Logan lets out a velvety, low one that stops when he realizes we’re not laughing at the same thing. “Wait, what’s so funny?” he asks.
I pull my sweater sleeve up and point to my tattoo. “You thought this was Mickey Mouse?”
“Isn’t it?”
“This was the tattoo I got BAFG. Before Alleged Good Fortune,” I say. “For something so permanent, I really should’ve had a plan. A visual, at the very least. My brother was supposed to visit but bailed last minute. So I took the money I saved up for us to go to a few restaurants and museums and got a tattoo instead. Midway through, the guy started telling me how excited he was for his upcomingfamily trip to Disneyworld. Clearly, this”—I gesture to my arm—“is what he had on his mind. So instead of a water molecule with covalent bond lines connecting the oxygen atom with each hydrogen atom, I got a Mickey Mouse head.”
“You’re telling me that’s a water molecule,” Logan says, biting down on his fist.
“It’s my way of bringing water to me when I can’t get to it,” I say. “I haven’t been able to afford swimming here. But yeah, when life gets hard, add water.”
“You really could’ve saved me at Central Park Lake then?”
“I was a competitive swimmer in college. So, if it came down to it, yes. You really would’ve needed to have been flailing, though.”
“Noted. Next time, more flailing,” he says.
“This is just a little taste of what my luck looks—looked?—like,” I tell him as he adds the charms to my bracelet. “Tattoo artists going rogue. And I’ve never been to Disneyland or World so I can’t even tie it to any kind of memory.” I look down at the Mickey Mouse charm. “Actually, that’s not true anymore.”
Logan’s smile is so big it sets in motion a fresh ripple effect across his cheeks. Like a stone skipping across a still pond. Before I know it, I’ve flung my arms around his shoulders, tipping up on my toes to meet him. “Thank you for these. Thank you for this night. I love y—them,” I say, a flush of heat rushing my face. “I love them.”
I cover up my embarrassment over that near emotional miss by kissing him. As though that’s really any better.
Thankfully, Logan doesn’t seem to notice my flub. Or he did and he’s just nice enough to let me kiss my way out of it.
Logan’s blue eyes are the same shade as my happy childhood birthday memory. “Thank you for letting me spend today with you,” he says.
And then we’re both done talking.
I smile against his mouth at the thrill of being this close to him. And not just physically. To kiss Logan, to let my feelings run wild for him, these aren’t spontaneous responses. These are conscious decisions.
Logan lifts me up against the side of the giant fish.
“Your arm,” I mumble against his neck.
He doesn’t seem concerned. “You might be surprised by what I can do with one hand.”
I tighten my legs around his waist. As he drops kisses down my throat, I run my hands through his hair, knocking his hat off. I grip the strands gently, pulling him closer to me. I can’t get Logan close enough. Still, I try.
The pressure of his body against mine sends millions of little zaps of electricity up and down my skin. I burrow my face into his neck, inhaling the faint scent of wood shavings and basil. I’m there for a few seconds before needing his mouth on mine again.
I nip greedily at his bottom lip as I feel my way under his shirt. If I’m honest, I’ve never particularly cared much for muscles on a man. His are incredible, yes. But they’re nothing compared to his eyes. Those I care very much for. And Logan’s are so warm and expressive. Maybe subconsciously, that’s what got me that very first day.
It’s those same eyes that do me in now. The crinkles around them from the smile that forms whenever he sees me. It’s the way he looks at me—now, any other time—that has always told me what I need to know. I have seen from the very beginning that Logan is a good guy. Decent. Honest.Mine, my brain adds last minute.
“Hey,” Logan says below me. “Where’d you go?”
“Into your eyes,” I whisper.
He grins and sets me down, propping his arm up against the fish. I turn toward his uncasted forearm and give it three kisses. Hebends down to cut me off, taking my bottom lip into his mouth. As he kisses me, all my thoughts and worries about the past and future melt away. I’m only focused on this present moment. With him.
It’s a rare kind of quiet I only experience when his mouth is on mine. To test the theory, I kiss him again. The noise of my overcrowded, loud brain dulls to a peaceful, low hum.
Since day one, we haven’t known normal things about each other. Who meets a random stranger and learns what their future holds? I finally get what Logan was saying about how we’re connected in this inexplicably bizarre way. Because of the fortunes. Because I did something out of character.
Something Maxwell said stops me.Lucky people try new things.
And I guess I did.
