“Don’t.”
I lifted my hand.“Why not?”
“I don’t fucking deserve it.I’ll be good.Give me a second.”
“You don’t deserve someone taking care of you when you’re crying?”
“I don’t deserve you to be nice to me.”Logan turned back to face me, running his hands over his face.“I know what I did.I mean, I didn’t realize you were that worried.That just makes it worse.You know, I lied in that text.The one about ‘ooh, I didn’t realize it was that late.’I totally knew.I sat on the train as six p.m.passed, and six-thirty, and imagined you at that banquet, and I didn’t text you.”
“I don’t get it.”I could hear the plaintive tone in my voice.“What did you think I was going to say?”
“I don’t know.I don’t know.”Logan twisted his fingers together in his lap.“Nothing.I mean, I knew you’d support me.You always did.This time, I knew you shouldn’t.Like, you should’ve been able to say, ‘Come to the banquet and catch the train afterward.’”
“How about, ‘I’ll drive you up to Tacoma afterward?’”
“Fuck.”He choked.“Yeah, you would’ve.”
"Or you could have taken the Volvo and claimed it was a rental."I took a breath and asked a question I’d wondered about a long time.“Were you trying to break up with me?Was this finally a reason?”
“No!”Logan stared at me.“No, I love you.Loved.”
“You didn’t fight very hard for us.”
“You were the one who blockedme.”
Logan’s indignant tone annoyed me.“Wait.You remember texting ‘Leave me out of it’ and ‘I really don’t care what you do?’”I’d maybe looked at those texts too many times in the past year.“Yousaid those things.”
“I didn’t mean them.”Logan closed his eyes and tipped his head sideways onto the headrest.“Shit.I don’t know anymore what I meant.I was scared, panicked, flailing around, and most of what I hit was you.I’m so sorry.”
I tried to gentle my tone.“Why couldn’t you trust me to stick with you, even when it suddenly got harder?”
“Because no one ever has.”Logan slapped a hand over his mouth and opened his eyes.“Sorry.That’s some kind of pity-me bullshit.Sorry.”
I realized what he’d said was true, though.Logan grew up without his dad, with a mom for whom he came second to her next fix.He’d had some decent coaches, but none he considered a mentor.He’d gotten a contract with the ECHL through sheer grit and determination, and battled for the AHL.Then, when he got his first shot at moving up, he’d wrecked his knee.His agent dropped him after the injury.He’d rehabbed, done the work, gone into debt he was still paying off— hadn’t let me pay off— for extra PT beyond what his insurance had covered.He’d battled back, made it to the AHL over and over, but never for long, never to stay.
And no one had ever had his back, through any of that.
I said, “I’m sorry, baby.I didn’t realize you still didn’t believe in us.”God that hurt, right down to my soul.I’d thought we were too solid for anything to break us, and Logan had apparently expected us to fail all along.
“Notus.Not you.Me.I didn’t believe in me.I knew I was going to do the wrong thing and fuck us up somehow.Maybe, subconsciously, you’re right.Maybe I was trying to break up before I hurt you worse.”
I choked and rubbed my chest, right over where that thought burned.“Worse?Logan, I was a fucking wreck after we split.It took me six months to so much as look at another guy.”
“There were videos of you dancing with guys at a club, like, the next day.”
I almost laughed.“Yeah.Dancing.I did all the shit we said we’d do.I was out and proud and visible.I was so fucking lonely.”
Logan breathed, “Me too.”
Those words hung in the air in that confined space.I was vividly aware of Logan’s presence, his solid body, the faint hint of his cologne, his hockey-battered hands, and the soft sound as he took a shaky breath.
Then he said, “I came out to my captain today.”
“You what?”I was hit with a rush of emotions I didn’t even want to tease apart.“You came out?”
“Before you came looking for me.Before I knew Avery was a beard, or you were hers, rather.You are, right?”
“I was.Her big lesbian declaration’s all out on social media now.”I leaned toward him.“Back up.You told people, on purpose?”And not just to please me, from what he was saying.
