Logan cocks a brow. A question without a question, but I let it hang. We talk about most things, but he’s too much of a papa bear to cope with my adventures on hookup apps.
“I don’t think he’s been out with a lad before,” I say instead. To Logan only. The man’s a vault. “I’m trying to be gentle with him.”
“Trying?”
“Iambeing gentle,” I amend.
And Logan believes me. We’ve seen each other nearly cark it too many times to survive a lie.
“You look good,” he tells me after a beat long enough that I know he’s done poking me. “Better without the beard.”
I roll my eyes. “I haven’t had a beard for months. And even when I did, it was a protest, not a style choice.”
“Against who?”
“You. My mam. Everyone else who wouldn’t get out of my face.”
“Everyone who loves you then.” Logan’s severe tone returns with a parental edge, reminding me he’s ten years older, wiser, and all the other good stuff I lack. “It’s been a long road, eh?”
I don’t answer that either. Neither of us needs reminding I’ve spent the last two Christmases believing my days in the service were done. Or how thankful I am they’re not. Instead, I paw through the piles on my bed, searching for clothes that aren’t what I wear to the gym, work, or with every intention of tearing them off ten minutes later.
Come up blank and scrub a hand through my hair. What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve never thought this hard about what to wear in my entire fecking life.
“You’re nervous.”
I cut my gaze back to the phone I propped on the windowsill when I came upstairs. Logan’s giving methatlook again. “I’m excited,” I deadpan.
He doesn’t blink.
I try hard to do the same, but Logan has this way of waiting me out, and I’m weaker to it now than I was before my lungsgot smoked out. “All right. So I’m fecking nervous. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, mate. It’s nice.”
“Nice?”
Logan treats me to a rare smile, before he’s interrupted by commotion behind him, his rowdy boys coming home from wherever, and doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence.
I spend another twenty minutes getting the third degree from his ten-year-old twins. They want to knoweverything. But I don’t have much to tell them. All I’ve done for the past two years is breathe, fuck around, and fight my way back to where I am right now: fussing over which ancient T-shirt to wear down the pub.
Red or blue.
The kids pick red. Then they’re gone and my house feels deathly quiet. And despite the agitated effort I’ve put into straightening it up, it’s still messy as hell.
I have another hour to kill. I focus on my bedroom, re-stacking my clothes on the carpet, smoothing the clean sheets on the mattress. It’s my cue to consider buying some actual furniture, but it barely crosses my mind. Nothing does except the message thread on my phone.
Theshortmessage thread.
It’s not like me and LeLionDuBois96 have been chatting it up all week. Beyond logistics for tonight, we haven’t talked much, but I still find myself opening FlingIt and navigating straight to the last words we exchanged.
HotCraic97:Seven okay? x
LeLionDuBois96:Yeah x
Why we’re both still putting kisses at the end of every message, I have no idea. It was an oversight the first time, a hangover from talking to more gals than lads lately. But hereciprocated and I wasn’t sad about it. And now I’ll only stop if he does.
Time to go.
I shut the app down without letting myself ponder why he’s online right now. What he’s doing. Who he’s talking to. Without contemplating whyIhaven’t opened a single message that’s not his since last Friday.
