Dear Diary,
Logan Marten called me pretty. He has also turned into an arrogant, shallow moron. XOXO
Game face,Tess.
“Enjoy leaving a trail of tears in your wake?”
“No tears, because they’re all like me—in it for a good time.” He studied me. “You’re the wild card here, and we both know it. I blush every time I take my shirt off.”
“You think of me without your shirt on?”
“Remembering all those nice things you said about me to your friends…”
“Shut up.”
His smile faded while his face grew more serious. “Listen, I don’t date women to hurt them, and I don’t want to do that to you. My family would murder me. Kelsey would dig up my grave and murder me a second time. So, before we go any further with this, I need to know, can you handle it?”
For a brief moment, I caught a flash of something real in his eyes. Something deep and soft. It was rare to see it beneath the teasing he seemed to hide behind. Practically living at Kelsey’s house as a child and teenager, I had known a different side of Logan—the farm boy side of him. The one who worked alongside his dad, giving me tractor rides. The one who played basketball in the backyard with Kelsey and me. The Logan who used to pick us up from school dances and listen as we talked about boys. The one who found out about my crush on him and, instead of leaving it alone and awkward, teased me mercilessly about it. I remember once when I was six or seven and I scraped my leg at their house. It was bleeding, and I started crying. Logan sat beside me on the porch, cleaned my scrape, and put a Band-Aid on it for me while telling me jokes to make me laugh. The Logan who, to my knowledge, never said a word to anybody about what had happened between us in the laundry room.
The Logan who stood across from me now had to still be that man, but he didn’t look or act like him. He was different. Jaded somehow. This was where things got risky. As long as he stayed the shallow flirt, I would be fine. The player I could handle. Not a problem.
It was the man underneath that scared me.
Truth was, I knew this was a dangerous plan. I was deeply attracted to Logan Marten. I couldn’t turn off something so ingrained inside of me, even with my history with Tyler. But the difference between this me and the me from ten years ago was that I no longer wanted him. I could be attracted to him, but I didn’t want him. I didn’t want anybody like him ever again. And that was a very liberating feeling. You know what I did want? Forty thousand dollars in the bank for a down payment on a house—and maybe a quick trip to Europe. I could do this.
“I can handle this. You forget, I almost married a guy like you, and I didn’t especially like how that turned out. I’ll be fine.”
He stilled. “A guy like me?”
It needed no explanation, so I gave him none. “Yup.”
He bounced on the balls of his feet with both hands in his pockets, his playful mask carefully back into place. “What if Jake makes us go swimming and I have to prance around in front of you without a shirt on?”
“I’ll be sure to gouge my eyes out before we go.”
The grin that tiptoed across his face did nothing to my insides.
As far as I could tell, this could go one of three ways.
One: Logan keeps our dates light and funny. No deep thoughts. Neither of us falls in love. We hang out as friends, fulfill Jake’s rules, and win a truck, therefore winning me forty grand for a down payment on a house.
Two: Logan and I break all barriers and fall in love, forfeiting a truck for our happily ever after. Extremely unlikely, but still a possibility if Jake’s intuition is correct. (It isn’t.)
Three: I date Logan this summer, and all my teenage hormonal angst is re-awakened. I pretend it’s not there, even when it is. I fall in love, and he has no idea. My heart shatters into a thousand quiet pieces. We win a truck.
I should also add a quick fourth version because crazier things have happened in the world.
Four: Logan falls madly in love with me. I resist because I will not be played again. We win a truck.
“So…” I began. “Worst-case scenario, we both fall madly in love. Best case scenario, we stay friends, have someone to hang out with for three months, and walk away with a pile of cash at the end of summer.”
“That’s what I’m seeing. I don’t know if there’s a downside to this arrangement. We could keep the truck and pretend like we’re divorced. It can spend one week with you and one with me?”
He lifted hopeful eyes in my direction. I laughed. “Maybe we can keep it for a week or two before selling it, just to play out all your truck fantasies first.”
His eyebrows shot up, eyes full of laughter. “All of them?”
“Ew. Not in a truck shared by me.”
