“Of course.”
“Why’d you leave in the middle of the night without a word?”
A sputtering laugh forces its way out of my lips, and I blink up at him. “I… That’s what you want to know? I’m sure you were planning to do the same if I hadn’t left first.”
“You’re not wrong.” His mouth twists like he knows that makes him an asshole. He scrubs at his stubble with his fingers. “But no woman has ever run away from me in the night like that.”
“Oh my god. I hurt your feelings. Or your ego. That’s why you want to know?”
The crowd cheers as Reed’s team gets a first down, and I clap along with them. I should be paying more attention to the game, but hell if I can focus on anything else when Logan’s looking at me the way he is.
“Maybe a little. But, seriously, did I do something wrong?”
How did I not notice before this that so much of Logan’s bravado could just as easily be insecurity? It’s clearly been bothering him that I snuck out while he slept, and I don’t think it actually has anything to do with him being this sex god who never leaves a woman unsatisfied. Perhaps it has much more to do with how being the one who chooses to leave protects him from feeling like a little boy whose mom left him ever again. And that breaks my heart.
Shivering, I wrap my arms around myself. “No. You didn’t do anything wrong. I couldn’t sleep, because I was a huge ball of nerves knowing I was taking my brother away from the only home he’d ever known, and because I thought I could be this cool, chill woman who could have a casual hookup, and nothingabout me is all that casual. I was lying there freaking out, and I just… I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”
“You’re shivering.” Logan frowns, then unzips his coat and shimmies out of it. Before I can even process what’s happening, he’s wrapping the warm puffer around my shoulders and rubbing my arms with his hands. “Where’s your coat?”
“I… I don’t have one yet. We lived in California our whole lives. I’m completely unprepared for any of this.”
“It gets cold here quickly this time of year. You should get those as soon as possible.” As if to illustrate how chilly it has already gotten, Logan does a whole-body shiver.
“Now you’re cold. Here, you should take this back.” I try to pull the coat off my shoulders, but Logan’s big hands stop me.
“I’m used to the cold. Hockey player, remember?” He smiles boyishly at me, his hands going back to rubbing my arms to warm me up. “And I’m sorry you were going through all of that alone. I probably would have been freaking out, too, in your shoes. I’m sorry if I added to it.”
“You didn’t.” My cheeks grow hot. “It was a perfect distraction for a couple of hours.”
“Yeah. It was kind of perfect, wasn’t it?”
Fuck me. The look in his eyes is practically indecent. Most of me may be cold, but my lower belly is currently plenty warm. I’m caught in his stare, my breathing picking up speed as he leans forward half an inch. And when I lick my suddenly very dry lips, Logan tracks the movement.
“Logan, I?—”
A cheer goes up in the crowd, and I jolt back, my heart thundering. He looks as startled as I feel, but I don’t have much time to dwell on that, because the quarterback just snapped a pass to my little brother, who’s barreling down the field and coming up on the end zone fast.
“Holy shit,” Logan murmurs. “He’s going to do it.”
And he does. The second Reed’s toe crosses the line into the end zone, Logan and I are on our feet, screaming Reed’s name, bouncing up and down. We cheer even louder when my brother looks our way. He’s so excited. So proud of himself.
And I almost missed it because Logan Byrne was looking at me like he wanted to consume me.
I havegotto get my head in the game. Logan may be sweeter than I thought, and he’s certainly nice to look at, but the man has made his stance on relationships perfectly clear.
I’d be a fool to allow myself to be distracted by a man who will never want the same things as me.
twenty-one
LOGAN
“Where were you last night?You didn’t respond in the group chat when I invited everyone over for dinner.”
Shit. I really don’t want to tell them. Maybe if I ignore Griffin, he’ll drop it? I pretend I didn’t hear him as I stow my bag and settle into my seat on the plane. We’re hitting the road for a two-game series in Dallas, and the last thing I want to do is spend the whole flight trying to explain myself to these guys. They’ll read too much into it.
Hell, there’s nothing to read into at all. I was just showing up at a kid’s game to support him because he needs some more people in his corner. That’s it. It has absolutely nothing to do with his sister. Nothing at all.
I open my Instagram account and scroll through some of the comments, looking to distract myself and hopefully give Griffin a reason to drop it. Most of the comments are the same old banal shit.
