Reaching forward, I warily place my palm on the fist he’s resting on his knee. “Are you sure about that?” He’s completely tense, and it looks like he barely slept.
Swallowing thickly, he dips his chin down to stare at the sand between his legs. “No,” he admits, his voice breaking. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he stares at the screen for a second before handing it to me. “Got this last night.”
It’s an email from one of those companies that does DNA testing, and I skim through it. When I read the word ‘parent,’ my heart jumps into double time. “Your dad?” I guess as things start to make more sense. Logan has never brought up his birth dad, despite his determination to have a conversation with Lola. “Were you hoping to figure out who he is?”
“Didn’t care to.” His words are clipped, and he keeps his head down. “Reckon he would have fought against the adoption if he’d wanted me.”
Oh, this poor man. It was one thing to need closure from Lola, and now he has a name to put to the other side of his origins. “Do you want to find him now?” I ask, wondering how hard it would be to track this guy down. His name isn’t unique, and there’s no telling if he’s in the state, let alone nearby.
“No.” Logan grimaces, tilting his head. “Maybe. I don’t…”
Ever since that first night I made food for the Thunder, Logan and I haven’t talked about Lola. I would have brought her up if I had any ideas for getting the two of them in the same room again, but Logan hasn’t seemed nearly as interested in talking to her as he was when I first met him.
I wonder if he’s as confused about Lola as he is with this new development.
Shifting my hand so our fingers are laced together, I scoot closer to him and wait for him to look at me. “You don’t have to talk to either of them. Not if you don’t want to.”
He sighs. “The whole reason I came was to get answers so my parents stop worrying about me.”
“Answers to what, exactly?”
Frowning, he looks down at our hands for a long moment. “Why.”
“Why what?”
“Why I wasn’t good enough.”
“Logan.” His name comes out of me with so much sadness and sympathy that my eyes start welling with tears again. “That was never the problem.”
“Then what was it?” he snaps and narrows his eyes. “If I wasn’t the problem, why wouldn’t Lola talk to me when I first reached out? Why didn’t Braden step up and take responsibility for making me exist? Why didn’t theytry?”
He runs a hand through his hair, every moment full of agitation. “And then my dad gets sick and makes me realize he and mum are all I’ve got and I’m going to be entirely alone when they’re gone, and I can’t…” His shoulders slump in exhaustion. “Coming here was a bad idea. I don’t know what I expected, but I’m an idiot for thinking it would be anything but a waste of time.”
I know he’s hurting and feeling lost and abandoned, but his words sting. He once told me that if he couldn’t talk to Lola, coming to California wasn’t a waste because I…
Stomach twisting and leaving me queasy, I push those feelings down. This isn’t about me. “I’m sorry this is all so hard,” I whisper and slip my hand free from his. Maybe I should have listened to him when he told me not to come. “I’m here if you want to talk about it, but if you’d rather be alone, I can—”
He swears and meets my eyes. “Don’t go,” he says, almost begging. Those two words are heartbreaking.
I smile softly. As if I could leave him when he looks so vulnerable. It’s Beef Wellington at the shelter all over again. “I won’t leave you alone, Logan.”
Furrowing his brow, he studies me for a long time, like I spoke in a language he doesn’t understand. Technically I meant I wouldn’t leave him aloneright now, but I’m not sure I want to leave him alone ever. The only problem is the little fact that he’s going back to Australia when his season with the Thunder is over, and I’ll be here, chasing dreams that will never win my family’s approval and might not come true in the first place. Not if I keep letting my bleeding heart make my decisions for me.
Logan slowly takes my hand again, his movements wary, like he’s waiting for me to run away. A breeze ruffles his mussed hair, carrying the smell of brine and seaweed, but though I shiver from the coolness of it, Logan doesn’t seem to notice the chill. His full attention is on me.Don’t go.
Gulls cry and waves crash and a child squeals at the edge of the surf, but all of that fades away because all that matters is him. The way he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing that can heal the wounds he’s been suffering from for years.
“Sav,” he whispers.
Don’t go, my heart beats back.
Chapter 20
Savannah
Thecheeryjingleofmy phone alarm breaks the moment, and I consider throwing my phone into the ocean and never looking back. But the alarm is a warning that I’m running out of time to get to Liam Connolly’s, and I stare at the clock as the realization fully sinks in for the first time.
I’m going to miss my deadline, and I can’t expect someone as busy as Liam to be gracious enough to give me an extra day. I don’t regret coming to help Logan, but…
