“We were just going to the store,” Liz says when I don’t fill the silence. “We need a few things for dinner.”
There’s my out. I could tell him I need to go with them. Leave him standing on the curb. But something about the hard, unyielding pose he’s taken tells me that when we return, he’ll probably still be standing here, waiting for me to finish the lecture about how I handled the aftermath of our ill-advised wedding night all wrong.
At some point, I’m going to have to make it very clear that I don’t need any more lectures in my life. Especially not from hockey players.
And if they’re going to the store, now is a chance to do this in private, which is better than with an audience.
Logan’s gaze swings back to me, challenging. Waiting to see what I’ll do.
“We can talk while they’re at the store,” I hear myself saying. And then I add, just so he doesn’t get any ideas about this conversation being long, “it’s just at the end of the street, and they’ll be right back.”
As we trade spaces with my roommates on the porch, some really intense silent eye contact passes between me and my friends.
You okay?Liz asks.
He’s HOT, Sloane adds.
I glare at them both.Get out of here but come back quickly.
Because I need to be alone with Logan to hash out whatever he’s come here to talk about, but my heart can only handle so much.
Inside, he takes up all the available space in the little bungalow’s entry way. In Vegas, everything was oversized. Here in the normal-width hallway of Sloane’s little Culver City house, he looks almost absurdly large.
And I’m at a loss for words.
“Nice place,” he says, raking his gaze across our eclectic mix of thrift store furniture, DIY art, and lucky vintage finds.
“It’s Sloane’s,” I hear myself explaining. “Liz and I just rent rooms.”
“Ah.” He picks up a framed photo from the bookshelf—the three of us at our white coat ceremony. “Are they both in fourth year as well?”
My heart squeezes at the fact that he remembers I’m a medical student. “Yes.”
He puts the photo down and turns around, giving me his full attention. The force of it rocks me back on my heels. “Will they do residencies here?”
“Sloane will for sure. Her parents are both doctors in Beverly Hills. Liz might match—” I cut myself off. “We don’t need to make small talk.”
“Of course we do,” he says casually, but his next lines are anything but. “How was the game in San Jose, Logan? Thanks for asking, it was terrible. We lost. And once we got on the plane, all I could think about was touching down, then talking my way out of a team dinner so I could come find you.”
The implications of him skipping a team event because of me make my stomach twist.
I dump my backpack at the dining room table that serves as our communal study office. Sloane’s laptop and a pile of notes are scattered at one end. “How did you, um, find me so quickly?”
He shrugs. “Those Granger resources came in very conveniently over the last few days.”
I wince, remembering how I threw that word salad at him as I bolted that morning.
And then he rolls his eyes. “We put our home addresses on the wedding license, Francesca. Which is why I think you took it?—”
“I panicked.”
“I gathered.” His tone is clipped. “Once I was wearing more than a towel, I followed you, by the way. But I didn’t know what last name to give at your hotel.”
The image of him racing after me, barely dressed, makes my chest tight with guilt. I puff out my cheeks, trying to find words. “But you found me anyway.”
“They were happy to give me another copy for a small administrative fee. Convenient that I have a game here, isn’t it?”
“Depends how you look at it,” I say faintly.
