PACKY: Yeah, I’ll call when we get back to the hotel.
I orderedroom service for breakfast since we’d flown into Dallas late the night before. Morning skate was an hour away, but I couldn’t relax. Grinning, I reread our texts. Every word made my chest feel full and achy at once.
The boys had been roasting me nonstop about the Packo circus, and I mostly laughed along. But underneath it all, I was restless. It wasn’t about Nix; it was about me. What did it mean to want a man when my whole life had been straight lines and simple categories?
I needed to talk things through, but not with Nix. He’d hear doubt where there wasn’t any and assume I was second-guessing us, which I wasn’t. I just needed a friend to help me think things through.
I picked up my phone.
PACKY: Any chance you can come by? Need to run something past you.
The reply came quickly.
LOGAN: Be right there.
Thirty seconds later, I let him in and motioned toward a pair of catty-cornered chairs by the window. After we sat down, my stomach twisted so hard I couldn’t speak.
“Okay,” Logan said. “What’s going on?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “A lot.”
“That’s what I figured. Should I take that as code for something’s eating you alive and you’re pretending it’s fine?”
I huffed out something between a laugh and a groan. “Not quite that bad.”
Logan was good at waiting, which was one of the reasons I’d texted him. He was impossible to bullshit.
“My fingers won’t stop tingling,” I said, shaking my hands. “And so you know, I’m not freaking out about Nix.”
“Didn’t think you were. You’ve seemed lighter since your trip to Quebec. Confused as hell, but lighter.”
I slumped back. “That’s because someone flipped my life upside down and shook it like a damn snow globe.”
His lips twitched, and he nodded. “That’s what falling for someone does.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I swallowed. “I’ve always been straight, Logan. Never did anything with a man. Now I’m sitting here wondering what the fuck I’m doing. I’m thrilled about Nico, so this is about me sorting out my feelings.”
“Don’t have a label yet?” He shrugged. “Welcome to being human. Anyone who isn’t straight as an arrow goes through it.”
“I don’t want Nix thinking I’m scared of him.”
“Because you’re not. You’re afraid of rewriting your story. Riles went through the same thing.”
I let out a breath. “I don’t know what to do with all this.”
“You don’t have to know yet, Packy. And you’re allowed to want him anyway.”
My throat tightened. “Good, because I do.”
“Okay then. What part are you stuck on? The ‘what am I’ part? The ‘how do I do this’ part? Or the ‘holy shit, I miss him so much it hurts’ part?”
“All of the above?”
“Perfect. Start anywhere.”
