predictive algorithms—it could catch things like aneurysms before they rupture. That’s years away, obviously, but...” I shrug. “It’s the dream. The reason I get up in the morning. And probably also my way of still trying to save her, twenty-four years too late.”
Logan reaches across the table and takes my hand. His thumb traces slow circles on my knuckles, grounding and warm.
